Sep 16 2008
Congress to Consider Offshore Drilling Bill
Congress is poised to open offshore fields to more oil and natural gas drilling, including areas along the Southeast coast, a dramatic turn-around driven by price panic.
Any such bill would have been dead in the water a year ago.
If passed, the bill is expected to leave it to individual states to decide whether drilling would be allowed. The prospect prompted a state senator on Monday call for immediate action in South Carolina, and a revenue-strapped Legislature appears ready at least to take a look at the idea, the royalties and other money it could generate.
This is that “Gang of 10″ bill that Grahamnesty has been championing. It’s garbage and it will only make it more difficult to initiate offshore drilling. First of all, this doesn’t include any west coast states, so the Pacific is off limits even though we already know there is oil there and there are already abandoned oil rigs off the coast of California just sitting there that could be up and running in about two years. Secondly, the Atlantic and Gulf states have to approve the drilling which mean even if the Federal ban is lifted, they can still oppose it, which Florida has already stated it will. Third, none of the drilling can be within 50 miles of the coast, the inner-continental shelf, where the oil actually is.
This bill is nothing but smoke and mirrors from Democrats who oppose moving us off of foreign oil and gullible Republicans like Lindsey who fall for the sham every time.
[...] known as the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act. As I touched on yesterday, this is the House version of Lindsey Graham’s “Gang of 10″ bill that will do [...]