Obama Oil Drilling Ban on Thin Ice

American Thinker ^ | December 24, 2016 | Daniel John Sobieski

[Kaslin]

resident Obama apparently wants his legacy to be one of energy starvation for the United States and dependence on foreign energy from friendly places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. His ban on offshore drilling in federally owned waters off our Atlantic and Arctic coasts makes no sense, either environmentally or economically. As the Washington Times notes, Obama thinks he can get away with it:

Vowing that his successor won’t be able to reverse his actions, President Obama on Tuesday used executive authority to permanently ban new offshore drilling in federally owned waters off the Atlantic coast and in the Arctic Ocean.

Mr. Obama used authority in a section of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law, to ban the drilling. The law includes a provision that allows a president to put certain waters off-limits to oil and gas production.

The presidential authority was used in conjunction with similar actions by Canada, which also moved to prohibit drilling in its own Arctic waters. The U.S. move will ban drilling in the vast majority of American waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, in addition to areas off the Atlantic coast stretching from New England to Virginia.

It is ironic that a president who has used executive orders to get around laws now cites a 63-year-old law to justify an offshore drilling ban. Executive orders can be overturned with another executive order. And a 1953 law written when offshore and deep water drilling technology was in its infancy can be amended or repealed. Technology has advanced a lot since 1953. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking didn’t exist six decades ago. Oil drilling technology is safer, more advanced and requires a smaller footprint.

[HerrBlucher]

Trump will dispense with this idiotic ban promptly.

[COBOL2Java]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

[eyeamok]

energy starvation for the United States and dependence on foreign energy from friendly places like Saudi Arabia and Iran”

Jimmy Carter created the Department of Energy to insure just tha, see Gas Lines, Rationing, odd/even days in the late 70’s, I lived it.

[Puppage]

Odd/even days! Man, I remember that, too. I had 2 license plates.

[albie]

YOU lived the gas lines! I was a cab driver during the rationing! I had to sit in gas lines 4 to 5 times a day.

[grania]

Just being logical: one would think that anything done by Obama by Executive Order can be undone by DJT by Executive Order. It would be very nice day if on Inaugauration Day, within 15 minutes of being sworn in, DJT signs an EO rescinding EVERY EO Obama signed after the election.

[eyeamok]

We all carried 5 gallon Gas Cans and would walk up and bribe people getting gas to fill our cans before shutting pump off, I had to take my Plates OFF numerous times to get gas.

[SandRat]

His legacy is going to end up being the most ill spoken of, disliked, condemned former president in American history.

[Original Lurker]

No sitting president nor congress can tie the hands of a future president or congress.
They tried this same sh!t with Obamacare.

I’ll be glad when this feral baboon is gone.
Constitutional expert my rear.

[teeman8r]

This childish maneuver can be easily reversed by the new president limiting production offshore by negative 100 percent

[Vigilanteman]

Please remind me who wrote that. I remember my father reciting it to me along with the "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner."

Dad spent many boring hours in the South Pacific in the U.S. Navy during World War II before getting in on some dangerous action in 1944-45. He devoured poetry from the ship's library.

For a guy who grew up herding sheep on a reservation, he was a brilliant man.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Considering Jimmah Cahtah’s 4 years, that’s some accomplishment.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

Obama is going to go out in his last months showing his true feelings that were politically surpressed these last eight years.

[sport]

So did I. I did not like Jimmy Carter then. I do not like Jimmy Carter now.

[bert]

Trump will do nothing. The trivial Obama action actually accomplishes nothing and harms nothing

Fracking and recent permian basin mega discoveries mean no one wants to drill in these areas any way

[Fightin Whitey]

Coleridge.

[COBOL2Java]

Percy Bysshe Shelley. I read his works in college when I took a course in English Lit. His wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wrote "Frankenstein".

[KC-10A BOOMER]

My crew used to joke with receiver aircraft if they had an odd or even tail number when air refueling. Don’t miss those days of fuel rationing at all.

[Fightin Whitey]

My mistake...

I thought you were asking for author of The “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”