Bob Schaffer Campaigning to be Next Potted Plant in US Senate

Bob Schaffer and his peanut gallery have been hammering Mark Udall for his so-called "U-turn" on offshore drilling. Udall has supported expanded offshore drilling on a case-by-case basis along the eastern seaboard based on the Gang of 10 plan, as a compromise tied to a plan to achieve long-term independence from oil by transitioning to renewables and vastly improving fuel efficiency.

Mark Udall is responding to a crisis caused by decades of horrific energy policy culminating in Dick Cheney's 2001 secret energy task force designed to cement US dependence on oil--a plan that Bob Schaffer "fully support[s]" and voted for in Congress.

By criticizing Mark Udall for changing positions in the face of a crisis, Schaffer is suggesting that he himself would never respond to a crisis. In other words, he wants to be just like our current potted plant, Wayne Allard--one of the most unpopular US Senators from any state, famous for doing nothing at all.

Bob Schaffer laments the gridlock in Washington while promising to be a key part of it. His bizarre world view is demonstrated in this clip, where he bemoans the fact that the corporation that just posted the largest profit in history isn't making enough money:

Big Oil Bob's Big Oil War Profiteering

While we tend to find the rhetoric of "war profiteering" to be a bit overheated, the fact remains that Bob Schaffer went to Iraq at the height of the war to negotiate contracts with the Kurdistan regional government against the wishes of President Bush, the State Department, and the Iraqi national government.

Liberal activist group Progress Now asks the question: Would you support a candidate who voted for the war and then went to Iraq to profit from it?



We believe that there are lots of companies and people who profit from war, and that is at least a somewhat unavoidable consequence of privatizing our military to corporations like KBR. More important to us as independent, security-conscious voters is the possibility that Bob Schaffer's actions of supporting a regional regime inside of and in opposition to the national regime in Iraq will destabilize the country, prolong the war, and cause needless loss of American soldiers as well as civilians.

DeGrow's Bleating Demonstrates His an Schaffer's Ignorance on Oil Shale

Like a couple of '49ers, Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer have jumped on the oil shale bandwagon pointing to Shell Oil's in situ process experiment as "proof" that oil shale development is ready for prime time. Only it isn't proof, and Shell is the first to admit it.

Let's look at the actual facts:

* Shell Oil only proved that the process is possible on about one acre of land. There is no proof that their freezing/heating process is scalable to commercial production levels.

* According to a RAND Corporation study, Shell's process would require 3 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. To put that in perspective, it's about a Lake Dillon of water every year for each million barrels of daily oil production.

* The process is also energy-intensive, requiring the ground around a drilling site to be frozen, and the ground within the site to be heated for several years. Several coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants would have to be constructed, each of which would have its own water requirements.

* Infrastructure to transport the needed water and power, refine the extracted oil, and treat the produced wastewater would have to be constructed.

Add to this that Shell is one of the leading opponents to commercial leasing because it will take at least five more years to even make the decision whether their experiments were successful. They, understandably, don't want to be forced into the land speculation business only to find the value of their holdings collapse if the process turns out to be unfeasible.

So ask Western Slope residents where they'll come up with 8-10 Lake Dillons per year of water, and where they'd like to have those coal power plants, railroad tracks, pipelines, refineries, waste processing plants, and high-tension wires placed. Because all of that will have to be figured out if (and only if) Shell can make its process commercially scalable. The only other option is strip mining, which has similar water requirements and produces waste of a larger volume than the shale that's mined.

Bob Schaffer's Bloggers Should Pay Attention to Bob Schaffer

Our friends in Bob Schaffer's peanut gallery have taken some pleasure in recent days by accusing Mark Udall of wanting higher energy prices by supporting renewable energy.

Not only is the logic dizzying (anybody who has ever taken a basic high school business class knows that more energy supply means lower energy prices), but they are also slamming their own candidate at the same time.

You see, Big Oil Bob Schaffer has been putting a fair amount of effort of late in hiding his oil industry background, instead saying that he's been all about the wind and solar. And now one of the myriad of "nonprofit organizations" that has poppoed up to support Bob Schaffer is now running TV ads touting Bob Schaffer's supposed support for renewable energy (a claim that his voting record clearly disputes).

So while the weirdos at the Independence Institute and the rest of the Republican Party insult our intelligence with bizarre and unsubstantiated claims of higher prices from renewable energy, their candidate is running far, far away from them by making himself look more like Mark Udall every day. That's because Mark Udall has it right on energy policy, has for years, and people like Bib Oil Bob Schaffer are only now starting to catch up.

It's interesting how the far-right weirdos at the Independence Institute tout the free market and then demonstrate that they don't even have a basic understanding of basic market principles such as supply and demand. If Bob Schaffer wants any chance at winning, he should signal to his base that they shouldn't be attacking Mark Udall for positions that Bob Schaffer evidently holds. Some might see that as disorganized, or possibly even hypocritical.

The Proof is in the Comments

If you really want to know who is pulling the strings in the Bob Schaffer for Senate campaign, just look at the comments on the Rocky's analysis of Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer's voting records during the time they were in Congress simultaneously.

I wish the Democrats' little lie about "Big Oil Bob" was true: but Aspect Energy is an independent producer (not exactly Big Oil!) of lots of different energy sources, including wind projects.

In fact one of Bob key projects for Aspect was to help create a bi-partisan coalition to support more efficient wind energy tax credits. Our wind energy affiliate developed the first significant project on an Indian reservation (in California) and also worked on projects in other states including Colorado.

The wind tax credits currently are biased against indpendent developers of wind projects in favor of big power companies. Bob worked hard to try to even the playing field.

Alex Cranberg, Chairman
Aspect Energy, LLC

That's Alex Cranberg, Republican insider and funder of various shadowy campaigns to destroy public education, who also happens to be Schaffer's employer.

Aspect is an oil company. It is a lie for Cranberg to claim it isn't.

From the front page of Aspect's web site:

From 1998-2006, Aspect and its partners spent $940 million to drill over 525 wells. Together they recognized a success rate of 59% finding 703 Bcfe in reserves worth $1.89 billion (PV10). For wells in which Aspect was the Exploration Operator: From 1998-2006, Aspect and its partners spent $540 million to drill over 318 wells. Together they recognized a success rate of 61% finding 437 Bcfe in reserves worth $1.25 billion (PV10).

Aspect and its affiliate companies will have combined revenues of ~ $360 million in 2007 and expected exploration and development capital expenditures of $180 million. Combined daily production net to Aspect and its affiliates is currently ~ 18,300 boe/day.

Aspect spent over a billion and a half dollars since 1998 drilling for oil. Sure, they're no ExxonMobile or ConocoPhillips, but to claim that any company that can afford to blow $1.5 billion in ten years isn't "big" is ridiculous on its face.

Funny how Cranberg implies they're some sort of renewable energy company yet there's not a single mention of wind or any other renewable energy on the front page of the company's web site.

Also funny how Schaffer's consistent claims that he isn't a lobbyist are exposed as lies by his boss's futile attempt to deny Schaffer's big oil ties.

In fact one of Bob key projects for Aspect was to help create a bi-partisan coalition to support more efficient wind energy tax credits.

By this very statement, Cranberg is either claiming that Schaffer lobbied for tax credits "for Aspect," or that Schaffer was doing Aspect's bidding when he was in Congress. Either he is a lobbyist or he was in the back pocket of Cranberg when he was in Congress. We can't say for sure, because Cranberg doesn't give a time frame for the "key projects for Aspect."