Posted on 09/18/2008 12:52:58 PM PDT by pabianice
Democrats in the U.S. House want you to think that they support expanded drilling for oil and natural gas. They don't. Their vote on Tuesday proved it.
New Hampshire Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes voted along with the rest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's poodle army for what they claim is a comprehensive energy bill that responsibly expands domestic drilling off our coasts. In the Atlantic and Pacific, the bill allows drilling from 100 to 200 miles offshore. It allows drilling from 50 to 100 miles offshore with state approval. The eastern Gulf of Mexico would remain off limits.
Click for Editorials & Op-EdsUnder the bill, all land within 50 miles of shore would remain off limits. Oh, by the way, the Interior Department says that 88 percent of all offshore oil currently blocked by the federal drilling ban is located within 50 miles of shore.
This bill is a total fraud. It gives us access to only 12 percent of the estimated oil reserves we are currently not allowed to access. If Congress takes no action in the next two weeks, guess how much of that oil we could tap? One hundred percent.
The congressional ban on offshore drilling is not a permanent ban. It expires in two weeks! If Congress does nothing, all oil reserves currently closed to exploration will become accessible on Oct. 1. So this bill actually takes from 100 to 12 the percentage of blocked oil reserves we could begin reaching for two weeks from now.
Furthermore, the bill gives the appearance of opening drilling from 50 to 100 miles from shore, but it actually discourages this. The bill requires state approval for drilling within that range, but it does not allow states to share in revenues from oil leases granted there. So states such as California, which faces a huge budget shortfall, have less incentive to give that approval.
Democrats who have opposed expanded domestic drilling forever suddenly found themselves on the losing end of a major economic issue after gas prices hit $4 a gallon. Now they are pushing a phony drilling bill to fool the American people into believing that the Democrats support new oil exploration.
It is exactly this type of politics that has given the Democratic Congress a lower approval rating than President Bush.
The people will remember that Nancy Pelosi and her puppets blocked every proposal this year to expand domestic drilling for oil and natural gas, adjourned for a five-week recess while oil was near $4 a gallon and only got around to acting at all on the issue a mere two weeks before the drilling ban was set to expire and seven weeks before the election. And the action they finally approved was actually worse than doing nothing!
This is gamesmanship, not leadership. And the people can tell the difference.
Of course they don’t support offshore drilling! They passed this thing to make themselves look good. It’s all a sham and a lie!
I haven’t heard McCain & Palin directly speak about against it yet. I hope they do! They need to! I have, however, heard them talk about their continued commitment to energy independence, so they may talk about the bill, soon.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!!
Of course the Democrat plan is to present this bill and have it voted down or vetoed by Bush.Oh, by the way, the Interior Department says that 88 percent of all offshore oil currently blocked by the federal drilling ban is located within 50 miles of shore.
This bill is a total fraud. It gives us access to only 12 percent of the estimated oil reserves we are currently not allowed to access.
If Congress takes no action in the next two weeks, guess how much of that oil we could tap? One hundred percent.
Then they can say that they presented a bill to solve the drilling problem, and the Republicans wouldn't let it pass.
They are transparent to the politically astute, but not to the masses. It's unfortunate that so many are ill informed.
You have to wonder, whose side is the Democrats on, it sure isn’t America’s.
Just like the mortgage scam Fannie and Freddie, which were nothing more than Democrat piggy banks ... Energy has gone from simple, to so hard for Democrats to get right.
Why doesn’t McCain speak up about this, he is still in the Senate isn’t he?
Americans pay in all cases, not good.
If Bush don’t veto this...... he is in league with the democrats..
The Democrat Party is behaving more as an enemy of the United States than a defender..
Nothing else explains why everything they do weakens the nation, the economy or our military capabilities...
More troubling - is all the help the bastards are getting from most of the media and too damned many “Republicans”..
I believe Bush has already stated that if this bill passed the Senate, he would veto it.
Thank you, George.
As always, it’s about control. As much and as quickly as they can get it.
Here’s the bill in a nutshell:
1. You may drill only where there is probably no oil to be found.
2. If you find any oil, we’ll charge you huge amounts of money to get it out.
3. We will not share any of that money that we get from the oil that you find with the states off whose shores you find it and you must get their permission to do so.
4. Should you by some slim chance get permission from the states to drill for oil off their shores that they aren’t going to get any money for, we will make it so environmentally impossible for you to remove the oil that you will not possibly want to do it in the first place.
So . . .what happens if Congress manages to push this phony-baloney through and Pres Bush waits until the current legislation expires, then refuses to sign this bill?
New Hampshire has no representation in the US House of Representatives. Both of our “Representatives” are part of the “Nazi Pelosi Poodle Pack”!
You have to wonder, whose side is the Democrats on, it sure isn’t America’s.
If you refer to the Democrat Politcal Party you are correct that they are not interested in doing anything for AMERICA.
With a lame Duck President depised by the national Media the Democrats took control of Congress, what did they accomplish in over a year and a half?
They raised the Federal Minumum wage. Anyone rember that? Anyone benifit from that? Anyone benifitting from that today?
Did they allow America to step towards more energy independance by allowing America to drill for oil? NO.
With between 12-20 MILLION illegal immigranst in ouir Country have they enacted any legizlation to help AMERICA? NO. With Lenders going belly up because the Congress pressed for subprime loans to garner votes amongst the poor, did Congress act? NO.
Remeber this in November. A Democrat Congress has done nothng but SCREW AMERICA and if Obama gets in Office AMERICA GETS DOUBLE SCREWED.....
The good news is that President Bush will meet this Bill at the front door of the Whitehouse, veto pen in hand!
Sometimes those Chinese guys have just the phrase needed to 'splain what your own eyes see.
I was going to sarcastically comment that, other than that is was a pretty good bill, but then I remembered that it also requires a 10% drawdown from the SPR and billions of dollars in added costs to oil companies in the form of taxes that would be passed on to consumers..
So, it is a totally worthless bill.
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