Senate Democrats Under Pressure To Lift Offshore Drilling Ban

grist.org

Democrats in Congress are under increasing pressure to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling, The Wall Street Journal reported this week ($ub. req'd).

Last week, some Democrats signaled that they would be willing to endorse offshore drilling. And on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he might allow voting on offshore drilling. "We're happy to take a look at a number of different approaches," said Reid. "If we get on to the speculation bill, we'll take a look at ways to amend that."

Reid is referring to a bill targeting energy market speculation, which would give more authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to regulate the energy futures market. A bill on this passed in the House last month. In the Senate, Republicans are threatening to filibuster if measures to open up new domestic areas for oil drilling aren't added to the bill.

The WSJ also reports that a bipartisan group of 10 senators is working on energy legislation that might be able to gain the consensus needed to pass.

The pressure on Congress mounted this week when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.

Comments

[WASanford]

"But This is One Emergency We Can"t Drill Our Way Out Of." T. Boon Pickens.

Pickens describes himself as a life time oil man. His plan is doable and with an appropriate effort we could accomplish it in a few years. It would be a start and a good one at that. To save our own butts we'd have to go further, but Pickens is at least leading us in the right direction. His plan in short is to use massive wind power to generate electricity and divert the natural gas saved to our transportation system.

I live in California, I've already been "Enroned" once and what we have here is another holdup just like the one Enron pulled on this country's western states in 2001. I have no idea what the push for offshore oil leases is about but I can tell you this; if you want to drill for oil, do it in your own damned back yard! California has a multi billion dollar tourist industry mostly based on our clean beaches. I can't see that being thrown away just so we can save a few cents per gallon of gas twelve years from now.

[Snoop2]

Think of this please. Has anyone heard any comments from big oil that they need more areas offshore or onshore for drilling? I haven't. In fact, the last thing I heard was from the CEO of Exxon who said he is not going to drill just to appease American consumers. He has a specific business plan and profit targets, they just don'drill because someone needs more gasoline....
BTW - oil dropped 10 dollars because of profit taking in the stock market and nothing else.
High prices are here to stay....

[TxAggie]

Snoop- why would you suppose oil companies want access to additional areas just to piss away money? Exploration is a complex process, we don't do it for the hell of it. The end goal is to drill wells which discover new reserves that can be developed on a profitable basis. Every lease an oil company buys is with that goal in mind. It really isn't mysterious or rocket science.

[TimmySlagle]

"The pressure on Congress mounted this week when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling."

...And almost immediately, oil prices dropped 10%.

[genxlib]

President Jimmy Carter in his nationally televised energy speech on April 18, 1977

"If we wait, and do not act, ...We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country."

What a shame this country didn't have the courage to make a stand then when it could have made a difference.

Democrats make a stand.

[RENREVARD]

The oil that comes out of ground in this country is sold on the open market, it is not kept or sold in this country.We pay the same price for domestic oil as we pay for imported oil.We have not built a refinery in this country since 1971.We send some of our own oil to other countrys to be refined yet we do refine oil from Mexico and Canada in this country.Our engery policy screws the American taxpayer at every turn for profit!

[UnbiasView]

"72 percent of those polled supported more offshore drilling"

#1 it could lower the price
#2 instead of sending 70% of out moeny out of this country it would enable us to keep it here

[leduck]

all 70%?
dream on

[jackie4444]

Question 1: How long will it take the Democrats to cave in on offshort drilling?

(a) one week
(b) end of August, 2008
(c) immediately after election in November

Question 2: The explanation given for the cave-in will be?

(a) The Inspector General will have oversight over the drilling operations
(b) While there were some less-than-great parts about the bill, there were some
parts that were better than some past bills and "worth fighting for"
(c) Neither wildlife nor not-yet-born Americans voiced the slightest opposition to the bill

Question 3: The explanation for the non-use of other areas for drilling (see Pelosi
statements in this article) and instead going drilling in the most environmentally-significant
areas will be:

(a) It was a compromise - had to be accepted because it was appended to a primary
bill providing that Super Tuesday 2008 be made a federal holiday - HOD (Historic Obama
Day) - which needed to be passed ASAP;

(b) The oil men know more about this than we do, as we learned when they invited us all
to a rather elegant dinner to discuss it, so we are just following their expertise;

(c) The oil lobby had put a lot of money into this so we thought if it was that important to them
we should go along.

[DakotaMinnesota]

Excellent post!

This drilling is such a bad idea - and yet I'm also waiting for the Dems to fold, even though this is the time to finally start being unembarassed about standing up for the right choices, the progressive choices.

I think the latest Congress has gotten a lot of bad publicity about "failing" to end the Iraq war, but in so many other cases where they truly do have some control, they're still pretending like America won't understand them if they follow their judgment and stick to their guns (that might be a bad metaphor, heh).

[Donnat]

Under pressure from who? Bush? You're under pressure to help renewable energy technologies to develop, not to drill offshore and you better remember that in November.

[UnbiasView]

72 percent of those polled supported more offshore drilling (about 225 million people)

[leduck]

go ahead and drill off our coast
we will still be oil importers

[PhilD]

That's amazing, they polled the entire population of the US? I must have missed the call, dagnabit!

[hopeless277]

Cowards and appeasers, every single one of 'em. I'm just glad I don't live on the coast. How on earth did we end up with such pathetic losers in congress? Shameful.