Posted on 05/24/2008 7:55:08 AM PDT by Clairity
Energy Security: With the prospect of an oil shortage and $12 gas, the energy crisis is turning into a national emergency. One solution: Give states the option to develop offshore tracts.
Uncle Sam bans states from drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf mainly to protect the environment. Some 85% of the U.S. coastline is off-limits to energy production - including huge reserves off Florida's coast, which China is exploiting in Cuban waters.
To change that, a lawmaker is offering a novel idea. Rep. Sue Myrick of the House Energy and Commerce panel wants to let coastal states decide whether drilling is environmentally risky. She has introduced a bill that would give coastal states that want offshore drilling the power to opt out of the Interior Department's offshore restrictions.
And politicians concerned about America's energy security ought to do a better job educating the public with the facts. For example:
- Less than one one-thousandth of a percent (0.001%) of the 7 billion-plus barrels of oil that Washington has allowed to be produced offshore over the past 25 years has been spilled, according to the Interior Department.
- A whopping 63% of petro pollution in North American seas comes not from offshore rigs, but from natural seepage from the sea floor. Source: National Academy of Sciences.
- There hasn't been a major oil spill from an offshore well since 1969 even though rigs since then have been lashed by Katrina and other major hurricanes.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
That graphic isn’t completely correct. Drilling in the Cook Inlet south of Anchorage, Alaska is allowed, primarily because production was established before Congress decided to ban everything.
To these Democrats, the only enemies are conservatives. The goal of Democrats is to bring down the might of the United States in order to consolidate their political power. They would much rather be beholdent to the Chinas, Syrias, and Venezuelas of the world than to those they despise most - the American wealth creators.
Scary parallels to the current situation. All we need now is the Obamination or Hitlery as POTUS to repeat this bit of history.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: just start drilling and DARE Congress to stop it. We’re going to have to challenge the evil people who choose to destroy us. Congress is a rogue body and they don’t deserve ANY respect for their policies; they have abandoned their constitutional duties long ago. It’s time to tell them NO, we aren’t going to listen to your criminal edicts.
You hear me, Congress??? You’d better start listening because I’m pissed at your thieving ways!
My thoughts exactly. The America-haters say the rest of the world hates us because we’re so self-centered and act so superior. Those same people then demand that OTHER countries spoil THEIR environment with drilling. Who’s being superior now?!
As for Myrick’s bill. The article says it would give states the OPTION to drill. Why would Florida’s senators oppose this? They don’t HAVE to drill. They can choose not to. It’s all about appearances.
I’ve been waiting a long time for something like Myrick’s bill. Reward the states that are willing to take (small) environmental risks to drill/refine oil. If California wants to be pristine, let her citizens pay Louisiana for the risks it takes. Myrick’s finally come up with a way to let that happen.
Term limits.
You implement term limits and all the politicians in the pocketbooks of the environmentalists go away.
We should have a national referendum on it, but somehow it never makes it to the ballot box.
Have a litmus test. 1) Are you for term limits and 2) Will you promote domestic exploration. Two yesses and you have my vote.
It’s ironic that the Rats have single handedly done more to raise the price of oil by constricting supply, and yet complain about the oil industry and that the Pubs are the ones in the back pocket of the oil industry. Which party has benefited the oil industry the most?
A simple question; if this is a case of of National Security, (and I believe it is) why can’t the President issue an Executive Order stating that drilling rights in ANWR and the continental shelves be granted immediately? Would that send the D-Rats into a tizzy, or what?
Please share with everyone and thank you for the support.
The yellow zone on the left coast is probably MORE red than where you have red on US coasts. Really.
Great image. How sad.
Answer: The President can do exactly that through Executive Orders. That is how Klinton closed access to the clean-coal deposits in Utah. BTW, has anyone noticed how Hillary talks about "clean-coal?" YA think she might be fishing around for another round of illegal political contributions from the Riady's?
Here is the background on that and the quote on bill klinton using Executive Orders to get it done.
Bill Clinton’s Felonious Land Grab
Charles Signorile January 24th, 2008
Investor’s Business Daily has an editorial today which will most likely be ignored by the media as being “old news”. While it is true the story is over a decade old, it is certainly that needs to be brought to public view, in light of the fact that Democrats are pushing for new legislation to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
A large part of America’s energy dependence on foreign sources can be traced to Sept. 18, 1996, when President Bill Clinton stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona side and signed an executive proclamation making 1.7 million acres of Utah a new national monument.
Why would he dedicate a Utah monument while standing in Arizona? Well, this federal land grab was done without any consultation with the governor of Utah or any member of the Utah congressional delegation or any elected official in the state. The unfriendly Utah natives might have spoiled his photo-op
The state already had six national monuments, two national recreation areas and all or part of five national forests. Three-quarters of Utah already was in federal hands. Still, the land grab was sold as a move to protect the environment.
At the time, the Clintons were worried that Ralph Nader’s presence on the ballot in a few Western states would draw green votes from Clinton in a race that promised to be close after the GOP retook Congress two years earlier.
In fact, the declaration of 1.7 million Utah acres as a national monument, thereby depriving an energy-starved U.S. up to 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low-sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion and minable with minimal surface impact, was a political payoff to the family of James Riady.
He’s the son of Lippo Group owner Mochtar Riady. James was found guilty of — and paid a multimillion dollar fine for — funneling more than $1 million in illegal political contributions through Lippo Bank into various American political campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s presidential run in 1992.
Clinton took off the world market the largest known deposit of clean-burning coal. And who owned and controlled the second-largest deposit in the world of this clean coal? The Indonesian Lippo Group of James Riady. It is found and strip-mined on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan.
The Utah reserve contains a kind of low-sulfur, low-ash and therefore low-polluting coal that can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.
“The mother of all land grabs,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at the time. He has called what was designated as the Grande Staircase of the Escalante National Monument the “Saudi Arabia of coal.”
When Clinton signed the proclamation, he promised to exchange other federal lands for the land that was taken. But a fair exchange was impossible, Hatch said, since no other land in Utah had a trillion dollars worth of clean coal.
Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, pointed out that a large portion of the coal-rich Kaiparowits Plateau within the monument belonged to the children of Utah. When Utah became a state in 1896, about 220,000 acres were set aside for development, and a trust fund was created to collect and hold all the revenues directly for the benefit of schools.
Margaret Bird, trust officer for the fund, said that because the land will not be developed, the schools stand to lose as much as $1 billion over the next 50 years. Phyllis Sorensen, head of the Utah chapter of the National Education Association, called Clinton’s action a “felonious assault” and “stealing from the schoolchildren.”
Stealing from children to reward Indonesian billionaires. How pathetic.
Nah, that is just the Democrats.
</sarc>
That would mean that the 4,000 or so lives lost there were just so we could drive our SUV's.
Conservatives wanted to drill for oil here to be independent of Mideast oil.
Liberals didn't want to drill here because it might hurt the environment.
So, I would think then that the liberals would believe it to be OK to spend 4,000 or so good American lives to save the caribou in ANWAR.
To sum up, we are fighting in Iraq to get oil that liberal policies won't let us get at home. So, the war in Iraq is not Bush's fault, but the liberals.
By the way,I'm a little confused about your name 'ExTexasRedhead'. Does that mean you're now a blonde living in Texas, or a redhead not living in Texas, or not a redhead not living in Texas?
I was born and raised in Texas and now live elsewhere and I have red hair.
I agree totally with you regarding Liberal elitist, anti-American politicians that want to turn America into a third-world POS at the cost of brave American lives. I pray that God will judge Liberals harshly for their traitorous, treasonous ways.
God bless our troops, past and present, and may he watch over them every minute.
One obstacle would be that such a thing would unconstitutional.
There are no national elections provided for in the constitution. Even when you vote for President, you are voting for the electors to the electoral college within your own state.
No they couldn't. The 12 mile limit is only for navigational purposes. The US claims a 200 mile exclusive economic zone, and all minerals out to the continental shelf. The states just own the minerals out to 3 miles, except for Texas which claimed 10 miles back when it was the Republic of Texas.
The Truman administration stole Texas' offshore mineral rights between 3 and 10 miles offshore back in the late 1940's, and the federal courts allowed that action to stand. Governor Shivers endorsed Republican presidential candidate General Dwight D. Eisenhower over this issue. That was the beginning of the shift towards the Republican Party in Texas. Eventually Texas' rights to a 10 mile limit were reestablished by federal legislation in the 1950's.
Love it! All your suggestions.
Do you realize how many people that would put to work?
Thanx for link.Informative article.
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