Enough Already!

Once again President Bush has shown us just how pathetic and partisan he really is. Here it is, September, very little time left in this congress to get much of anything done and the House of Representatives passes an energy bill that has bipartisan support. It includes a little of everything: it allows for offshore drilling, includes incentives for renewable energy, requires oil companies to drill for oil on lands that they already lease from the government, and requires the government to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). And what does President Bush and the White House call it? “A waste of time” that’s what.

President Bush doesn’t like it because allows drilling between 50 and 100 miles offshore…not the 3 mile limit that he and the Republicans prefer. President Bush doesn’t like it because it pays for itself through a repeal of some of the tax cuts that the energy bill from 2005 gives to the oil industry. President Bush doesn’t like it because it doesn’t give states an incentive to allow for drilling off their coasts. In general President Bush doesn’t like this bill because it doesn’t give his buddies in the oil industry (who are raking in money hand over fist while oil is high) a free reign to do whatever they want, wherever they want without any consequences.

Instead of thinking…”Gee…this is about the best we’re going to get with this Congress” he would rather spit on it and play the “Blame the Democrats” game by saying that the bill was laced with “poison pills” and that House Democrats “‘lack of seriousness about expanding access to the vast domestic energy resources’ off U.S. coasts” (CNN, “Administration rips Democrats’ energy bill as waste of time“, CNN.com, September 17, 2008 ). This has nothing to do with actually trying to break the gridlock and the deadlock in Washington politics. This is just stupidity on the part of a President who has managed to screw up America more than it ever has been in the past. I notice how people in my community get all worked up about how “bad Clinton was”…well, at least under Clinton we had budget surpluses, we were growing the economy, we were respected in the world community, and we were paying down the national debt. Bush has managed to erase all of that and more!. We borrow from the Chinese to pay the Saudis for their oil, we have budget deficits galore, the national debt has grown tremendously, we are not respected in the world, we are in the middle of war that we (and the rest of the world) were lied to in order to gain support, and our civil rights are being eroded daily.

It’s time that President Bush stop blockading any effort to achieve a bipartisan move forward on the energy issue and support what he can get rather than stonewall based on ideology and sheer stupidity. If he wants to save any part of his legacy (whatever there may be left) then he needs to get his head out of the ground and do something positive.

So Why Drill Offshore?

So John McCain is going around the country, jumping up and down chanting the Republican party’s mantra “Drill Here! Drill Now!” at every opportunity.  Barack Obama, while not a proponent of offshore oil drilling, has taken a more cautious approach — he admits that we may have to accept some offshore oil drilling as a short term solution for higher energy prices until we can get other renewable technologies online.  Obama feels that if we can drill safely and effectively and provide some relief to the oil price pressure then it’s worth the risk.  The problem John McCain is way off base and Barack Obama is also not on the mark but at least he’s more honest.

The Energy Department’s own Energy Information Administration reported in their Annual Energy Overview for 2007 that

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. (p59)

(Energy Information Administration,”Annual Energy Outlook 2007“, Department of Energy, DOE-EIA0383(2007), February 2007)

What’s worse is that the impact to the cost of crude oil on the market would be minimal at best

Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant. (p59)

(Energy Information Administration,”Annual Energy Outlook 2007“, Department of Energy, DOE-EIA0383(2007), February 2007)

But don’t tell President Bush and the Republicans in Congress. This is a minor detail in their plan. The fact is that this administration and apparently Senators McCain and Obama choose to ignore the truth when its inconvenient. The Bush administration has a long history of this behavior — everything from the situation in Iraq to global warming. And Senator McCain is falling lockstep behind the administration and the party in this regard as well which is a shame since he, in the past, was quite the maverick and bucked a lot of Republican trends. However, what I find most distressing is that Senator Obama also has bought into this mentality. Why he chose to endorse even limited offshore oil drilling is beyond me but probably goes down to the fact that he wants to defuse Senator McCain’s bogus attacks against him on this issue.

The fact is that offshore oil drilling will not bring us any relief from high crude oil prices. The only thing that will reverse that trend in the near term future is conservation, efficiency improvements and finally the transition of our energy supplies from a fossil fuel base to renewable energy supplies. I’m not saying that this is going to be easy…it’s not. And anyone who says it can be done easily is not being honest by any shade of the imagination. Change at this level takes time and effort. But it can be done.

Doesn’t He Get It?

President Bush has used his weekly radio address today to, once again, slam Congressional Democrats and tout the need for opening up the coasts of America to offshore oil drilling.

To reduce pressure on prices, we need to increase the supply of oil, especially oil produced here at home

Bush, George, W., Weekly Radio Address, August 2, 2008 as quoted in “Bush pushes offshore drilling
“, MSNBC.

Interestingly, he acknowledged that it would be years before any of the oil found offshore could be pumped and made available to the market. So, in essence, he’s admitting that opening up offshore oil leases will do NOTHING to alleviate the situation today. But, and here’s the rub, he gives us a little insight into his reasoning for pushing this idea so vehemently:

lifting the ban would create new opportunities for American workers and businessmen

Bush, George, W., Weekly Radio Address, August 2, 2008 as quoted in “Bush pushes offshore drilling
“, MSNBC.

Now we have the truth — which we’ve really known all along. It’s not about oil prices at all…rather it’s about making his buddies in the oil business more money regardless of the environmental impact. Who cares if a little oil spills here and there and kills some fishes or coral reefs…at least his friends in Exxon-Mobile and Conoco-Phillips will make more money and their companies will make more obscense profits at the expense of the American economy and environment.

Fact is, President Bush is a one-trick pony. And just like he’s managed to put us into this mess, now he wants Congress to give him a shovel to dig even deeper. In fact, energy experts and the government’s own research agency at the Energy Dpartment have said that drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf would have no impact on current gasoline prices and probably would have none for years. (“Bush pushes offshore drilling“, MSNBC, August 2, 2008 ).

But, like the good partisan politician that he is, President Bush wastes no opportunity to blame the Democrats for the problem. Somewhere in Texas a village is missing it’s idiot.