Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.
Posted on 07/19/2008 8:47:49 AM PDT by Libloather
Congress must confront offshore-drilling ban
The yearly renewal process means vote will be hard to avoid
Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:02 PM
By Jack Torry
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
WASHINGTON — With the issues of oil exploration and high gasoline prices heating up in an election year, the House and Senate likely will be forced to vote on whether to continue a ban on oil exploration off U.S. coasts.
Although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have blocked Republican efforts to end the 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling, few people realize that Congress is required to approve the prohibition on an annual basis.
Tucked away in the annual spending bill for the U.S. Department of Interior is a section that forbids the federal government from spending any money to offer leases to oil companies off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic seaboard.
Earlier this summer, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., a member of the House appropriations committee, offered an amendment to strike the ban from the bill. House Democratic leaders responded by canceling all committee votes on the measure.
But because the government runs out of money at the end of the federal spending year on Sept. 30, at some point the House and Senate must approve a temporary spending bill to finance the Interior Department. That could give House and Senate Republicans a chance to offer an amendment to end the ban.
“My boss will explore all options to make sure that provision is not in the bill,” said Pat Creighton, a spokesman for Peterson. Creighton said House Democratic leaders have blocked a committee vote on ending the ban “because they know we'll win.”
During the past 18 years, the congressional ban did not matter because former President George H.W. Bush issued an executive order banning offshore exploration. But last week, President Bush ended the ban, forcing Congress to extend the prohibition or clear the way for drilling.
With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon, analysts think a majority of the House and Senate want to end the ban. Polls show that large majorities of Americans favor ending the ban if it would lead to greater oil production and lower gasoline prices.
But environmentalists and leading Democrats say the ban is necessary to prevent environmental catastrophe, such as in 1969, when a drilling rig off California caused an underground blowout that released 3 million gallons of oil. The slick spread over 800 square miles and coated 35 miles of coastline near Santa Barbara.
Democrats heatedly accuse Republicans of exploiting voter fears about gasoline prices. They say that even if Congress ended the ban today, it would take years to bring even one drop of oil to market.
The issue has emerged in the race between Rep. Zack Space, D-Dover, and his GOP opponent, former Ohio Agriculture Director Fred Dailey.
Space was a co-sponsor of an energy bill that failed to win House passage today.
The bill would have required the oil companies to drill on federal leases they already hold as well as having the government offer more leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. That area is separate from the controversial Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where oil companies are prohibited from drilling.
The bill gained the support of 244 House members while 173 opposed it. But because House Democratic leaders employed a procedure to prevent Republicans from offering any amendments — such as ending the ban on offshore drilling — the measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass.
In a statement, Space charged that congressional Republicans blocked the bill, choosing to “ place partisan politics over the needs of our struggling families.”
But Sean Bartley, a Dailey spokesman, called the bill “laughable because it does nothing to promote drilling.”
The American Petroleum Institute says many of the 68million acres in the bill do not contain oil or have not been explored enough to determine whether they do.
Will the RATS finally crumble to the will of the American people? If no, they'll be in even more trouble than they are now.
Keep on congress. Maybe, with enough pressure we can get them to cave. According to recent poll 65% of Americans want offshore drilling. That’s 56% more than congress approval rating.
Pelosi AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
Its called solving a problem that you created and we are willing to wait. If you like $5/gal, Thank Congress in Nov.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.
My conservative congressman is asking for letters telling how rising fuel prices have affected us. Thank God he replaced the anti drilling RINO we had before.
27 years of an offshore drilling ban just happens to come to an end during an election year and the highest prices in history. My bet is that the prices were allowed to skyrocket in order to force Congress to lift the ban. Just my own thoughts.
Bottom line is that congress will simply “kick the can on down the road” and pass a Continuing Resolution. That way, no one has to vote on a drilling ban either way and the gubmint stays open! Congress will simply deal with this and other sticky issues next year under a new administration. No way Bush is going to veto a CR and shut down the gubmint over off shore drilling or any other reason.
So, in other words, you think the rise in oil prices is a conspiracy by "BuxhCheneyHitler" to force the lifting of the ban.
Are you absolutely SURE that you're posting on the right forum?? That kind of thinking seems more appropriate to DU.
There seems to be as many Big Oil Conspiracy fans here at FR as anywhere.
if they choose not to, this is the republicans’ chance to regain some of my confidence
i was not sure what the department did
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Interior
As of mid-2004, the Department managed 507 million acres (2,050,000 km²) of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States. It manages 476 dams and 348 reservoirs through the Bureau of Reclamation, 388 national parks, monuments, seashore sites, etc. through the National Park Service, and 544 national wildlife refuges through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Energy projects on federally managed lands and offshore areas supply about 28 percent of the nation's energy production.
Operating units:
National Park Service
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Land Management
Minerals Management Service
Office of Surface Mining
U.S. Geological Survey
Bureau of Reclamation
Office of Insular Affairs
Employees 71,436 (2004)
Annual Budget $10.7 billion (2004)
...
drop the drilling ban from the budget bill or do not pass the budget
close the department of the interior if necessary - life can go on without it - close the national parks and monuments - force the democrats to defend their drilling ban
Please tell us who did that and, mainly, how it was done.
If we also would pass a law to guarantee $3.50/gal and NO TAX on oil-cracked diesel, we'd have this whole damn mess behind us in a couple of years.
The GREAT FEAR of the US Oil companies is that they'll invest in an alternative carbon-based fuel which costs approx $70/bbl to produce and OPEC will see fit to lower the price of a barrel to $55, leaving them hanging.
[No way Bush is going to veto a CR and shut down the gubmint over off shore drilling or any other reason.]
Why not? If anything would bring attention to the Democrats obstrucion, that would.
Sounds like a great plan to me!!
So it is only a coincidence.
...except when "W" rescinded the executive ban the price of oil dropped $6 bbl...
SO, what will the market do if we suddenly said yes to drilling?
Price controls don't work. Only a very young person or an avowed socialist would think so. What we need is congress to get out of business and let the free market run. They have no business regulating prices or regulating land as far as that goes. Get them out of our face and we will do fine just as we used to before we let the communistic democratic party get control of the country, and that includes the news media.
So Congress is going to wait until Sept. 30th before obstructing oil exploration again? I guess there’s no real hurry to do nothing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.