During the past half-century, the U.S. has made extraordinary progress toward an environmental ethic, according to L. Poe Leggette, a Washington-based partner in the Fulbright & Jaworski law firm and formerly assistant solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior. However, the American people have made little progress in accepting responsibility for the environmental effects of the decisions they make about the energy they consume, he said at the Colorado Oil & Gas Association's 17th annual conference in Denver. This failing falls across individuals, organizations and political parties, and is composed of two parts ignorance and one part indifference, said Leggette. Energy controversies and impasses abound in the country at present. "That the impasses are so frequent and so fierce indicates that we have reached a point where energy issues are framed more to serve political ends than to seek solutions," he said. "An energy ethic would demand the opposite." The solution lies with each individual, he contended. "Our national energy policy does not control, but is controlled by countless individual choices." The emphasis on government policies in the energy debate has left personal responsibilities out of the equation, and this oversight must be corrected. An energy ethic would require that a citizen learn the consequences of the decisions he makes in producing and consuming energy. It requires that a consumer know and assess the effects of the energy choices that he makes on the environment, the economy and the security of the country. "It acknowledges that the fate of the Rockies might be linked with the fate of Iraqis." Members of the industry must lead by their own actions, must persuade people near to them to think more carefully about the energy choices they make, and must help others to understand the role of energy in our civilization. The job of instilling an energy ethic is formidable, and will likely take more than a generation to achieve, just as it took more than a generation for the environmental ethic to progress into our laws and culture. "The task begins with each of us," he said.
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