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Part of the change Americans just voted for in overwhelming numbers was to move away from the failed energy philosophy of "drill, baby, drill" to a more farsighted strategy, emphasized by Barack Obama, based on clean, renewable energy and efficiency. Yet on the very day that we raised our voices for change, the Bush administration dragged us in the opposite direction. The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.

Craters so huge they can be seen from space. Thousands of miles of rivers and streams polluted by acidic runoff. Miners can pay the government no more than $5 an acre for the chance to make a fortune or go bust -- and stick taxpayers with millions of dollars in cleanup costs. It is the legacy of an 1872 federal law that still allows miners to take precious metals from public land for next to nothing.

Victims of the Nigerian government's violent 1990s-era crackdown on residents of oil-rich lands where Royal Dutch Shell had drilling operations may finally reach their goal to challenge the deaths and injuries in a U.S. court. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood set a Feb. 9 date for a trial stemming from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Shell PLC of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's military government to hang oil industry opponents.

* Opens federal waters beyond 50 miles from shore along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling, ending drilling bans that have been in effect for 26 years. States would have to agree to drilling for areas between 50 and 100 miles from land. * Rolls back $18 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies and requires energy companies to pay billions of dollars in additional royalties from oil taken from the deep water areas of the Gulf of Mexico under questionable leases issued in the late 1990s. * Requires the release of 70 million barrels of oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to put more oil on the market and lower gasoline prices. * Makes it a federal crime for oil companies holding federal leases to provide gifts to government employees, a response to a recent sex and drug scandal involving the federal office that oversees the offshore oil royalty program and energy company employees. * Provides tax credits for wind and solar energy industries, the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels, and purchase of plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars. * Requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from solar, wind or other alternative energy source. * Gives tax breaks for new energy efficiency and conservation programs including the use of improved building codes low-interest loans for energy efficient homes, and for companies that promote their employees use of bicycles for commuting.

A former colleague of the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company. Albert Stanley, who was appointed by Mr Cheney as chief executive of Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, admitted using a north London lawyer to channel payments to Nigerian officials as part of a bribery scheme that landed some $6bn of work in the country over a decade.

One of the standard talking points about high gas prices is the notion that restrictions on exploration and drilling in environmentally sensitive federal lands and offshore areas have tightened supplies of oil at a time of heightened demand. If we can just open those areas and drill more, the logic goes, gas prices would plummet. Never mind that the oil in ANWR wouldn't be available for years. Moreover, as the Campaign for Our Future notes: Drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would, at most, lower the cost of a barrel of crude oil by 50 cents in 2025.

Those of you who do not believe Peak Oil Theory should first make sure you fully understand it. According to this theory, after a reservoir has been depleted by half of its total volume, the output begins to plateau or remain constant for some unknown period. At some later time (which is unpredictable) the output begins a permanent decline of variable duration (which is also unpredictable) until the remaining quantity of oil is no longer economically feasible to extract with current technology. Therefore, Peak Oil Theory does not state that the earth is running out of oil per say. It states that the earth is running out of inexpensive oil, otherwise known as conventional oil - the high-grade oil that comes out by drilling on land and requires minimal refinement costs.

While the U.S. oil industry want access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries. A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007.

As Americans struggle with high prices at the pump, one thing is certain: a rush to drill in Alaska or on Western public lands will not bring down the price of gas. Unfortunately, it will needlessly sacrifice wilderness and wildlife.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues "America's future" lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here's what the ad says:

I was going to write about Tom Paine. The upcoming 200th anniversary of his death on June 9 certainly needs to be acknowledged, but if the people of Cumberland County can pull together to prevent the despoiling of their God-given land, they will do more to honor Tom's memory than my feeble words, so I'll defer for now. When coal burns, most of it turns into gas (carbon dioxide), but heavier minerals are left behind in the ash. Therefore, coal ash contains concentrated amounts of toxic metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and heavy radioactive elements. As I said in an earlier column, Wake Forest University found Emory River arsenic measurements hundreds of time higher than allowable levels after the TVA ash spill. Radioactivity in the ash is over 50 percent above allowable levels in uranium mining waste.

For years, residents of the tiny lakeside community near Kingston, Tennessee, watched as the local power plant mixed tons of leftover coal ash with water and pumped the heavy mud into a massive pond just up the road. "We never gave it a second thought," says resident Diane Anderson. To read more of Kelly Hearn's reporting on the TVA spill, check out "Toxic Coal in Tennessee," "Tennessee's Dirty Data" and "The Dredge Report." Share this article * * * * Add to Mixx! * * * Related * Also By * Radioactive Revival in New Mexico Environment Shelley Smithson: Navajos say "No!" as the return of uranium mining threatens to despoil their lands and health. * The Most Important Number on Earth Environment OntheEarthProduction : Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky and Terry Tempest Williams discuss the urgent need reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million. » More * Tennessee Spill: Regulation Hazards Environment Kelly Hearn: The recent coal ash spill in Tennessee reveals the toxic fallacy that states should regulate industrial waste. * Letters Subscribe Our Readers & Kelly Hearn * Tennessee Spill: The Dredge Report Environment Kelly Hearn: The TVA's efforts to clean up after its massive coal ash spill may create even more health hazards. But on December 22 the pond collapsed, triggering a billion-gallon mudslide that knocked houses off foundations and roiled into the Emory River. State officials and the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally funded utility responsible for the spill, scrambled to allay fears, saying that the ash wasn't toxic and that the drinking water was safe. But residents also heard about the litany of harmful substances in the ash, like arsenic and lead, and about studies linking it to cancer.

A South Carolina environmental cleanup expert says the TVA Kingston steam plant spill will cost millions of dollars and will take many weeks to clean up. "They're going to have to do an extensive cleanup, that's for sure," said David Hitchens, CEO and chemist for AEO Advanced Environmental Options Inc. in Spartanburg, S.C. "It could get into the millions. If you've got 400 acres, and they're going to have to clean it up, and dispose it in a landfill, and the landfills charge $30 to $40 a ton, you're looking at approximately 2 (million) to 2.5 million tons."

All presidents indulge in end-of-the-term environmental rule-making, partly to tie up bureaucratic loose ends but mainly to lock in policies that their successor will be hard pressed to reverse. President Bill Clinton's midnight regulations were mostly good, including a rule protecting 60 million acres of national forests from road-building and most commercial development. Not surprisingly, most of President Bush's proposals are not.