Power To The People!
The people won a major battle yesterday.
However, don't go popping the champaign corks just yet....
This is not a permanent solution to our energy problems. We still need to develop a program that utilizes ALL forms of available and alternative energies. The time for reliance on fossil fuels as our sole source of energy is past. With the growth in demand, it is imperative that we expand nuclear, wind, coal (clean coal that is), hydrogen, ethanol, oil AND conservation. However, oil is still an essential part of the equation and the drilling bans need to go away permanently.
It appears that this will also include the ban on oil shale production.WASHINGTON -- Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.
A new budget bill to be unveiled soon drops a provision, pushed by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that would have allowed states to choose whether companies could pursue oil shale extraction within their borders. But, so far, the bill also doesn't re-enact a ban on finalizing rules for leasing federal lands for oil shale extraction.
Matheson says Congress would have to formally approve another ban by Tuesday, and if not, the Interior Department could move forward on a leasing program that would allow companies to tap oil shale deposits on federal tracts.
However, don't go popping the champaign corks just yet....
"The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue."
This is not a permanent solution to our energy problems. We still need to develop a program that utilizes ALL forms of available and alternative energies. The time for reliance on fossil fuels as our sole source of energy is past. With the growth in demand, it is imperative that we expand nuclear, wind, coal (clean coal that is), hydrogen, ethanol, oil AND conservation. However, oil is still an essential part of the equation and the drilling bans need to go away permanently.
Labels: #dontgo
posted by The Lady Logician at
8:27 AM
11 Comments:
That isn't all. To the best of my knowledge, they aren't including financial incentives for states to open up leasing. That was a major sticking point with last week's bill; it shoulid be with this CR.
By
Gary Gross, at 9:10 AM
True, and there is still an active (permanent) ban in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, where the Chinese are drilling already. And none of it does any good so long as environmentalist wacko lawyers are allowed to tie things up in court for years on end. Congress could fix all that, but not while it is controlled by Democrats. There IS a simple solution, of course.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 10:19 AM
Building a single new refinery would arguably have a larger impact on gas prices than anything we will find offshore.
I wish they'd lift the ban so that we can watch Oil Companies not do anything with the new leases, and get you Wingers to shut up about this, move on to something that will really solve a problem or to. So gullible!
Also, China is not drilling in the Eastern Gulf (google it), and there is no such thing as clean coal.
I don't have time to keep fact checking you like this. :)
By
Jason The, at 3:36 PM
I absolutely agree on the refinery comment Jason. However, it is not the fault of the big bad oil companies that there has not been a new refinery built in 20+ years. The eco warriors in the Democrat Party (Nancy "I'm trying to save the world" Pelosi for one) have made the process of approval for a new refinery next to impossible.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:22 PM
I find it intriguing you would choose for your headline a pro-socialist protest cry and a John Lennon song.
Yes, Power to the People!
By
Bekkieann, at 10:56 AM
I find it intriguing that you finf it intriguing. Lady is a small "L" libertarian. Just like most conservatives. Liberals are all about government involvement in private matters.
By
Kermit, at 4:31 PM
"move on to something that will really solve a problem or to [sic]"-- Jasonthe
Drilling for America's own oil isn't "solving a problem" so much as it is just plain common sense. But of course nobody ever accused the left of common sense. There is simply no reason whatsoever to NOT tap our own resources, and then pay huge prices to a foreign government for the same resource. You can't even argue that US oil companies would harm the environment because that oil WILL be pumped, if not by us, by someone else and with, undoubtedly, lower environmental standards.
If, as a side benefit of doing the common sense and environmentally rational thing we benefit our economy and lower prices, that is a plus.
As for Chinese drilling, it appears you are factually correct, at this point in time. The larger issue, of whether we or some other country should be exploiting our resources, still has the same commonsense answer. Do I need to spell it out?
"There is no such thing as clean coal." That depends on how you define the term, something that those who talk about it are loathe to do. If by clean coal you mean that the sulfur, nitrous oxides and particulates are removed, then it is already being done, and should be done as we burn through our hundreds of years of coal reserves. If you mean that you can mix C (carbon) and O2 (oxygen) and not get CO2 (carbon dioxide), then yes, there is no such thing. But those who talk about clean coal as something to stop global warming are foolish enough to believe in global warming, so coal burning without CO2 is just another short, fanciful step for them.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 5:58 PM
"I find it intriguing you would choose for your headline a pro-socialist protest cry and a John Lennon song. "
So does this mean that the left holds the "patent" on this phrase?
No - this is power as in the power to run our economy to the people who fought tooth and nail to get this done. It was a two-fold "power".....
And Kermit knows me all too well. Yes I am basically a small "l" libertarian - where I differ with the big "L" libertarians is they have gone a little too far down the "no government" path. I don't think legalized drugs is a sound policy for example.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 8:28 PM
Right, comrades, John Lennon's words were designed for the libertarians in all of us.
By
Bekkieann, at 3:18 PM
John Lennon's words were designed as a rallying cry for anrchists. He was a hypocrite of the first magnitude.
By
Kermit, at 1:50 PM
Anarchists. PIMF.
By
Kermit, at 1:52 PM
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