Nick Snow's Watching Government column entitled "Delivering 'human impact statements'" hit a key issue that has been missing in policymaking in general and certainly in energy policy ever since We the People created government to make policy for us (OGJ, Sept. 28, 2009, p. 28). Policy at best pays lip service to the human element by suggesting that it will create jobs, but it seldom tells us how, or at what economic costs, or if other jobs will be lost (a component of economic cost).
Before we throw too much criticism at the administration, we should commend the fact that energy and the environment are being treated together. Indeed, both are interlocked, and it is about time that government recognized this fact.
Snow's column points out how critical it is to all policy, and especially the oil and gas industry, to bring the economy formally into the process.
The concept of a true economic impact statement that, by definition, must include the human impact component, has a much longer-term time horizon than what a politician sees. Indeed, economic costs are long-term, whereas political capital must be spent quickly while the "mandate" of election is still hot. Therefore, it should be of little surprise that such mundane issues as those affecting the Harrisons—the couple described in the column whose business was hurt by lease cancellations in Utah—would be shunted aside.
Similarly, a rush to get things done is why even the energy-environmental policy under consideration shows, at best, benign neglect of the 80% of our energy mix that will be around for a long time as policy hopes that we transition to the brave new world of clean and secure energy.
Of course such neglect could be justified as the 80% is assumed to be able to survive on its own. However, as the Harrisons found out, the devil is in the details and the consequences of a rush to make policy while ignoring economic and human impacts.
This column should be required reading for anyone inside the Washington, DC, beltway. Who knows? Some of them might even pay attention.
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