The Kennedy Beating Continues...

Poor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.! What did he do to deserve this aggravation?

It's been over two weeks since he published a letter in the Ventura County Star expressing broad support for the concept of LNG as a "bridge fuel" and as an alternative to coal and other fossil fuels. Since then, he's been beaten like a rented mule. I don't think Uncle Teddy took this much heat for Chappaquiddick!

The latest to weigh in with an anti-RFK diatribe is Assembly Member Julia Brownley who constructs her argument thusly: I disagree with RFK-- but here are all the things he said that are right-- and I hate the Cabrillo Port project.

Kennedy might hate the Cabrillo Port project too, but we can't be sure of that because he never mentioned it! Nor did he mention Long Beach, or the Sempra project in Mexico, or any other project for that matter- he merely expressed his admiration for one individual's "courageous" decision to consider an unpopular proposal.

In another broadside, a college student from Washington crushes Mr. Kennedy and recounts how she hounded him at a reception over the LNG issue. She opposes LNG because it emits too much carbon and because, apparently, fishing stocks in Sakhalin Island, Russia were wiped out by an LNG operation. (Can't you just see RFK giving the "crank up the Prius and get me out of here, NOW" signal to his assistant?!)

From my perspective, RFK's fundamental thesis makes sense:

"No energy project is perfect, and LNG only makes sense if accompanied by the appropriate public and environmental safety protections.

Like most fuels, there is an explosive risk with LNG, but it is small compared with ships that carry gasoline and other petroleum products into American ports by the thousands each day. An LNG facility, if properly sited and constructed, can
impose a relatively tiny ecological footprint and poses far less public health risks than grave injuries endured by workers and residents in coal communities or the many public health threats from burning dirtier fossil fuels.

LNG is certainly not a silver bullet, but as a transitional fuel, it can pave the way for greener sources of energy while replacing oil, nuclear and coal in the short term."

Is his position really that unreasonable?

We need to focus on creating a portfolio of clean energy sources that includes everything from geothermal to wind to solar and, yes, even natural gas. How we build that portfolio and--more importantly-- where we site and build the facilities to provide those various sources of energy-- is a matter for public debate and regulatory approval which is all Kennedy was really trying to say.