This morning, President Obama announced that he is reversing a 20 year policy that prohibited oil and gas drilling off of much of the East Coast and selected other areas. Candidate Obama argued thoughtfully against this very move while candidate Palin made it a centerpiece of her deliciously misinformed campaign. Nobody other than oil companies liked the announcement.
Indeed, this is a bad idea from every perspective.
There is no doubt that Mr. Obama realizes that reversing this policy will produce little or no oil or gas for many years. It will not help offset the rising price of oil as the international economy recovers. It plays into anti-science talking heads that lack of drilling is our real global warming problem. It inevitably raises risks of drilling and shipping related oil and gas pollution.
But it doesn't even seem like there is some intricate, inside-the-beltway triple bank shot kind of future deal here. There is no evidence whatsoever that it is part of a back room deal to gain Senate votes for a tough global warming bill - indeed, it is likely to have the opposite effect. Now that Republicans have the drilling they want, why bargain?
There are only two explanations that make any sense to me. Both are searingly depressing.
The first is that the Administration is just terrible at bargaining on environmental policies. Rather than make trades, it prefers to make concessions first and then hope that good will and a sense of fair dealing leads its opponents - almost all Republicans but many fossil fuel Democrats - to reciprocate without even a discussion. There is no shortage of evidence for this, most recently being the billions of Federal nuclear loan guarantees for a nuclear plant in Georgia. The resulting electricity will be expensive, the nuclear waste has absolutely no place to go, and neither of the Georgia Republican senators will ever vote for anything remotely useful. Bad policy, bad politics.
The second is that the Administration is in fact willing to do deals - after all, they made deals worth hundreds of billions with the drug and hospital industries - but that this reflects a deal made to pass legislation already done and not something to be done in the future. There is only one piece of legislation that could possibly be - health care legislation.
Did the Administration buy votes from pro-drilling Democrats? Should we expect more bad news policies - policies that make no sense as policy or politics - to be announced in the future?
To be perfectly clear, I have no objection to making deals to pass legislation. Some deals are worth it. Others clearly not. It depends both on what we got and what we gave up.
I personally would not have traded offshore oil drilling for a few votes on health care. I am confident that those who voted for change in November 2008 share that view. I would like to know whether President Obama would or did make such a trade.
I don't know which would be worse - believing that the Obama Administration is terrible at negotiating, since there is a lot left to negotiate in the remainder of his first term, or that the President would trade truly terrible environmental policies for mixed bag health reform. I sure would love to have a third option to believe.
The more money we use to Import oil, the less money we have for green energy or anything else..
“A Balance of payments (BOP) sheet is an accounting record of all monetary transactions between a country and the rest of the world. These transactions include payments for the country's exports and imports of goods, services, and financial capital, as well as financial transfers. The BOP summarises international transactions for a specific period, usually a year, and is prepared in a single currency, typically the domestic currency for the country concerned. Sources of funds for a nation, such as exports or the receipts of loans and investments, are recorded as positive or surplus items. Uses of funds, such as for imports or to invest in foreign countries, are recorded as a negative or deficit item.â€
“When all components of the BOP sheet are included it must balance - that is, it must sum to zero - there can be no overall surplus or deficit. For example, if a country is importing more than it exports, its trade balance will be in deficit, but the shortfall will have to be counter balanced in other ways - such as by funds earned from its foreign investments, by running down reserves or by receiving loans from other countries.â€
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_payments
"Change we can believe in." We just didn't know THIS is what he had in mind! What a slap in the face.
~ So...healthcare has passed ?
- YES... Americans are MANDATED to purchase private insurance, no publicly-funded alternative available, an anti-abortion provision worse than the Hyde Amendment is codified, and there are loopholes which will still allow insurers to dump costly subscribers... plus, it doesn't allow for negotiating pharmaceutical pricing.
~ .......how about... banking regulation ?
- Nope...but Ben Bernanke is still at the Fed !!!
~ Hopenhagen ?
- Well... prez flew in & brokered an 11th-hr. non-binding agreement. We brought to the table 20% of the minimum cuts needed... to meet even the most rosy projections.
Her shoulders slumped.
~ Climate Legislation ???!!!
- yes, well...so far the prez has TRIPLED government subsidies for nukes....not curtailed mountaintop removal....and.....just this week, matter o' fact.....lifted the ban on offshore drilling.....
Her eyes were daggers..
~ Latin America ?
....I stared at her bedpan.
- ... supporting a military coup government in Honduras.... doubling our bases in Colombia....and pouring millions into the Mexican military.
~ Israel ???!!!
I stared at the Exit sign
- Still attacking and settling unabashedly.....
~ Social Security ?
- ... prez just appointed a panel to, um...'study the ....options'...
She grew pensive, shaking her head....
~ I don't understand how McCain-Palin could've pulled it off !...they were down by double-digits !
Thankfully I don't have cable/satellite, or I'm sure I'd get even more confused. Maybe even spit on.
the only thing which doesn't add up is...how exactly does risking 50% of our nation's coastline & capitulating entirely to Big Oil..."banace" with introducing MPG standards which are already 20 years behind the curve ?
I guess I'm not quite connecting those dots......
has anyone noticed that...people talking as if the entire notion that extracting resources from sensitive areas is entirely safe and poses no negative impacts.
But that is NOT reality. reality is: there are just some places on this planet where the risk of taking those resources far outweighs the potential benefits of having those resources. Where...should just ONE thing go wrong in the potential plethora of locations....the devastation would far outweigh any gains made by having extracted the resource.
When you add that reality into the equation....no other conclusion can be made other than the one the author of this article makes:
...either obama is the absolute worst negotiator of all time....or, he's just a sellout to big industry.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304739104575153922665431994.html
because....I can't quite follow you there.....
But as you know you've got a lot of tankers coming through the Gate.
Bill Clinton v. 2.0.
If Obama is not doing what you wanted, blame him. No, I am sure the Republicans forced Obama to open exploration, because we all know they control both houses of congress. Oh wait minute, the last time they controlled congress was in 2006! Four years ago!
1) a healthcare "reform" which mandates Americans to buy insurance from PRIVATE providers and provides ZERO competition ....brings into law an anti-choice provision FAR more odious than the Hyde amendment...gives Big Pharma everything they want....and still retains massive loopholes for insurers to drop coverage of subscribers who's illnesses will cost them too much.
2) opening 50% of the nation's coastlines to offshore drilling (something Dubya with a repooblican-controlled congress never actually DARED to implement...although they could have if they wanted to).
3) keeps Ben Bernanke as chair of the Fed
4) Has created no new regulations on the banking industry
5) Still lets Israel attack and settle at will....
6) Triples the public sibsidies for Nuclear Power Plants
7) Doubles down on installing new military bases in Latin America, while supporting a coup government in Honduras.
8) Appoints a panel to study the raiding of Social Security
If one woke up after being asleep since Oct. 2008 and read this list of achievements....one would only assume that McCain-Palin musta pulled off an enormous upset back in Nov. '08
If crude oil hits a $100 a barrel Obama is in deep trouble because the recovery will stall and the economy has a good chance of staying in a recession. He will not be able to blame this one on Bush. This country, like it or not, runs on oil.
This rush to the teleprompter to announce the release of areas for drilling was a calculated one. He wants to slow down the speculators. He had to know that his wacko base would go wild. If he fails at that you will see a really big push to get the Volker rule legislation passed. If that fails you might see a call to nationalize the oil companies if crude oil prices go way past $100/barrel. It looks bad for Obama and it looks bad for the American People. This might be a really big mess. Gas is almost $3.00/gal here. We could see $4.00/gal by the time the election rolls around.
The oil companies aren't controlling the price of oil. Supply, demand and OEPC control oil prices.
I do not understand the rush to Socialism and, possibly, Communism. Centrally planned economies are not innovative How cna they be? how can you have a 5-year plan for new inventions, new discoveries? How do you know how many pencils you will need next year or the year after?
By Ted Rall:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/01-6
Drill Baby, Drill:
http://www.democracynow.org/
Obama hires new pesticide/polluter lobbyist as US Trade Rep. Agricuture:
http://www.democracynow.org/
More likely he did both health care and drilling because he thought they were the right thing to do.