Gordon Tomb, Senior Advisor
CO2 Coalition

Sept. 12, 2022

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in favor of allowing drilling for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have worked in or written about energy for more than 40 years. My father worked 42 years at a coal-fired power plant, and I had friends mine coal. I’ve driven coal trucks and spoken before international groups on nuclear energy. In short, I’ve been aware of the importance of energy for a long time.

With the irrational demonization of fossil fuels and the absurd promotion of wind and solar as a replacement for them, I’ve come to view coal, oil and natural gas as vital to the well-being of people. Undermining the development of these plentiful and affordable sources of energy threatens lives. These fuels have made possible unprecedented prosperity and are necessary to maintain modern society as well as to raise billions in the Third World from poverty and deprivation.

As a senior advisor for the CO2 Coalition, I must point out that there is no scientific basis for the so-called climate emergency feeding the current hostility toward fossil fuels. Climate hysteria is based on flawed computer models that consistently make erroneous predictions and on an exaggeration of carbon dioxide’s potency as a greenhouse gas.

The modest warming of recent decades is neither unprecedented nor unusual. In fact, most of the last 10,000 years has been warmer than today. Today’s temperatures and moderately elevated CO2 levels have been beneficial to crop production and to humanity in general.

As for the question at hand, modern oil and gas production is a technological marvel that should be permitted wherever possible. We ask that you permit it in the Gulf.

Gordon Tomb is a senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition and a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank.