President Bush calls for an end to all the protecting the environment garbage. You know that federal ban that was put in place in 1990 preventing offshore oil drilling? Well W. has decided that with recent gas spikes that to “open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, asserting that those steps and others would lower gasoline prices and ’strengthen our national security’.” Yes it’s the our security you’re worried about I see.
In recent years, the president said, “scientists have developed innovative techniques to reach Anwar’s oil with virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife,” and that he is making this decision for the good of the American people.
Bush went on to say that:
“I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past,” Mr. Bush said. “Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions.”
The Democratic party? Try every party. If he can recall, it was Bush’s own father, who originally “signed a presidential executive order in 1990 banning coastal oil exploration, and Mr. Bush’s brother Jeb was an outspoken opponent of offshore drilling when he was governor of Florid.” So, let’s not tart pointing fingers. Let’s just agree that it’s a bad idea and that the only reason for this comes out of the desperate circumstances that America is in.
But of course, when Bush speaks others follow:
The president’s move to end the ban on offshore drilling reverses his longstanding position on the issue. Together with the other proposals he laid out on Wednesday, it underscores how $4-a-gallon gas has become a major issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. A growing number of Republicans are lining up in opposition to the federal ban.
This topic has already some up and I’m sure will continue to be battled out in the upcoming debates between Obama and McCain. McCain is of course backing Bush’s decision, only reinforcing the belief that McCain will be leading the country into a third Bush term.
Offshore drilling is blocked by two bans, one imposed by Congress and the other by the first President Bush’s executive order. Asked why the current President Bush did not act at once to lift the order imposed by his father, Keith Hennessey, the director of the president’s economic council, told The Associated Press, “He thinks that probably the most productive way to work with this Congress is to try to do it in tandem.”
But will this even help the public enough to take the risk? According to Senator Reid the benefits do not outweigh the positives:
“The Energy Information Administration says that even if we open the coasts to oil drilling that won’t have a significant impact on prices.”
After President Bush’s remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Reid said: “The facts are clear. Oil companies have already had ample opportunity to increase supply, but they have sat on their hands. They aren’t even using more than half of the public lands they already have leased for drilling. And despite the huge tax breaks President Bush and Republican Congresses have given oil and gas companies to invest in refineries, domestic production has actually dropped.”
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, backed Mr. Reid’s statement when she said:
“The president’s proposal sounds like another page from the administration’s energy policy that was literally written by the oil industry: give away more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they’ve already leased.”
Quotes and photo by the New York Times
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1 Lindsey // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Such is the nature of politics. My friend says that McCain’s campaign slogan should be: “Eight More Years!” Sadly, I’m convinced that Bush is trying to kill us before anyone else has the chance to assume the role of Next President. But, of course, that is just an opinion.
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