Posted on 07/18/2008 9:03:50 AM PDT by Bobkk47
President Bush continues to turn up the heat on Congress over its refusal, so far, to lift a ban on offshore drilling that covers much of the nation's coasts.
The president's latest salvo came Monday when he rescinded an executive ban on oil and gas drilling, signed by his father in 1990.
"This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress," President Bush said during a Rose Garden appearance.
The executive ban was one of two roadblocks that have for decades protected our fragile beaches from possible oil spills. Standing between pristine beaches and drilling rigs is one more obstacle — a congressional moratorium, which Congress has reaffirmed every year since it was established in 1981.
This escalation in wills comes a month after the president, along with Sen. John McCain, urged Congress to lift its ban before leaving on its Fourth of July recess. Lawmakers refused. The Star now urges it to reject this latest call as well.
We have argued before that these offshore-drilling prohibitions were imposed decades ago for valid reasons that still apply: Continued investment in this finite resource is not worth risking our coastal environment, local economies, tourism and fishing industries to a destructive oil spill.
With gas prices topping $4 a gallon, the public has been clamoring for relief, but opening America's coasts to drilling rigs will do nothing to ease today's prices. It will take at least a decade to reach the production stage. Even President Bush admits opening coastal waters to drilling "won't produce a barrel of oil tomorrow."
The president and others are using pain at the pump as a wedge to justify an action that otherwise would be routinely rejected.
Anyone who supports lifting the bans must not have lived along this county's coast in early 1969 when a massive oil spill left county beaches and wildlife blackened with gooey oil.
Using this logic, if there is a fire in my apartment building, it should be torn down, never to be rebuilt.
After the worst oil spill ever in Alaska, there is no trace of damage.
We have the endangered ridley sea turtle, but do they care on the West Coast! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo....
Screw’em... No more oil for the West Coast. Calling my Senators and Congressman right now! ;-)
Amazing... they have to go back to 1969 to defend their no-drill policies! They act like we live in a time bubble - I’m not in the oil drilling business, but I’m pretty sure that like every other industry since that time - radical improvements in technology have been made.
True, but doing NOTHING will ensure that we'll continue to pay $4 a gallon or MORE into the foreseeable future.
STOOPID gits.
When we start proposing/constructing new nuclear facilities we will be reminded over and over in the press of Chernobyl and “The China Syndrome” will start popping up on television regularly.
DRIll!
Gas will still be needed 10 years from now.
If we ahd drilled off shore 10 years a go we would ahve the oil now.
Typical short-sighted congress.
The Ventura County Star editor must drive a 40 year old car.
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