President Bush to lift offshore oil drilling ban

[Zeno Swijtink]

President Bush to lift offshore oil drilling ban
Associated Press -
Last Updated 9:15 am PDT Monday, July 14, 2008

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WASHINGTON - In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush today will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that has stood since his father was president.

But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.

The president plans to officially lift the ban and then explain his actions in a Rose Garden statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by former President Bush in 1990. The current president, trying to ease market tensions and boost supply, called last month for Congress to lift its prohibition before he did so himself.

But Perino said Bush no longer wants to wait. She pinned blame on the leaders of the Democratic Congress, noting that no action has been taken on this issue.

"They haven't even held a single hearing," Perino said. "So we are going to move forward, and hopefully that will spur action by the Congress."

Asked if Bush's action alone will lead to more oil drilling, Perino said, "In terms of allowing more exploration to go forward? No, it does not."

The president, in his final months of office, has responded to record gas-prices with a series of proposals, including more oil exploration. None would have immediate impact on prices at the pump, according to White House officials, who say there is no quick fix. But starting action now would help, they say.

Bush's proposal echoes a call by Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, to open the Continental Shelf for exploration.

Congressional Democrats have rejected the push to lift the drilling moratorium, accusing the president of hoping the U.S. can drill its way out a problem.

Bush says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start. Bush also says offshore drilling would take pressure off prices over time. In addition, the president has proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and easing the regulatory process to expand oil refining capacity.

Congressional Democrats, joined by some GOP lawmakers from coastal states, have opposed lifting the prohibition that has barred energy companies from waters along both the East and West coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A succession of presidents, from Bush's father - George H.W. Bush - to Bill Clinton, have sided against drilling in these waters, as has Congress each year for 27 years.

Their goal has to been to protect beaches and coastal states' tourism economies.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Gas from new sources in the future - such as Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or off-coast California - would be traded on the world market at prices that reflect the global scarcity of oil, and not do much for US consumers.

Better to invest in efficiency improvements, changes in life-style, and more sustainable sources depending on solar input: wind, hydro, solar, wave, all vetted project-by-project for environmental impacts.

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Bush Acts on Drilling, Challenging Democrats

Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
“The time for action is now,” President Bush said from the Rose Garden as he announced that he was lifting a presidential moratorium on drilling.

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CARL HULSE
Published: July 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush lifted nearly two decades of executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country’s shoreline on Monday while challenging Congress to open up more areas for exploration to address soaring energy prices.

Democrats in Congress, joined by environmentalists, criticized the step and ridiculed it as ineffectual, while most Republicans and industry representatives applauded it as long overdue.

The lifting of the moratorium — first announced by Mr. Bush’s father, President George Bush, in 1990 and extended by President Bill Clinton — will have no real impact because a Congressional moratorium on drilling enacted in 1981 and renewed annually remains in force. And there appeared to be no consensus for lifting it in tandem with Mr. Bush’s action.

Rather than signaling a change in the country’s policy, the president’s decision appeared only to harden well-established positions, intensifying an already contentious issue in the middle of an election year.

“For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production,” Mr. Bush said in a brief Rose Garden appearance in which he sought to saddle his party’s opponents with responsibility for gasoline prices exceeding $4 per gallon. “Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal, and now Americans are paying at the pump.”

Mr. Bush’s critics reacted furiously, restating support for alternative legislative proposals, including releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, denounced the president’s decision as “a political stunt.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker of the House, derided “the oilman in the White House” and said the plan would not address the immediate spike in energy prices.

“The Bush plan is a hoax,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement. “It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence.”

The two presidential campaigns mirror the sharp differences. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican nominee, had previously expressed support for opening the continental shelf for exploration and production. The campaign of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, responded that Americans needed to concentrate on conservation and alternative sources of energy, not simply opening new oil fields.

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,” the Obama campaign’s spokesman, Bill Burton, said in a statement. “But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years.”

Since 1982, the ban on offshore oil and gas leases on the outer continental shelf — vast areas 3 to 200 miles offshore — has been renewed by Republican and Democratic presidents and Democratic and Republican Congresses.

But the price of oil has quickly changed the political contours of the debate. When Mr. Bush first called on Congress to join him in lifting the ban last month, oil was trading at $130 a barrel; on Monday, it reached $145.

Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, said that if the United States had opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling a decade ago as part of a comprehensive energy plan, “we wouldn’t be in this predicament today.”

“But now the chickens have come home to roost,” he said. “We can afford to wait no longer.”

Democrats accused the White House of exploiting the issue for political purposes and said the administration could take steps to accelerate exploration of tracts already available to oil companies if it was serious about increasing domestic production.

Still, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, faces an increasing uneasiness among his colleagues, who have signaled receptiveness to allowing more drilling.

A bipartisan group of senators is trying to develop a compromise energy plan, and the leaders of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee have scheduled a workshop for Thursday where lawmakers and other experts will offer ideas on how to respond to the climb in oil prices.

The White House, for its part, signaled little interest in other measures that would stop short of expanding offshore drilling and supporting production in Alaska and new technologies to extract oil from shale. Opening the outer continental shelf, Mr. Bush said, could eventually produce nearly 10 years’ worth of the amount of oil the United States now produces.

“With this action, the executive branch’s restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away,” he said Monday. “This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress.”

Mr. Bush’s decision was welcomed by industry representatives. Brian J. Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research in Washington, which favors opening the shelf, said lifting the presidential ban would focus attention on the need for Congress to act, easing the speculative pressure driving up the cost of oil.

“This would send a very strong signal to the global market that the United States is finally getting serious about producing its own energy resources,” he said.

William L. Kovacs, vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said the ban on drilling on the outer shelf reflected an environmental concern that was now outdated.

“The drilling, plus the technology, is much safer than it was 15 years ago,” he said.

But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the president was “deluding the American public into believing that new offshore drilling is a quick fix to $4 per gallon gasoline.” Like others, she noted that drilling offshore would have no immediate effect.

“Even if new offshore drilling were allowed off the coast of California and along the outer continental shelf, which I wholly and resolutely oppose,” she said, “it won’t produce oil in time to solve the gas price emergency American consumers are facing right now.”

[Lenny]

>But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the president was >“deluding the American public into believing that new offshore drilling is a >quick fix to $4 per gallon gasoline.” Like others, she noted that drilling >offshore would have no immediate effect. “Even if new offshore drilling were >allowed off the coast of California and along the outer continental shelf, >which I wholly and resolutely oppose,” she said, “it won’t produce oil in time >to solve the gas price emergency American consumers are facing right >now.”

That skank thinks I am deluded? How does she know what I think?
If she did she would more than resign!
I am not deluded about her or the president. She simply wants us to look at one hand while with the other she ......argh!
I don't want our money going to places and people that shoot our guys and support killing or converting us to any religion.

[Braggi]

... I don't want our money going to places and people that shoot our guys and support killing or converting us to any religion.

I guess you better work on getting the Republicans out of the White House then, Lenny. They've done just about everything they can to increase the amount of money we send to the Middle East.

-Jeff