Lifting the drilling ban: Just do it now, Mr. President
You’ll notice that I didn’t blindly, wildly applaud President Bush’s remarks yesterday calling on Congress to lift its offshore drilling ban. (Full speech text here.)
Better late than never, of course. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that this is leadership. Or that the Democrats bear 100 percent of the blame for inaction.
There are two bans on drilling–one by Congress and one by an White House executive order put in place by President Bush’s father. Why won’t the son revoke that order NOW if he truly believes expanding American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf is an urgent priority. I quoted the Institute for Energy Research last week: “Mr. Bush, Tear Up That Offshore Drilling Ban.”
Instead, Mr. Bush is playing a game of You First:
Republicans in Congress have proposed several promising bills that would lift the legislative ban on oil exploration in the OCS. I call on the House and the Senate to pass good legislation as soon as possible. This legislation should give the states the option of opening up OCS resources off their shores, provide a way for the federal government and states to share new leasing revenues, and ensure that our environment is protected. There’s also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS. When Congress lifts the legislative ban, I will lift the executive prohibition.
What the…?!?!?!
I’m not the only one bothered by the White House’s failure to lead. Here’s the Wall Street Journal today:
Even some of Washington’s fiercest opponents of oil drilling are thinking anew, and the politics of domestic energy production seem to be shifting. This isn’t surprising with gas prices as a top-tier campaign issue. More confounding was President Bush’s timidity yesterday as he tried to prod Congress into movement.
Mr. Bush argued that leaving most of America’s immense offshore oil-and-gas resources off-limits was “outdated and counterproductive,” and he called on Congress to end its quarter-century ban. Fair enough. But the ban actually has two components, one of which is a 1990 executive order; like launching a warhead, both keys must be turned. Mr. Bush said he would only turn his after Congress did.
The Administration has botched a prime political opportunity. Lifting the Presidential ban would have been symbolic for now, because Congress’s ban would still apply. But it would have put the spotlight on Congress as the last political obstacle to exploiting domestic reserves, just as public support for more drilling is rising…
…If it isn’t already obvious, Democrats seem intent on proving that they do not understand the oil business – and Mr. Bush would have done better to ramp up the pressure. The White House says it wants to work out a compromise with Congress, which isn’t likely unless Republicans start playing their strongest hand.
And the Beltway elephants wonder why the Republican Party is in such trouble…
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- Democrats Call For Gov. Takeover Of Oil Companies : BigMouthFrog
- Patriots Against Liberals
- The Dan Lee Report » Blog Archive » Democrats stall for time on your dime with Offshore Oil Drilling Bill
- Two Approaches On Energy « Tai-Chi Policy
- Energy Independence #1 priority: - Truth Product
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- BizzyBlog » Things I’d Like to Post About ….. (062008, Morning)
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- Michelle Malkin » Finally: Bush to lift offshore drilling ban
- President Bush will Lift Offshore Drilling Ban « POLITISITE: Politics from the RIGHT Side of the WEB
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Most speculation comes from industries that use oil products, i.e. airlines, trucking, transportation, as a way of hedging their major cost.
For those that don’t believe that making the decision to drill NOW should remember your history. In the early 1980’s we said that we were going to build 100 coal to gas plants. Oil went from 38 to 8 dollars over night. Of course, only one was built.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/cartoon.asp
As always-Mr.Ramirez is right on!
This is so easy, I can’t believe you all let this economic illiterate slide.
Owners of oil only make money on the oil that they sell. No sale, no revenue. No revenue, no profits. Duh.
Gas prices would be back down to $1.50 a gallon if Bush would open up the North Slope of Alaska, specifically the Gull Island find that Arco made back in 1976 that has enough oil for America for the next 200 years. It is the largest single oil deposit in the world yet Congress has capped it and made Gull Island a nature preserve for the Sea Gull which is not endangered.
Watch Linsey Williams explain … he was Chaplain of Alyeska Pipline at Prudhoe Bay circa 1975-1978 and was invited to sit on the Alyeska Executive board. He was on the ‘Inside’ when GULL ISLAND ‘came in’, but was then quickly capped and Classified by our own Government.
The Gull Island reservoir was described as being “larger than the oil field in Saudi Arabia.”
The only problem was that the day the find was going to be announced, the DoD flew in and classified the Gull Island reservoir. With presidents coming and going every 4-8 years, supposedly from different parties, one has to wonder who has the authority to order the Department of Defense to classify an oil discovery that would have eliminated America’s dependence on foreign oil?
According to Lindsey Williams, we made a deal with the Saudis to buy foreign oil in exchange they were to invest in our national debt. You can read his book, The Energy Non-Crisis, free online to get the details.
The MSM continues to ignore this story even though the facts are there for anyone to see for yourself and research.
Our own Congress has sold us all out.
You are the economic illiterate if this concept is unfamiliar to you. Do some research while you remove that foot from your mouth.
Lol…that’s an urban legend. Where are the facts? The link you gave “Classified by our own government”, all that is is the State of Alaska’s favoring BP over Arco involving drilling rights.
Sambo, I remember the crude price plunge of the 80s. I don’t remember it being caused by an announcement that the US would build 100 coal plants.
Could it have been something as simple as supply exceeding demand for a time?
yes, the saudi’s demanding that we don’t build them and they’ll pump more oil. but granted, there may have been other smaller reasons.
Does anybody find it ironic that the Dems are demanding that Iraq help us out with their oil when they claimed Bush was going to war over oil?
As ironic as Democrats claiming that 1 million barrels a day from ANWR, maybe million a day more from the Green River, 100,000 plus from Bakken, and as much as 2-3 million from offshore won’t affect the price of oil, but raising taxes on oil companies will.
Meanwhile, another of our Marxist Democrats steps in it and tries to quietly shake the residue off his shoe….
Ok, just because I am major confused on who is on our (my) side anymore in the political game, I am going to go out on a limb and predict (hope) that this is a strategic move by Bush.
The fact of the matter is that by living the Presidential moritorium on drilling will affect the immediate pricing on gas and potentially convince the rest of the world to produce more, just to try to keep us out of the game. However, I do not believe the impact will be entirely massive, but then again, many times the american people vote by how they see things right at the very moment.
So perhaps, the first move of the strategy is to call on the Congress (run by democrats and supported by weasel republicans) to allow drilling, knowing good and well they will never do it, thus creating a people backlash for democrats and on the other hand, uniting the GOP around an actual issue.
Then, as the election is close, Bush can lift the Presidential ban on drilling and reap the benefits and help the GOP!
Yes, I am stretching here and dreaming, but it could happen . . . maybe.
My bachelor’s degree in economics and MBA say you’re the illiterate. Your thesis that profit-maximizing commodity sellers seek to increase profits by withholding goods from the market contradicts itself.
Just because you desperately want to believe it, doesn’t make it so. Put up some numbers showing a decline in production.
We’ll wait.
Congrats to Newt Gingrich. One Million have signed the DRill Here, Dril Now, Pay less petition. A march on D.C. is being worked out.
You mean the guy in the Algore’s global warming commercials with Nancy Pelosi?
Am I living in Alice and Wonderland here!?
TOS:
Still waiting…
Hmmm, my thesis doesn’t work? Tell that to:
BP (2004), Avista Energy (1998), Enron (1998), Sumitomo (1995), Ferruzzi (1989)…who knows who has gotten away with it?
All companies that tried it and got caught!
Go back to watching South Park kid. Once you’ve gained a little real world experience we’ll talk more.
Did you read that the tracts in question are the Gull Island Leases ADL 34626 and ADL 34629 that people like you say are an urban myth and do not exist.
If you think that oil supply is not being manipulated by the Government then you are naive. They have capped numerous wells not just in on the north slope or Alaska and ANWR.
Maybe you could explain to everyone why our own Govenment has placed so much of our Domestic oil off limits.
Here in California Shell wanted to close a refinery in Bakersfield because it was no longer profitable. When a Whistle blower came forward with emails that substantiated the real reason was that they could not manipulate the price of Diesel any longer. The Attorney General denied them a permit to destroy a profitable refinery and they later sold it for over 400 million to Valero who seems to be making a fortune in the refinery business in California.
“Only an oil company that wants to short the market and artificially drive up the price of gasoline would demolish a highly profitable refinery rather than sell it,” said Jamie Court, president of FTCR and author of the book Corporateering (Tarcher/Putnam). ” Shell has deceived the public about Bakersfield and must be forced to keep this refinery open or sell it to a competitor. This evidence should also spur a national moratorium on all further domestic refinery closures.”
Source
Ahh a Lion! said #115, I understand your point but as Newt stated (he really had to put some ice on the lumps he took for that ad) you can either ignore the dabate or jump in so you can have some control.
That’s your argument, Other? A list of companies, years and an admission of ignorance? And you want to wear big boy pants? You make lgm look smart by comparison.
Get back in your closet with your Village Voice and drink your AZT.
You claim that my thesis makes now sense, and I have given you a number of known real-world exmaples where major corporations have in fact done it. I guess with your MBA and all you are much smarter than all of those experienced CEO’s are. Just because your Econ 101 professor says it doesn’t work, doesn’t make it so. Once your acne starts clearing up and you actually get a job, you might learn that everything you learned in college isn’t necessarily true.
Nope. I’m just smarter than you. But that’s not saying a lot.
Like hell they are. They’re getting killed, and so is Tesoro.
Die Hippie, Die #122, now that’s funny. Libs are just plain idiots when it comes to reason and logic. Facts to them is like sunshine to a vampire, too.
Apparently you didn’t read the report from 1993, at which time BP Exploration was preparing to drill producing wells in the area adjacent to 34626 and 34629. According to the court proceeding, the seismic data did not indicate that the reservoir pool being exploited by BP encroached into the tracts leased by ARCO and Exxon - which are the two tracts you are talking about. Of the two exploratory wells drilled on those two tracts (as of 1993), neither yielded commercial quantities of oil. In other words, the fact of the leases is not an “urban myth”. The claim that they contain vast quantities of oil that is being withheld by evil oil corporations is. Your credibility is completely shot when you a.) don’t read the reports in question and b) quote a bunch of left-wing nutcases as a source (FTCR).
source
# 104 SCOTTY Dog –I can’t believe I missed your post >>>
RIGHT ON!!!!!
Good old George, always a day late and a dollar short, just like his moral ideal Jimmy Carter. Too late to get a pair I suppose. It is sobering to reflect upon how much Bush I and Bush II have cost this country and the Republican Party (to the extent there can still be said to be one.) I can’t give an exact tally, but I think it is somewhere along the lines of more than you could ever imagine.
Our worthless RINO CA Gov. flies his private jet every nearly every night from Sacto. to L.A. and yet claims we can’t drill off our coast because it is an international treasure. Oh I forgot he is paying for carbon credits. Still using the resources just paying for that privelage.
One other question for the resident libs. We have a 27 year drilling moratorium, no nuke plants, and no new electric plants. WTF is or was your plan B? I am absolutely furious that I and many other average citizens saw this coming and yet the politicians sit with their thumb up their fat a..es and do nothing. I also love the current “We can’t drill our way out of this.” Well it would have been nice to start on maybe Sept. 15, 2001.
The more technologically advanced a civilization is, the more energy is required to maintain it and have continual technological progress. The bottom line is that suitable alternatives to oil/fossil fuels do not exist yet in sufficient quantity to replace oil/fossil fuels, so drilling must be done.
GWB must show leadership and recind that executive order, and the dems must get over their green obsession since even they don’t practice it.
I need someone to help me do some truly obscene math:
1 Bambi/Caribou (happily prancing and screwing on a [O so Holy St. Pristine!] barren wilderness) = X Eco-sacrifices (how many Americans/allies persons killed and maimed protecting vital mideast oil sources/supply lines since the underused Alaskan pipeline was completed).
I need accurate numbers of each factor.
Thank you.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
(not adverse to Caribou steaks)
Here is a prime example of how…”POLITICS” ….is going to the death of our government…there is a pretty clear right and wrong decision to make here….The decision cannot be made because of what the other side might say about it….must not up set the whacko 2% and suffer bad press…knowing all along bad press is coming any way? So we suffer while the great politico’s play their little stupid 3’rd grade games. Also we get to watch the supreme court make up stuff on the fly,( I can’t wait until they finally render a decision on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin) The danger here is not suffering the supreme embarrassment and expense of an ineffective government. The danger is a growing number of citizens losing faith in govenrment…when that number becomes large enough…very strange things start to happen. Even the all powerful and mighty USSR faded rather quickly ….and also watch…the whacko 2% is going to buy the next president….$500 million…he must be right if he can get that kind of money..
- On the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of federal natural gas and 79% of federal oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.
- Onshore, 72% of oil and 84% of natural gas resources are either fully accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands
and wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use
planning or environmental reviews.
- Between 1999 and 2007, drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands increased more than 361%.
- Since 2004, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land; in that same time, only 18,954 wells were actually
drilled.
- Oil and gas companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.
- Onshore, of the 47.5 million acres of federal lands leased by oil and gas companies, only about 13 million acres are actually producing oil
and gas.
- Offshore, only 10.5 million of the 44 million leased acres are currently producing oil or gas.
- Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of federal land that are not producing oil and gas.
- The 68 million acres of leased, inactive federal land could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural
gas each day.
- That would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75%.
- 4.8 million barrels of oil equals more than six times the estimated peak production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
- Development of and production from the 68 million acres currently under lease but not in production would cut US imports of oil by one-third.
George,
You are facing a forced retirement in a few months, your republican replacement is a wiener.
What are you holding back for? Trying to get popular? Get a political advantage?
Well, sorry to break the news but hardly anybody likes you anyway, your party is in the tank, and you stabbed all of us who supported you through the hard times right in the back, so the situation ain’t likely to get better.
Just do it. Be the 9-11 George Bush for the next 6 months. It’s all or nothing time.