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You nailed it about refineries. I live within a few miles of where the new Arizona refinery is proposed. I cannot think of a better place to put one. It is 50 miles from anywhere, on ground that used to be irrigated agricultural land until they discovered there wasn't enough water to irrigate with, so the land has already been disturbed, and is not pristine desert.

The local people love the idea of a refinery with its high paying jobs, tax base, and the rise in land values. The County Supervisors love the idea. The site is close to the border (it would be refining crude from Mexico), it sits right next to a major railway line and Interstate 8. So, why isn't it being built? The fly in the ointment is the environmentalist wackos.

We had meetings about the proposed construction, as required by (IMHO clearly unconstitutional environmental law) and everyone was in favor except for one local wingnut who opposes all development for his environmental wacko lack of reasons, and the national environmental wacko organizations who do the same.

There was no logic or reason in their objections, until you realize that their objective is to stop all industrial development and move us back to the middle ages or earlier.

Try to build an industrial site near a population center, it has too much impact on people. Try to build it far from people, it is destroying the pristine environment or the "viewscape" or whatever. These types believe that the human race is a disease on the planet and that the world would be better off without us.

It appears that the enviormentalist legislation had deceptive purposes from the beginning, to overcome Constitutional restraints and grab overwhelming power for the leftists that controlled the government at the time. It also offered leftists, the blame America first crowd, a way to stifle U.S. development to the benefit of our competitors in the rest of the world. That clearly was the aim of Kyoto, which we avoided only because Al Gore wasn't able to steal the 2000 election.

So it isn't "Big Oil" that is conspiring to keep the refineries from being built. It is "Big Green" in league with the Democrat party. The watermelon environmentalist wackos that are green on the outside and red on the inside.

Good to hear from someone local on it, thanks. It always impressed me at a win-win-win-win.... deal.

Just to add to your list of whackos include in that the government beauracrats who have mostly been infected by the watermelon types plus their ability to create "standards" that are in fact laws that no elected representative ever voted on.

And then there are our spineless pols. The permit acceleration process only passed by _2_ lousy votes in the house. Gads.

I'll give the folks in Az. high marks for hanging in there. As a businessman looking for return I am sure I would have bailed out long ago; they're got the real stuff.