Energy at Lunch with Orrin Hatch

On Friday (Apr. 14) I attended a campaign lunch with Sen. Orrin Hatch at the Brick Oven in Provo. I was suprised and impressed that his openning comments were almost exclusively on energy. I was disappointed that no one asked any energy questions. The closest question was about increasing funding for the National Science Foundation, (which I was grateful to have asked and answered affirmatively). See the questioner's blog for more details.

Here are some of the things Hatch addressed with energy:

• UT, CO, WY have enormous energy resources: high quality coal, conventional oil, and oil shale
  
• Most of those resources are on federal land: spoke some about openning them up.
  
• Spoke about UT being shielded some from gas price shockes because we have some oil refineries: talked about building more as the other oil resources grow
  
• Mentioned developing geothermal resources
  
• Mentioned research at universities and also a company in Provo that is working on batteries for hybrids/electric vehs
  
• Also plead for letters to the BLM about the Skull Valley nuclear waste dump
  

Utah Policy Daily had a link to a Salt Lake Tribune article:Refinery to blame for grime and illness over the years, residents say

I've heard one of the reasons no oil refineries have been built in the U.S. for so long is the environmental regulations.

There will certainly be trade offs if we want to build more refineries in UT. I just hope we don't scrap the regulations because we are desparate for the oil.