Off Topic · This has me worried: (page 1)
WASHINGTON (March 31) -- In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia's shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.
Obama's plan offers few concessions to environmentalists, who have been strident in their opposition to more oil platforms off the nation's shores. Hinted at for months, the plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico.
Alex Brandon, AP
President Barack Obama was set to announce the new offshore drilling policy Wednesday.
Obama was set to announce the new drilling policy Wednesday at Andrews air base in Maryland. White House officials pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and create jobs - both politically popular ideas - but the president's decisions also could help secure support for a climate change bill languishing in Congress.
The president, joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, also was set to announce that proposed leases in Alaska's Bristol Bay would be canceled. The Interior Department also planned to reverse last year's decision to open up parts of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Instead, scientists would study the sites to see if they're suitable to future leases.
Obama is allowing an expansion in Alaska's Cook Inlet to go forward. The plan also would leave in place the moratorium on drilling off the West Coast.
In addition, the Interior Department has prepared a plan to add drilling platforms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico if Congress allows that moratorium to expire. Lawmakers in 2008 allowed a similar moratorium to expire; at the time President George W. Bush lifted the ban, which opened the door to Obama's change in policy.
Under Obama's plan, drilling could take place 125 miles from Florida's Gulf coastline if lawmakers allow the moratorium to expire. Drilling already takes place in western and central areas in the Gulf of Mexico.
The president's team has been busy on energy policy and Obama talked about it in his State of the Union address. During that speech, he said he wanted the United States to build a new generation of nuclear power plans and invest in biofuel and coal technologies.
"It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development," he warned.
Obama also urged Congress to complete work on a climate change and energy bill, which has remained elusive. The president met with lawmakers earlier this month at the White House about a bill cutting emissions of pollution-causing greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020. The legislation would also expand domestic oil and gas drilling offshore and provide federal assistance for constructing nuclear power plants and carbon sequestration and storage projects at coal-fired utilities.
White House officials hope Wednesday's announcement will attract support from Republicans, who adopted a chant of "Drill, baby, drill" during 2008's presidential campaign.
The president's Wednesday remarks would be paired with other energy proposals that were more likely to find praise from environmental groups. The White House planned to announce it had ordered 5,000 hybrid vehicles for the government fleet. And on Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department are to sign a final rule that requires increased fuel efficiency standards for new cars.
Complete irresponsibility on everyone's part, ranging from the politicians to the US citizens who can't learn how to spend and save or teach their children.
We will see.
Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
George Bush completely went against his conservative ways when he passed the NCLB. Obama is staying true to his liberal end by showing that there should be government interference. However, liberals always struck me as people who are more concerned about the environment, but perhaps my stereotype was wrong on this, as Obama is proving.
Allanfan20 wrote:Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
George Bush completely went against his conservative ways when he passed the NCLB. Obama is staying true to his liberal end by showing that there should be government interference. However, liberals always struck me as people who are more concerned about the environment, but perhaps my stereotype was wrong on this, as Obama is proving.
I did some campaign work for Obama last October- first time I had done anything for a candidate in about 25 years.
As a "Progressive" (I try not to use the term Liberal anymore) I'm concerned about a host of environmental issues, our responsibilities, actions, and prestige as a world power, regulating businesses so that they don't exploit Americans, and having a Supreme Court that has some degree of balance between Right and Left. To be honest, since Congress, if they have the will, can deal with most of the above issues except for the latter, I have always been more concerned about the President's ability to nominate SC justices.
Of course facing the possibility of having Palin as VP to a very old McCain was another issue which spurred me into action
I am somewhat disappointed with Obama at this point, but it is still early, although his offshore drilling issue surprised me. I'm also not a big fan of his Ed Secretary and some of his ideas on how schools should work.
Obama is a left of center Democrat, IMO, at this point.
Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
He is, but since day one Obama has tried to position himself as a president of the people with an eye towards bi-partisanship.
But this is a shrewd political move. In order to move towards his environmental goals, he threw conservatives this off shore drilling bone to marginalize their objections. Now this makes it impossible to rant and rave because they would have to do a complete about face.
'Bama is playing chess not checkers out here. Off shore drilling is the ultimate pawn.
sebstar wrote:Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
He is, but since day one Obama has tried to position himself as a president of the people with an eye towards bi-partisanship.
But this is a shrewd political move. In order to move towards his environmental goals, he threw conservatives this off shore drilling bone to marginalize their objections. Now this makes it impossible to rant and rave because they would have to do a complete about face.
'Bama is playing chess not checkers out here. Off shore drilling is the ultimate pawn.
Hope you are right, my friend. Hopefully things don't change too much following the 2010 elections.
Justice Stevens, by the way, just announced that he will retire during Obama's term as Prez- allowing obama to replace him with another progressive justice. A pawn sacrifices himself to give Obama another chance for a move.
sebstar wrote:Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
He is, but since day one Obama has tried to position himself as a president of the people with an eye towards bi-partisanship.
But this is a shrewd political move. In order to move towards his environmental goals, he threw conservatives this off shore drilling bone to marginalize their objections. Now this makes it impossible to rant and rave because they would have to do a complete about face.
'Bama is playing chess not checkers out here. Off shore drilling is the ultimate pawn.
So you do something that could potentially destroy the environment around here because it's throwing the conservatives a bone? I'm sorry, but I find that extremely hard to believe. The reason he did that was so we'd be less reliant on foreign oil because we're in so much debt, it almost seems insurmountable.
I know we owe a lot of money, but there's things we can't be touching right now and one of those things is the environment. It's literally hanging on a thread all around the world. When you do something like this, it just speeds up the "wipe it away" process.
There's no way to support this move, even if it is a pawn.
Allanfan20 wrote:sebstar wrote:Paladin55 wrote:I told my conservative friends that Obama was much more of a centrist/moderate than they thought he was, but they did not want to believe me.We will see.
He is, but since day one Obama has tried to position himself as a president of the people with an eye towards bi-partisanship.
But this is a shrewd political move. In order to move towards his environmental goals, he threw conservatives this off shore drilling bone to marginalize their objections. Now this makes it impossible to rant and rave because they would have to do a complete about face.
'Bama is playing chess not checkers out here. Off shore drilling is the ultimate pawn.
So you do something that could potentially destroy the environment around here because it's throwing the conservatives a bone? I'm sorry, but I find that extremely hard to believe. The reason he did that was so we'd be less reliant on foreign oil because we're in so much debt, it almost seems insurmountable.
I know we owe a lot of money, but there's things we can't be touching right now and one of those things is the environment. It's literally hanging on a thread all around the world. When you do something like this, it just speeds up the "wipe it away" process.
There's no way to support this move, even if it is a pawn.
And to be honest- I'm not sure anything we can find offshore really puts a significant dent into our addiction for foreign oil- it just continues to allow us to believe that we can delay the inevitable. If he does allow oil companies the right to drill offshore, we should at least get something of value back in return from them- some form of Big Oil backing for environmental programs/projects they might not normally associate themselves with, or even programs they might oppose. At least throw environmentalists some kind of bone.