Off Shore Oil Drilling and Politics

Okay, so the boys and I got into another delightful political debate over drinks a couple of weeks ago - and I got a little crooked in my craw because they told me I had my facts wrong. Now - I'm all for healthy disagreement, and I know that we had a philosophical "difference of opinion", but when you tell the Queen of Useless Information that her facts are wrong, you better be able to prove it. Otherwise, ugly things happen.

So the issue, as the title hints at, was the fact that the Bush administration (which is currently running in close second to Indymac in my shiteliste) is trying to get Congress to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling. Without going into reasons why I think this is a bad idea, or lapsing poetic on the delightful nuances that is the petroleum industry - my bone here is the reasons why they want to lift this ban. I believe that the Bushies are trying to get their oily grubs on more oil, and make the American people see them as heroes in the process. 'Ah' - they're saying, 'We can bring down the price of oil which is crippling your family and bringing the economy into a pit - all we need to do is get at those vast reserves of oil off our coast and under ANWR!'

But the boys disagree. It's their stance that no one is trying to say that the price of gas will go down - that I was wrong about the tactics of the Republicans.

Well - I must swallow at least one bit of that and admit that my research says that no one in the Bush Administration and the Repulicans in Conress have said that the price of gas will drop if we drill America's oil reserves. They're only hinting at it, implying that it's true and leading people to believe that it will happen - while their "official" stance is that they are aware that it really won't. Yeah. They're not trying to mislead anyone...

Ha - the boys are thinking - this is all conjecture, opinion. It's miss I-know-it-all playing her political side and just making things up. Well, I'll let the readers decide for themselves. Do any of these statements ring of someone trying to convince someone that American oil drilling will help the economy by reducing the cost of oil/gas?

At a welding plant in Ohio, Bush spoke of his desire for Congress to lift the drilling ban:

• "Now it's up to the United States Congress to make a decision as to whether or not you're going to continue to face high gasoline prices at the pump,"



• "If we're worried about your gasoline price and recognize that it's high because of the price of crude oil, and it's possible to find more oil right here in the United States ... doesn't it make sense to try to find that oil? I think it does."

In his radio broadcast this week, Bush chastised House Democrats for not acting:

• "The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get this oil from beneath the ocean floor to your gas tank."



• "By opening up new resources at home we can help bring energy costs down."

Senator McCain - who I don't normally like to pan because there are some issues that we used to agree on - in a television ad attacking Obama (as an aside, McCain opposed lifting the drilling ban in his 2000 presidential election, and did not reverse himself until June of this year):

• "Gas prices -- $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?"

A Letter from Senate Minority Leader John Boehner to Nancy Pelosi when Congress was discussing the idea of suspending shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Preserve (which I oppose, btw) is a little less subtle:

• "...though estimates of recoverable deepwater resources along our Outer Continental Shelf are notoriously outmoded, the 80 billion barrels of oil we believe is there right now would constitute a price reduction several times larger than redirecting oil from the SPR."

Republican Whip Roy Blunt also introduced the Republican plan for helping American's who are hurting from high gas prices, including the bills (from Blunt's text):

• "-- H.R. 6108, Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2008 (Week of July 28)Reduces the price of gasoline by enabling the United States to responsiblyexplore its own deep ocean to produce American energy. The bill would grantcoastal states the authority to keep exploration 100 miles from theircoastlines and it would also allow states to share in the revenues received."


• -- H.R. 6107, American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act (Week of July 21)Reduces the price of gasoline by opening the Arctic Energy Slope (ANWR) to environmentally sensitive American energy exploration. Exploration would belimited to 0.01% of the Refuge, and revenue received from the new leases wouldbe invested in a long-term alternative energy trust fund."

Now, I'll let you all do the research on why so many experts believe that this kind of drilling will have little or no long-term effect (let alone short term effect) on the cost of gas in America. And I'll let you all do your own legwork on the Democrats' equally bad idea of draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

And I'll leave you with a happy note, because no one's gonna read my blog if it's even more frustrating than talking to me in person.

How To Steal Gas A funny sketch about how to steal gas and get away with it. Of course you will need a friend who is about 2 feet tall to pull this off. If gas prices go any higher we might all have to find a friend who is that short. LOL