Obama Announces Drilling Policy In Front Of Toyota Prius Of Fighter Planes

President Barack Obama, despite having previously supported a moratorium on offshore oil drilling during the 2008 presidential campaign, has announced that he will let petroleum companies carve up the coatal waters anyway.

The New York Times describes this as a "compromise." And I'm totally sure that he'll get all kinds of political support from Republicans, finally! Nevermind what John Boehner says, right?

But what about the environmentalists and clean energy types who are sure to be bent out of shape by this compromise? Well, Obama is meeting those nerds halfway, too! During today's announcement, Obama stood in front of a shiny new F-18 "Green Hornet" fighter plane. The "Green Hornet" runs partly on bio-fuel, making it the Toyota Prius of fighter planes, raining crazy "green" warfare from above.

Best of all is this little detail, found in the Ebony Magazine Editor Kevin Chappell's pool report of the event:

The Green Hornet is an F/A-18 powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend. The Navy will demonstrate it flying ability on Earth Day April 22 at Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, MD.

Great. So, on Earth Day, the Navy is going to just take this new green fighter plane out on a totally gratuitous, fuel-burning flight, for publicity. Maybe the Earth will finally start listening to us. Or else!

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Comments

[gtalkspolitics]

07:40 AM on 04/01/2010

This message for my fellow< Democrates and Enviornementialist

1. This country lives and breathes OIL so what were saying lets go over to other countries (The middle -east) and kill, steal, and destroy their way of life so that we can live like lavish pigs? lets starts wars, separate innocent families hurt women and children, destroy their homelands..as long as we keep our beautiful forrest, natural landscapes , and preserve our habitates.
2. Let's continue to beg Veneszuvla, Iran and Saudia Arabia for oil, so that we can keep our prices below $4.00 a gal.
3. Enviormentialist, changing to clean energy is not going to happen overnight BUT while going thru that transistion we must use all froms of energy resources. This was one of the smartest political moves I've witness in a long time, sit back and let a man do a man size job............

[wdw505]

09:36 AM on 04/01/2010

outside of the massive spelling errors.......i basically agree with you........oh bama needs to open the west coast and the rocky mountains

[dfdougherty]

07:39 AM on 04/01/2010

Not only has Obama continued all of Bushs policies TARP, Foreign Policy , Energy policy now he is even using the same stage props. Remember the 2004 Bush campaign where every speech was delivered with a background of soldiers or military hardware or a jumbo American flag. Now even the crowd can chant out "drill baby drill". Whats next Obama in a jump suit heading for an aircraft carrier ? I just hope there is some choice in 2012, maybe even a Republican ?

[wdw505]

09:54 AM on 04/01/2010

agreed

[exF14RIO]

04:11 PM on 04/02/2010

Obama BETTER not show up in a flight suit! He's already been exposed as a bit of a CIC fraud when he was unable to pronounce a simple Navy title correctly (several times he said "Corpse-man" when referring to a Corpsman). It was awful!

[gsteinum]

05:09 AM on 04/01/2010

maybe president obama can convert af one to biofuel and fly over nyc again to celebrate earth day. does he really think offering drill sites to repugnicant backers will pass an energy bill???(rhetorical) maybe president obama used billy carter as his stupidvisor on this one.

[MrBadExample]

06:41 AM on 04/01/2010

It would be easier to run Air Force one on unicorn urine than biofuel. And none of the biofuel contenders can exist without cheap oil--the conversion-refining process requires big inputs of energy, and once you do the bookkeeping, it's cheaper and more energy efficient to just burn the oil.

[yesss]

05:03 AM on 04/01/2010

We would not need more oil if we would start curtailing our population growth. More people........more oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOZxQPqgNwU&feature=related

[MrBadExample]

06:45 AM on 04/01/2010

or plan b--western people could stop some of their more energy intensive habits, like using cars for commuting and eating beef (it takes about a gallon of oil to produce a pound of edible beef). The planet could more easily support another billion people total than it can support a billion people total who all want to live like Americans.

[wdw505]

07:12 AM on 04/01/2010

but we only have 300 million people..........a long way from a billion ......no big deal

[Peartree]

11:58 PM on 03/31/2010

I think Obama has discarded his campaign promises about being a steward of the environment. Yes I voted for him and would easily do so over the Republicans but so what? He has given lip service to the environment. Mountain top removal is still going strong. The environment is the basis for all life on this planet. Yes, even more important than purchasing cheap gas.

I am disappointed and feel that it is impossible to be a progressive in this country. American-style Democracy has a symbiotic relationship with special interests and corruption. Democrat & Republican are both guilty.

[Major Skidmark]

12:11 AM on 04/01/2010

You actually believed him?
Like when he was gonna close GITMO?
Like when he was going to end the Patriot Act
No lobbyists in the WH
No tax cheats in his admin
Post bills for 5 days before voting
No "No bid" contracts
Support moon misson
Reduce earmarks
Put ObamaCare debates on CSPAN
Should I go on?

[gtalkspolitics]

07:21 AM on 04/01/2010

"Change will not be easy and it won't happen over night"

[Mark Morrow]

11:17 PM on 03/31/2010

Prius of fighter planes? So it takes off without warning and won't stop?

[James M Harmon]

11:08 PM on 03/31/2010

This is about as "green" as getting arsenic from almonds.

[johnsonc20]

10:50 PM on 03/31/2010

I can't wait for the solar powered death drones to come out. It will be a great, green day for Amerika.

[James M Harmon]

11:04 PM on 03/31/2010

At least it answers the old question: "Where have all the flowers gone?"

They're in the gas tank.

[gdkzen]

10:28 PM on 03/31/2010

When I awoke this morning, the financial news segment on my local station was mentioning OPEC making comments that oil was "too cheap". I've noticed that very few people are commenting on this. I believe that OPEC is trying to take a certain position in the market, and Obama is making a counter move. I do not think that this policy is about the internal politics of the U.S., but a response to OPEC.

Basically, Obama is saying to OPEC: You want to play games, we'll go elsewhere.

When they back down, his position will change.

He's the President. That means that he has to do the job of Chief Trade Negotiator from time to time. Let him do his job.

[JustAThought56]

10:49 PM on 03/31/2010

I think you are right.

I also think it is a smart move for several other reasons - it robs the Republicans of one of their favorite battle cries, it's inclusion in the legislation is a compromise that demands equal concessions for investing resources in developing new sources of energy, and it allows us to let the drilling proceed under terms Democrats set instead of the carte blanche Bush gave to petrochemical companies along the Gulf.

The fact is that transitioning to a different energy model is going to take generations - we are not going to do this in less than a couple of decades. So we have to be realists - the pledge was to get us out from under the control of OPEC and this is a piece of the plan that will accomplish that.

[James M Harmon]

11:06 PM on 03/31/2010

No... it just shows that the Democrats aren't immune to petrol-lobbyists.

[Major Skidmark]

11:59 PM on 03/31/2010

I don't think BHO is smart enough for that kind of plan. Plus, OPEC knows if we started to drill TODAY it would be YEARS before it made a difference.

[gdkzen]

10:18 AM on 04/01/2010

I agree with half of your response. I don't think it would ever make a difference. The amount of oil we have offshore is a drop in the bucket compared to OPEC and countries like Venezuela. For the US, energy independence and petrochemicals are two things which are diametrically opposed.

I just think that this is a battle being fought in the media. It's about applying pressure. OPEC tried applying pressure in the morning, so the US responded later in the day. In the end, that status quo will probably be maintained.

[Michael Valentine]

09:56 PM on 03/31/2010

President Obama's negotiations are a little strange to say the least. First give them everything they couldn't have gotten themselves (when they tried for off shore drilling a couple of years ago), then ask pretty please.

[marykay2]

09:19 PM on 03/31/2010

I'm a Democratic and drill so we don't have to be dependent on the Middle East for oil.

[MrBadExample]

10:53 PM on 03/31/2010

We use around 21 M barrels of oil a day. There's not enough oil in the US continental shelf to triple our current domestic production of a little over 6 Million barrels a day. Unless everyone gives up their cars and we rebuild our railroads, we're going to be dependent on imported oil.

We could be smarter about it--we could tax the stuff coming in and discourage the kind of wasteful use we have now. That would include smart zoning and walkable communities with enough population density to support mass transit. But we can't drill our way out of this mess.

[gsteinum]

04:32 AM on 04/01/2010

you forgot buses and trucks on biodeisel. guess the president is saying he believes sen. inhofe more than al gore.

[James M Harmon]

11:07 PM on 03/31/2010

We should be phasing out oil production, not encouraging it.

[gsteinum]

04:34 AM on 04/01/2010

james: absolutely. save you forgot oil lobbyists in your factoring. also the supreme court ruling on corporate involvement in campaigns tends to favor doing what corporations want.

[MrBadExample]

06:36 AM on 04/01/2010

Fine except that no other fuel in the pipeline provides the energy per barrel of oil. You can't run an airline industry without high-octane liquid fuel. You can't even run nuclear without fossil fuel--while the actual power generation of U 235 is unparalleled, you need significant inputs of other fuel to mine, ship and refine U 235. And there's some reason to believe that we're close to running out of U235 as well--in 2006 the nuclear power industry used 20,000 tons more U 235 than the world could mine (the balance was made up of reprocessed/repurposed military fuel). The world could face uranium shortages as early as 2013
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/

Absent fusion (which isn't on anybody's radar screen) we're stuck with oil as our primary energy source.

[Didderbops]

08:37 PM on 03/31/2010

As Rahm Emanuel said, "Don't worry about the left. We've got them". A further example of how the Democratic Party can promise its left base anything and then screw them once in power. And further evidence of how this country is run by one party, the Corporate Party, with its two wings, the Republicans and the Democrats. And shame on me for being foolish enough to believe Obama would be any different.

[clsez]

12:01 AM on 04/01/2010

Oh, so is the left advocating that we outright stop importing oil from other countries? Whereever it is drilled from, it is still earth people. Dems should worry less about where it is drilled than what we are doing to reduce overall fossil fuel consumption in the search for alternatives. I understand that higher fuel prices keep that pressure up but there is a balance that should be sought

[gsteinum]

04:39 AM on 04/01/2010

cap and trade was defeated by repugnicants. that would have helped to fund renewabe energy sources,but the grand oily party said no. fear not, i hear renewable energy proponents now have their own lobbyists.

[BrassOnes]

08:35 PM on 03/31/2010

Other Green War Ideas:

Fill bombs with 30% indigenous plant seed.

Brass bullets will not lead poison its recipients.

Armored up Subarus.

[floodberg]

09:31 PM on 03/31/2010

Didn't the Somalies use Toyotas? Toyotas are pretty reliable, and they have a fairly low profile as a target.

[Major Skidmark]

12:05 AM on 04/01/2010

How about that pink truck the Iraqis used to attack the marines with. Kinda sad being told to go attack a US marine in a pink truck.

[NominalEnd]

08:24 PM on 03/31/2010

There's really 2 issues with oil, not just the environment one.

The first problem is that we get it from foreign sources which causes political and ultimately military issues that we have to deal with. Middle East anyone? Do you think we'd have 1 soldier over there if it weren't for the oil that we need from them? If we could lessen our dependence on them that's a step in the right direction.

The second problem is that is has some nasty side effects for the environment.

I seems that many are of the mind, if the president (or anyone for that matter) can't solve both problems 100% all at once then "it's a horrible idea" which is laughable.

Using bio fuel may not be any cleaner than using oil but it does a few things.. 1. puts more money into our economy instead of Saudi Arabia's 2. decreases some (even if a small bit) of our dependence on foreign oil. Both of those things are worth using bio fuel alone.

Both problems need to be solved but won't be solved over night so please quit being critical of every step in the right direction even if it's a small one. Anything that gets us off of foreign fuel is worth doing even if it's not green. If the military could get all of their vehicles using half of their fuel that didn't come from the middle east, I'd be all for it.

[MrBadExample]

10:44 PM on 03/31/2010

There's a third reality--the planet isn't making any more fossil fuel, and we're currently burning six barrels for every new barrel we find. New discoveries have tailed off while older fields are no longer producing as much oil as they used to.

And a 'green' combat aircraft is an oxymoron--if it's a combat aircraft, it's inherently toxic. the F/A 18 is capable of carrying nuclear weapons. it's vulcan 20 MM cannon fires a depleted uranium-tipped round, which is highly toxic upon explosion. It's flying on board an aircraft carrier that itself is nuclear powered, with no good way to dispose of its waste fuel or anything that comes in contact of it.

Mixing a story about drilling with a good-news piece about green combat aircraft shows how un-serious a country we are.

[Overtone]

12:28 AM on 04/01/2010

WATER COULD BEGIN TO SUPERSEDE OIL!

See Running on Water at: http://www.aesopinstituteorg

See also the website of parallel technology developer BlackLight Power.

We don't agree with their theory and we are developing technology to run auto engines rather than create power plants based on heat.

However, we agree that water utilized as fractional Hydrogen allows one barrel of H2O to replace 200 barrels of oil!

Rowan University has published experiments that confirm excess heat which defies conventional explanation. National labs and other universities should do the experiments and design their own.

FORD completed a bomber every 59 minutes beginning a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The fractional Hydrogen technology, although hard for scientists to believe until verified, is much less complicated.

Once radically new science is accepted, it can revive the auto industry by allowing a few gallons of water to propel a car 1,000 miles, but it can also turn parked cars into power plants that sell electricity to the local utility.

24/7 development would replace fossil fuels at a pace governed to some extent by the time it takes to complete development and gear up for mass production. Demand for such cars and trucks would be huge!

[MrBadExample]

06:58 AM on 04/01/2010

Hydrogen is a joke. It's a cruel hoax. It takes 1.4 watts of power to create 1 watt of hydrogen power. And it can't be scaled up--there are 250 million personal vehicles in the US, and there's no way to scale up hydrogen for any portion of those vehicles. As a fuel, it's extremely corrosive and also far more flammable than even gasoline. I don't want to be in a multiple car pileup with hydrogen vehicles. a burning car full of hydrogen is not a welcoming sight.

Additionally, there's not enough conventional fuel in the ground to build a new generation of hydrogen powered vehicles. It currently takes almost 80 barrels of oil to create a single automobile (once the mining of the steel and the creation of all the plastic, rubber, lubricants, etc. are factored in). We're probably not going to have much of an auto industry in any case now that EZ credit is a thing of the past, but hydrogen won't help. We'd be better off to take over GM and convert it to building buses and trolleys.

[maxwells]

09:48 PM on 04/06/2010

If it ducks like a quack, it's a..

[poaster]

08:18 PM on 03/31/2010

This a basically a non-story. If we want to reduce dependency on foreign oil and need a bridge until alternative fuels become like seat belts around our bellies, we need this.

[NominalEnd]

08:38 PM on 03/31/2010

Being that jets fuel quality requirements are higher than most of the vehicles the military uses this is a big issue. If a jet can do it that means a tank and a jeep and just about any other vehicle they use can do it. Yeah maybe a few jets doing it isn't a big deal. But if all of the vehicles in the military had half of their yearly fuel consumption replaced by something that didn't require us to put money into foreign hands, I'd be all for it. Figure it out for yourself..

I think i read somewhere that the military spend around 34/35 billion dollars on fuel in 2008. If even 25% of that was taken away from foreign oil producers because of changes like the one in this article, i think that would be great.

Your right.. we should hold out until we can do a 100% switch over for every military vehicle all at once.. where they all run on strawberry juice and produce perfume as a byproduct.