The durability of bone-headedness shows why fighting political battles over oil and gas with facts and figures, while necessary, often is insufficient. Bone-headedness distinguishes energy initiatives of the administration of Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress. Much of what the president and his legislative allies propose on energy is grievously expensive. Some of it is physically impossible. And some bears no relationship with the world of real work. In that last category belong proposals to stimulate production of hydrocarbons from supposedly idle leases of federal land. The coercion, known as "use it or lose it," emerged early in the Obama administration as an ex...