Reid Offshore Drilling Plan Splits Dems

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has split the Democratic front opposed to drilling with a plan that would open new areas for exploration.

Reid's proposal was meant to insulate Senate Democratic candidates from public anger over gas prices. Instead, it has created a divide with liberal colleagues and drawn fire from senior House Democrats.

A group of influential Senate and House Democrats has sided with environmental groups against Reid to call exploration in new areas unnecessary.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[research]

How about this:

there are about 3 years of oil total in the USA.

Cars use over 90% of that oil.

Equivalent plug in hybrids would need about .25TW average electricity.

Let's say you can get all that oil in 20 years.

That's ewquivalant to about 12 GW average power.

Wind already produces 20GW average power.

at current installation rates the world will install 30GW of wind in 2008. 3 times what USA oil fields can produce.

[markie1111]

ok folks ...it's pretty simple. humans are going to be on this planet for awhile. currently the are more of us than the planet can support without trashing it... oil is a limited resource..ya want it to last for an another millenium or seven or eight, to be used sensibly??? ...get off your dead asses and figure out a way to defuse the population bomb and move forward. ...the sahara is begging as an energy source. ( by the way , in case you don't know human history, the desertifation of it, pushed a bunch of people to the nile and thus the pharohs came to be.). it's only one among many of the interim solutions until we get our heads out of our arses.

[markie1111]

just saying every action has a consequence.

[research]

so does every inaction.

[markie1111]

true

[markie1111]

true,,,,,ok folks ...it's pretty simple. humans are going to be on this planet for awhile. currently the are more of us than the planet can support without trashing it... oil is a limited resource..ya want it to last for an another millenium or seven or eight, to be used sensibly??? ...get off your dead asses and figure out a way to defuse the population bomb and move forward. ...the sahara is begging as an energy source. ( by the way , in case you don't know human history, the desertification of it, pushed a bunch of people to the nile and thus the pharohs came to be.)... it's only one among many of the interim solutions until we get our heads out of our arses.

[markie1111]

true..ok folks ...it's pretty simple. humans are going to be on this planet for awhile. currently the are more of us than the planet can support without trashing it... oil is a limited resource..ya want it to last for an another millenium or seven or eight, to be used sensibly??? ...get off your dead asses and figure out a way to defuse the population bomb and move forward. ...the sahara is begging as an energy source. ( by the way , in case you don't know human history, the desertification of it, pushed a bunch of people to the nile and thus the pharaohs came to be.)... it's only one among many of the interim solutions until we get our heads out of our arses.

[markie1111]

ok folks ...it's pretty simple. humans are going to be on this planet for awhile. currently the are more of us than the planet can support without trashing it too much... oil is a limited resource..ya want it to last for an another millenium or seven or eight, to be used sensibly??? ...get off your dead asses and figure out a way to defuse the population bomb and move forward. ...the sahara is begging as an energy source. ( by the way , in case you don't know human history, the desertifation of it, pushed a bunch of people to the nile and thus the pharohs came to be.). it's only one among many of the interim solutions, until we get our heads out of our arses.

[TN]

T boon pickens spent millions letting everyone know we cant drill our way out of this mess. The dems better not give in or they will look like there is no difference between them and the republicans. Bush is out lying today saying there is no quick fix on oil prices. Fix the enron loophole, do your job. The truth with prevail.

[markie1111]

as long as we let corporations , without social responsibility, anywheres near our our democracy, we are fooked.

[smoo]

Who gives a fluck, EVERYTHING, splits dems. I am voting for Obama, but I am through with this party.

[research]

The Kucinich half of the democrats is good. Contribute directly to Kucinich to move the financial power the good dems.

[fredamae]

Anyone who discusses and acts upon such discussions to "find more oil", "to drill for more oil" and in any other manner seeks to rely upon "oil" as an energy resource is an irresponsible Idiot.

Technology and innovations have given us the gift of alternatives.

Why are they Not seeking to implement those?

WE ALL should be Discussing EVERYTHING But OIL!

If I understand correctly; IF the Oil we drill for ever actually hits the pipeline, Americans Will NOT benefit more than "a very small amount". Most of the oil will be sold on the global market. Very little of it, 20-30 years from now, will be going in Our tanks. Do you really believe YOU will be driving a "gasoline" powered car by then?

Do we really want to be spending money to drill for oil that will not be available for use until 2015-2020? OR should we invest in Alternative's?
Will this oil be needed with the trend towards hybrids/electric/hydro? Should we invest in this or alternatives?

Who will benefit from oil seeking endeavors? When will we accept the Fact that the oil supply is Not a "never ending, bottomless pit" and turn to More research for alternative energy sources?

How broke do we need to become in order to start thinking for ourselves?

[UnbiasView]

"Technology and innovations have given us the gift of alternatives"

Really?

What ones work better and more efficiently than gasoline?

[research]

Wind solar and plug in hybrids.

[nippersdad]

Compressed air (France) and water (Japan). France and Japan; the lands of ingenuity. Yay.

[montestruc]

You need INFRASTRUCTURE to implement new technologies and that takes time and lots of money to build.

FYI, I work in the offshore oil business, we have all the work we can stand right now, I have zero need for the areas offshore of the USA to be opened up to drilling as like I said we have more work than we can shake a stick at all over the world. One fact that I have come across in my work is that the wind turbine people are buying up the vast majority of the world production of large bearings and planetary gearboxes that they need to convert wind energy to useful energy. For them to get to the point of being able to actually be serious competition to the oil firms they need many years of flat out production of those items and an massive rise in production capacity of large bearings and planetary gearboxes, that will take more years.

Even if we managed to not need to burn oil for fuel, we will still need it for lubrication and chemical feedstock for plastics and fertilizers. And to get to that point will take many decades.

[research]

Wind is cheaper and faster to install the nukes coal or drilling.

20GW in 2007 installed wind at 1.4$ per ave watt. cheap coal plants cost 2.1$ per installed ave watt. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18solar.html?ref=technology

100GW per year installed, 6 years from now at current growth rates.

Shift all the 158B+$ of oil nuke and coal subsides to wind and solar and we can easily convert to all wind and solar in ten years for 1 trillion dollars.

See my profile for details and links.

Look up the world war II manufacturing ramp up if you for one sec doubt the USA can shift the resources from dirty fuels and wars to protect them, to solar and wind in time to convert in ten years.

Your arguments are FUD. Fear uncertainty and doubt.

[Phil123]

Question: Why are Reid and Pelosi so opposed to drilling, really? Do they really care about a few acres of frozen tundra so much?

Answer: They are beholden to big lobbyist dollars. They value the money they get from the lobbyists above the pain that their lower and middle-class constituents feel at the gas pumps. They will only fold on their position to not drill if they think their electorate will get angry enough over gas prices to throw them out of power.

This was never about frozen tundra and carribou. It was always about lobbyist money. To think otherwise is naive.

[montestruc]

I think the lobbyists you may be thinking of are paid by the Saudis, it is to their advantage to get Americans to pay absurd prices to them for oil that only costs them ~ $1/BBL to produce, and not buy it from an American oil firm that will sell it at market and have to pay production costs between $18 and $30 per BBL, most of which goes to the pockets of American workers.

[cabbile]

Just because the masses are whining about high fuel costs cutting into their budgets, it is not a good enough reason for Reid to fold like a house of cards. The environmental lobby knows better than those snivelers. Drilling will hurt the planet, thats the most important guide. Pandering to get votes in November is a poor excuse for a flip-flop. Reid should not be re-elected. He's a disgrace. Even if the Democrats lose the presidential election they shouldn't cave on one of their core principles, that they know what's good for the country, namely wind-sails on cars and solar-panel powered aircraft. Don't allow Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Prize and the Academy Award go for naught.

[sandiegoconservative]

Yeah, who gives a care what the people think?

[montestruc]

It is true that offshore drilling is not a short term solution to gas prices. First production would be a few years down the road, and large scale production would be further years down the road. All quite true.

Question, do you think that just maybe we might need that oil at that time?

FYI-and all BS aside, we might be able to reduce our rate of oil consumption, a lot, but not to zero, not for the foreseeable future. Even if we no longer used oil for fuel, we will use it for chemical feedstock.

Skip the AWR, what is the point of a ban on drilling offshore of Florida and the East and West coasts, while allowing it in the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama? Don't give me a load of BS about the environment, if that were the reason, the salt marshes of Louisiana and East Texas are far easier to damage and harder to clean up than the beaches and rocky coasts that are the majority of other coasts, and when was the last time you heard of an offshore drilling related oil spill that actually cause a problem on a beach or a shoreline?

So why do you want to have this law on the books other than that some republicans want it off the books?

[Daniboy]

PLease everybody answer- should the world try to produce more, keep production where it is, or start cutting back production of oil? Will prices rise sharply if we keep production the same or cut it?

[Daniboy]

I would rather have China drilling off our coasts than those greedy American oil companies. China has a so much better safety record!!!

[repubstheirownworstenemy]

Except that they're not.

[Daniboy]

But they will be. They are talking to Cuba now. Why wouldn't they-they can always sell the oil to the U.S. Remember, this drilling does not happen over night-it will take a few years. Just ask any Democrat.

[repubstheirownworstenemy]

Krikey, now you're talking to yourself.

[macbabe]

US Uses Less Gas but the Price Goes Up
"oil is a global commodity, and its price is not simply a function of demand in America. As demand is destroyed here, it is being created abroad. The result will be rising oil prices, despite the fact that Americans will be using much less."
http://www.unlawflcombatnt.proboards84.com/index.cgi?board=oil&action=display&thread=3554&page=1

[Daniboy]

Al Gore wants to be oil free in ten years. He will be flying around in his nuclear powerd jet. Oh wait, you people are against nuclear power too.

[batgirl71]

Even according to Bush's own Department of Energy, if we drilled the savings at best would be 5 cents of a gallon in about 3-5 years. Any oil drilled would go into the world market. The US market is not nationalized. Meanwhile, we will continue to have growing energy demand especially from India and China increasing the demand and therefore increasing the price. Also, we know that the oil companies don't even have the machinery to drill all the leases that are already available to them.

The Dems know this won't have any significant impact on the price of gas but they know the public will fall for it. These Dems are cowards, pure and simple. The Dems have proved how cowardly they are since 2006. Meanwhile, the press has utterly failed at its role of informing the public. They are more interested in how this plays than in whether it is true. I want to have faith in the American public that if they were actually given real information they wouldn't fall for this bs. But then again, I remember that almost have this country not only voted for Bush once, but twice.