Let me be real clear: The Democrats have no practical energy plan. Just today, Barack Obama proposed a $1,000 tax rebate for middle class and low income Americans. The rebate would be financed by a windfall profits tax. The last time there was an oil windfall profits tax, Jimmy Carter was president--he signed the legislation into law--and the results were disastrous.
I have an idea for Obama--why not work towards allowing additional offshore drilling? Then energy prices will go down, and there will be less of a need--or no need at all--for a windfall profits tax to offset high energy costs.
The Democrats control both houses of Congress. As I write this, Republicans in the House of Representatives are meeting on the floor of their chamber demanding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi call for a vote a bill to rescind Congress' ban on offshore drilling. At one time this afternoon, the microphones and the lights in the House were turned off. The Republicans kept at it, though.
Think about all of this the next time you fill up your car's gas tank--and it costs you $50.
Drill offshore. Drill onshore. Drill.
UPDATE 8:00PM Obama Time (Also known as Central Time): Do we have another Obama flip flop in the air? AP is calling it a "shift." It appears that Obama is reading his declining poll numbers and just might consider allowing offshore drilling! It's a step in the right direction, but his positions on more nuclear plants (Obama is against them), coal (against it, unless it's ethereal "clean" coal) is in contrast to what most Americans favor.
As Rob from Illinois Reason (Hey, I linked to you) pointed out, the picture is not of two offshore oil rigs. It's a picture from my 2007 Kansas trip. Here's some Obama trivia for you all--One of Obama's maternal great-granfathers managed an oil lease for Standard Oil in Kansas. So I guess there is oil in Obama's blood.
Good judgement? That's another matter.
Oh, I am aware that John McCain is a recent convert to expanding offhore drilling. However, circumstances have changed--gas has tripled in price in the years since McCain first expressed his opposition to rigs in the briney.
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8 comments:
The GOP blocked the original 'drill now' bill from two weeks ago.
Kinda puts the lie to your (and their) Johnny One-Note lack of an energy plan.
Of course, that was a bill to force the oil companies to drill in the 68 million acres they're already leasing instead of in protected and sensitive natural areas... but who's counting since fewer drills means higher profits for the record-breaking oil industry, eh?
And it's kinda weird that your title says "off-shore" but you show oil derricks that are clearly on land. Not enough spilled oil in the Mississippi for you this summer?
I try to use my own pics when I can, and since I have not laid eyes on American salt water for three years, I chose a photo from my Kansas trip for this post. Those rigs are near Kingman, in the south central part of the state. Secondly, I called for drilling on land two.
Thirdly, the bill you cited was not about offshore drilling.
Although I do admire your persistence.
As for the spilled oil on the Mississippi, that was analgous to two oil trucks hitting each other on Interstate 57. That oil could have come from Kansas for all we know.
I was just ribbing you on the pic. No biggee. Besides, the oil being spilled in recent weeks has been in the freshwater Ol' Miss and the fact is you (and everyone else) would be a lot less likely to vacation near "American salt water" with off-shore rigs nearby anyway.
The bill I cited called for more drilling, period. I didn't say more off-shore drilling.
To wit: drilling on land is cheaper than drilling at sea.
If the oil cos. wanted to drill for more oil, they would be using that 68 million acres first because the profits would be higher (less start up cost) and the lead time shorter (quicker start up time). But that's a big "if".
This entire baloney about "drill here, drill now" is bogus -- just admit it.
If the oil cos. wanted to drill here and drill now they would be, they already have the leases to do so.... (And yes, many smaller lease-holders are dropping drills and setting up derricks because the cost per barrel makes it profitable for smaller groups willing to make those bets. But the Big Oil cos. are sitting pretty with their record-breaking profits so they don't have as much incentive to drill: Fewer drills means higher profits for them in the short run.)
And what makes you think setting up drills that won't produce for another 8-10 years and whose oil will likely be sold to Asian nations anyway will drop the price now in the first place?
Gas prices have come down in recent weeks not because there's more off-shore drilling but because people are driving less and, collectively, the "free" market has spoken... Go figure.
At some point we'll run out oil. In the late 1970s I had teachers indoctrinating me that we'd be out of oil by 1995. Oops.
Simply put, we need oil, to use Jerry Reinsdorf's favorite phrase, to take us to the next level. (Or is it from A to B, the B to C?). C being clean energy. If we have wind power (which is not cheap by the way) supply us with oodles of power in five years, what do we do with the 200 million cars, including the two in my household, with internal combustion engines? Like McCain and other Republicans, I favor more nuclear plants.
Rob, I'm serious, this is a loser issue for you guys. People vote their pocketbooks.
That's an amusing bit of Kansas trivia -- Obama's ancestor was an oil man. The truth is, lots of people in Kansas are involved in the oil industry, including my brother and sister-in-law. They have oil wells on their ranch, and my sister-in-law is the financial officer of a oilfield parts supply company.
I want to say a bit about the windfall profits, though. The oil companies' profit margins aren't that spectacular -- that is, the amount of profit per dollar of income Many American companies have higher profit margins than Big Oil, so should the government decide that they are making too much profit and penalize them, also?
People do vote their pocketbooks, but they're also not stupid.
Drilling here and drilling now will produce oil in 8-10 years... And the major oil companies have already admitted they'd likely sell the oil from our shores to folks in China and other uber-developing countries.
So again, how does opening up our sensitive natural areas to oil drilling (thereby ruining tourist attractions along thousands of coastal miles) help alleviate this summer's crunch?
And why would you want to open up pristine protected areas when there are 68 million acres of unused but readily available leased land out there that the oil cos. are shunning in the name of profits?
People vote their pocketbooks, but oil cos. drill for their profit lines.
Okay...
Drilling now will produce oil, which will go into the worlds total production, in 8-10 years, helping the overall supply/demand situation?
Great.
Start now. Start here.
Grey,
If we do "drill here" for oil that'll come online in 8-10 years... even those oil deposits will dry up as Mr. Ruberry admits.
Shouldn't we be using the record-shattering profits the oil cos. are reaping to invest in renewable energy that will replace oil in our system?
Right now oil has an effective monopoly on energy for transportation. Shouldn't we be smart and heading off peak oil at the pass?
What's the point in delaying the inevitable, except to score a few cheap partisan points and score some petrodollars for those record-breaking bottom lines?
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