Maybe it was because it was a presidential election year. Whatever the reason, words seemed to matter more than substance to Washington's energy policy-makers in 2012, and produced some good nominees for the Watchy, this column's annual salute to entertaining Washington moments of the past year.
The trend clearly started in late 2011 when US President Barack Obama and Interior Sec. Ken Salazar began describing their energy policies as an "all-of-the-above" strategy nearly 3 years after congressional Republicans initially coined the phrase.
It didn't matter much that the Obama administration's definition significantly differed from that of House and Senate Republicans. The phrase was too catchy to ignore, so the White House cheerfully began to use it too.
Congressional Republicans wasted little time fuming at the administration's brass. Early in 2012, GOP leaders of the House Natural Resources and the Energy and Commerce committees began to cleverly note that the White House's idea of what constitutes "all-of-the-above" generally wrote off fossil fuels for alternative and renewable energy sources.
So the year's Pithy Rebuttal Watchy goes to those GOP lawmakers who said this "all-of-the-above" approach ignores "all-of-the-below." Fred Upton (Mich.), Doc Hastings (Wash.), and others apparently recalled that they weren't able to similarly co-opt "use-it-or-lose-it" a few years earlier, and vowed not to make a similar mistake this time.
The 112th Congress was as gridlocked on energy as it was on taxes. The GOP-controlled House passed a series of bills that the Senate's Democratic majority refused to consider. Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.) earned a startling candor Watchy during one Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing when he observed that it would be refreshing if the House spent less time taking positions and concentrated more on enacting policies.
More catchy phrases
Lawmakers weren't the only ones who appreciated catchy phrases. During the IHS Herold Energy Pacesetters Conference this fall, Lee O. Fuller, the Independent Petroleum Association of America's vice-president of government relations, wondered if unconventional natural gas development might have been more politically acceptable in the US if the enabling technology had been called "water stimulation" instead of hydraulic fracturing.
But the 2012 phrase appropriation that holds the most promise for 2013 occurred during a December interview for OGJ's upcoming Washington oil and gas outlook feature.
That was when Martin E. Edwards, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America's vice-president for legislative affairs, recalled former US Vice-President Al Gore's calling global warming an "inconvenient truth" years ago.
Edwards noted US energy policymakers now face "an unavoidable truth" when it comes to the nation's significantly brighter resource outlook—particularly for gas—and its growing economic contribution. That said it all—and very well.