Posted on 06/27/2008 7:04:55 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
There is no place like Free Republic for getting answers, so here goes. I'm arguing away on another site about how Bush said we should drill ANWR six years ago, but the Democrats stopped us. Then someone asked, since the GOP controlled the House and Senate in 2002... how did the Dems stop us?
And I realized I did not know the answer. How DID they stop us? Does anyone know?
Probably Senate filibuster. Need 60 votes to end it which we didn’t have.
In 2001 President Bush pushed for domestic drilling, refineries on old military bases, and nuclear energy. He was stopped by all the DEMs and our RINOs. At the time gas and crude oil was fairly cheap so the issues was not a pressing issue. Only Bush who has the foresight saw all this coming.
But the Democrats have been 100% consistent in opposing all increased domestic drilling, new refineries, and nuclear energy.
Gang of 14?
Try 1995... when Rapist42 vetoed exploration in ANWR. But it all began when the Dem’s embraced the enviro-kooks demands as part of their party platform.
Millions of dollars form the communists in the disguise of environmentalists was the main help I would bet. Remember that a watermelon is green on the outside but communist red inside.
At $2.00 a gallon he was all for drilling bans.
Lost in that logic is the fact that if he and his spineless buddies would of stood up for energy security instead of Kowtowing to the Environmental Socialists, we wouldn't have $4.00 a gallon gasoline.
There have always also been Republican crossover votes as well as Republican non-votes. Republicans in power are not exactly 100% innocent.
The Democrat congress (Communists), under the influence of rabid environmentalists (Communists) have for decades in the name of environmentalism set aside “sensitive” areas and forbidden drilling there. The spineless GOP go along to get along — they don’t want to offend anyone. The whole state of Alaska, national wetlands and the entire US coastline should be opened up and drilled. There is a drilling rig less than 200 yards from my own property, so I am not sympathetic to those weenies.
Last year, the House, citing the need for more domestic oil to ease the reliance on imports, gave a green light to drilling in the refuge, but the Senate refused to go along.
Many Senate Democrats, joined by a handful of moderate Republicans, have repeatedly blocked pro-drilling legislation, arguing that the refuge would be harmed ecologically. The coastal plain, which includes calving areas for caribou, is home to polar bears and other wildlife, as well as being a stopover for an annual migration of millions of birds.
The article also mentions that, "Without the refuge’s development, oil flowing from the North Slope would fall to 500,000 barrels a day — half of current levels — by 2025 and approach levels at which the pipeline may no longer be economical to operate," but your opponent would point out the line:
Opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil development would only slightly reduce America’s dependence on imports and would lower oil prices by less than 50 cents a barrel, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Energy Department.
The report, issued by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said that if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the crude could begin flowing by 2013 and reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025.
Good luck!
The Republican Testicular Lockbox and the Rats have the keys...............
This is not one of those problems you can assign to the dems exclusively. There have been plenty of republicans that have been against drilling.
Goes back to the moron Jimmah Carter who scammed the American people along with his cohorts.
I like Coulter’s recent take on the matter:
How do liberals propose we acquire the energy required for the economic activity and production that results in light appearing when they flick a switch? The larger enterprise involved in producing that little miracle eludes them.
Liberals complain that — as B. Hussein Obama put it — there’s “no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road.”
This is as opposed to airplanes that run on woodchips, which should be up and running any moment now.
Moreover, what was going on five years ago? Why didn’t anyone propose drilling back then?
Say, you know what we need? We need a class of people paid to anticipate national crises and plan solutions in advance. It would be such an important job, the taxpayers would pay them salaries so they wouldn’t have to worry about making a living and could just sit around anticipating crises.
If only we had had such a group — let’s call them “elected representatives” — they could have proposed drilling five years ago!
But of course we do pay people to anticipate national problems and propose solutions. Some of them — we’ll call them Republicans — did anticipate high gas prices and propose solutions.
Six long years ago President Bush had the foresight to demand that Congress allow drilling in a minuscule portion of the Alaska’s barren, uninhabitable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 2002, Bush, Tom DeLay and the entire Republican Party were screaming from the rooftops: Drill! Drill! Drill!
We’d be gushing oil now — except the Democrats stopped us from drilling.
envirowackos
Unfortunately, too many in the GOP thought trying to impress environmentalists was more important than sound energy policy and went along with all the DEMS to fight drilling. The moderates in the GOP (and even Bush to some degree) destroyed the GOP majority. Instead of leading with more conservative principles, they pandered and ended up being not much better than Democrats.
House Republican leaders decided late last night to drop authorization for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from a $54 billion deficit reduction bill. The policy reversal was prompted by moderate Republican House members who told the leadership in a letter that the refuge is of greater benefit to the nation if it remains pristine than if it is opened to oil and gas exploration.
"There will be no drilling in ANWR," said New Hampshire Republican Congressman Charles Bass who authored the letter. "I conveyed the moderate Republicans' concern with this provision to the leadership, that message was heard, and this damaging language has been stripped from the bill."
What happened in 2002? I would guess it was stopped by the "moderates."
John McCain
Carter had a lot to do with it, now we have Carter II (Obama) in the speed seat headed toward the white house.
Thank you both!
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