Some right-wing zealots and interest groups sensed that the recent arctic cold snap in the eastern half of the country could be used to advance their pet policies on climate change and energy.

President Trump and others asserted the far below average cold weather meant global warming had gone away, or if it hadn’t, now it would at least be welcome. Few media noticed that while the East was so cold, the West’s temperatures were above normal. The very day Trump made his first comment on the cold, we had a record high here in Pocatello (Dec. 29). Every Western state was above normal, and it was more than just the West.

A world temperature map posted on some weather web sites showed the only large land area in the entire world with below normal temperatures at the time of the Eastern cold snap was just that — the East and central Canada.

The coal lobby also used the cold snap for political purposes. Working with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, the coal lobby, and it looks like some ideological interest groups, are promoting the idea (following the President) of making the United States an “energy dominant” country.

It isn’t clear what being an energy dominant country means, but as a slogan, at least, it would replace the “energy independence” catchphrase that was popularized during the Gerald Ford Administration in 1975-6.

On energy dominance, Ryan Zinke recently proclaimed, “We are going to become the strongest energy superpower.” However, it appears to me that moving toward the Administration’s idea of dominance requires putting our coastlines, fisheries, public lands, wildlife, pollution standards, and pocketbooks far back in importance.

Corresponding to this, Secretary Perry has zeroed in on making sure the nation’s electricity grid measures up to another new buzzword — “resilience.” This word too does not yet have a clear definition, but it seems obvious that a resilient grid would not have many brownouts and blackouts.

Perry just brought his plan for resiliency before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC, is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. Perry’s plan is to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants through new “market mechanisms.” These “mechanisms” would serve to cause the generating plants to stockpile more coal and uranium rods, so they would be less likely to run out, something for which there’s no evidence of happening. Perry too tried to use the cold snap, saying it would have been bad if the plants were short of fuel.

The incentive to stockpile fuel would come from billions of dollars of government subsidies to these two industries and from ratepayers facing higher electricity prices. The subsidies would also, handily enough, reduce the effect of the price advantage now enjoyed by wind, solar, and natural gas in generating electricity. In fact, this is what many people think is one of the hidden purposes of the Perry/Trump proposal — to bring coal back, let’s rig the market.

Environmentalists, wind and solar, and the oil and natural gas industry lobbied against Perry’s resiliency plan. FERC voted the plan down 5-0. Notably, all but one of these commissioners was appointed by President Trump. The one non-Trump commissioner remarked on the irony of a proposal that would subsidize coal-fired plants. The commissioner indicated these plants contribute to anthropogenic climate change that makes for the extreme weather events that are at the heart of the need for resiliency.

Indeed, global warming truly is the indirect cause of the Eastern cold snap and similar unusual floods of Arctic cold that spill southward. The Arctic is warming much faster than latitudes to the south. The smaller temperature difference between the Arctic and temperate regions weakens the polar jet stream – the high-speed wall of wind that keeps the cold locked up in the far North. The weakened jet stream then loops southward and the icy air pours out.

The media was reporting “it’s colder now here in North Carolina (or Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania ...) than in Alaska.” That’s a tired comparison used too often in the recent past. In fact, it was colder in much of the East and Midwest than at the North Pole!

It is weird when the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is sitting not on the pole but on South Dakota, Ohio, New York.

In addition, Secretary Zinke has really gone after the public lands as the place where all this fossil fuel powered American energy dominance is supposed to come from.

Many of the public lands are here in the West. There is one big exception. That is the outer continental shelf (OCS). Put simply the OCS are those underwater lands from 3 to 200 nautical miles from the coastline. This huge underwater area is administered by the federal government. The coastal states have title to natural resources located on the submerged lands out to three miles from their coast.

The public lands on the Shelf are administered by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM). The nearer and smaller areas of submerged state lands are managed by the respective states. The federal and the state governments often have different plans and priorities for these underwater lands.

Interior Secretary Zinke just issued a draft new oil and gas leasing plan for the OCS lands. In a first, the plan would allow oil and gas leasing over almost all the OCS lands. At the present, much of the OCS is off limits to leasing for many reasons. The oil and gas industry often complained about all these lands being “locked up.” These withdrawals of OCS land from leasing were done to protect geologically unstable places from drilling and to protect the fisheries and other natural resources. Commerce (shipping), military assets and maneuvers, and, finally the view from the shore were additional factors.

Many states are angry about the lease-all-of-it direction of the new federal plan. All the Atlantic coast states from New Jersey south to Florida complained. So, did the states of Oregon, Washington, and California. Then last Wednesday a funny thing happened after complaints by Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott. Secretary Zinke expressed his admiration of Scott, and then he said, “Florida is unique, and its coasts are highly reliant on tourism as an economic driver.” So, Zinke said, he was removing Florida waters from consideration for new oil and gas platforms.

Governor Scott is running for the U.S. Senate. His victory would give the Republicans a huge boost in keeping their Senate majority. The seat is held by Democrat Bill Nelson.

Other states quickly asked to be exempted too, putting a giant hole in the big new leasing plan. Will they be given exemptions? To do so would be illegal because a formal set of regulations like the new coastal leasing plan can only be changed through a formal process of notices, hearings, comments appeals, — the whole nine yards. The Secretary cannot just say some governor is a good guy or some state is a nice place and thereby create an exemption. The courts will almost certainly say, no.

Zinke has also been active opening parts of our Western public lands to more leasing. For years oil and gas have claimed the lands are “locked up.” In fact, there are large areas of leased public land – 32-million acres. However, if you look at the totals, the larger acreage of our public lands is not open to leasing.

Some of this is due to congressional withdrawals like national parks and wilderness areas. Other public lands have been closed administratively to protect resources like wildlife. Many of the open to leasing areas have restrictions on the leases. These are called lease “stipulations.” For example, the lease might read “no oil and gas activity allowed from December through March to protect wintering wildlife.” Another example might be a stipulation prohibiting location of ponds for drilling fluids on certain parts of a lease (to protect nearby water sources).

Land management agencies are often careful issuing leases because a lease creates a private property right on public land. You can’t cancel them later without paying back the leasing fees and often a lot more. Willy-nilly leasing spurred by politicians can create endless problems down the road for land use and the local residents.

Many of the recent lease sales have created intense local opposition such as around Ely, Nevada with plans to lease part of the beautiful Ruby Mountains, which seem to have almost no oil or gas potential anyway. In fact, the explanation for most of the public land not open to leasing is obvious lack of oil or gas potential. Many of the recent lease sales have attracted no bidders at all or bids at only two dollars an acre (the lowest figure acceptable for a 10-year lease). With the Ruby Mountains situation, the government ended up offering 208 parcels for lease last month. This was 389,000 acres. Bids were made on a mere 17 parcels. They covered 33,000 acres. The bids made were also the minimum two dollars an acre.

Summing up all this talk, and some action, about energy dominance (but only for fossil fuels), I like this quote from part of a recent letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times. “This is nostalgic, ignorant foolishness. This is like saying let’s ramp up our horse and buggy technology and plant more hay at the time when Henry Ford was beginning to roll cars off his assembly line.” (Joe McLaughlin, Los Angeles)

Dr. Ralph Maughan of Pocatello is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He retired after teaching there for 36 years, specializing in voting, public opinion and natural resource politics. He has written three outdoor guides, including “Hiking Idaho” with Jackie Johnson Maughan. He is currently president of the Western Watersheds Project.