Every fall, black bears enter
a ravenous state in which they will do almost anything for food.
Biologists call it hyperphagia — the time of super-eating.
Bears in hyperphagia can get into trouble if their search for
calories leads them to our backyards or to garbage cans behind the
local diner.
We Westerners have also been known to let
our appetites get ahead of our brains. Witness the rush for beaver,
buffalo, gold and land. In each case, the success of a fortunate
few spawned a popular rampage that soon outstripped the resource.
Boomtowns that were built overnight collapsed the next day when the
bust overtook them, and everybody bolted off in search of the next
great thing.
Today, the super-hunger is for oil and gas.
There is a mind-boggling amount of exploration and drilling in the
West, and this boom looks to go on forever. But it won’t, and
Westerners should be asking themselves whether they are ready for
the inevitable bust.
By all indications, most Western
states could do a better job of using the considerable tax revenues
coming in from the gas fields. A flush New Mexico, for instance,
spent $216 million of its oil and gas revenues this year on tax
rebates and other tax breaks to residents. Sounds great, but this
solves none of the state’s problems. While the state has
established a trust fund for future needs, there’s no
shortage of places to put money right now: New Mexico ranks first,
or nearly first, in the nation in child poverty and the number of
minimum wage workers, and it is last in school test scores and a
host of other categories.
Colorado has done the worst job
reaping the boom, due in part to weak taxing policy and little
foresight.
“The last energy boom in Colorado (25 years
ago) came and went, and we didn’t really put any money aside
for leaner times,” says Colorado state Rep. Kathleen Curry. “We
used it, and now the same thing is happening again.”
Wyoming is doing the best job, having reaped about $1.5 billion
this year in taxes, royalties and lease payments from the oil and
gas industry. Thanks to the planning of past and present leaders,
the state, with a population of just over half a million, has
placed more than $3.3 billion in trust to help fund schools and
other government services.
In the Cowboy State, oil and
gas tax revenues make it to the ground. At the rural Pinedale
Elementary School, near the heart of the current gas drilling
activity, teachers are paid the highest salaries in the state, and
students have access to a new fleet of laptop computers and other
state-of-the-art technology.
Wyoming has recently used
oil and gas revenues to purchase wildlife habitat, endow
professorships at its universities and colleges, and provide new
assistance funds for entrepreneurs and local economic development
projects. All of these investments will pay off when the gas fields
have played out.
Beyond how the money is used is the
question of whether the states hosting the boom are getting enough.
Many countries tax oil and gas revenues at a much higher rate than
the United States; even some industry leaders say they expect to be
asked for more than they are currently giving.
With many
Western states facing budget shortfalls and crumbling schools and
roads, now is not the time to be meek about insisting that industry
pay its way. Economist Juan Carlos Boue of London points out that
California could solve its budget crisis “with the stroke of a pen”
if it had the will to implement a severance tax on the oil and gas
industry.
Prosperous states are much more likely —
and much better able — to protect the environment than are
poor ones. Our land, our air and our water are taking a huge hit
from the oil and gas hyperphagia. We need to act to ensure that the
West will have the resources to restore the landscape when the boom
is over. And we need to plan for a future economy beyond the
petroleum age.
Bears don’t instantly burn all the
calories they gorge on in the fall. Instead, they store them for
future use, to get through winter’s hibernation. Contrary to
what all the experts say, fat isn’t always a bad thing.
Paul Larmer is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News. He is the
publisher of the independent paper in Paonia, Colorado
(plarmer@hcn.org).
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
