Romney Energy Plan Includes Drilling ‘Virtually Every Part’ Of U.S., No Protections For National

As presented by ThinkProgress a climate change pressure group.

This morning’s Washington Post sheds more light on Romney’s energy plan, including the fact that he would open up “virtually every part of U.S. lands and waters” to drilling regardless of whether they are national parks, national monuments, or protected in some other way. As the Post reports: Asked whether any place would be off limits for oil drilling, campaign spokesman Andrea Saul said, “Governor Romney will permit drilling wherever it can be done safely, taking into account local concerns.”

Current law sets some public lands and waters off limits to drilling, including national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas. These places are protected for other uses like hunting, fishing, sightseeing, and recreation. Presumably, if there was oil and gas found there, Romney would allow drilling in places like the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Isle Royale National Park in the Great Lakes, regardless of its impacts on them. In essence, he would take lands that belong to all Americans and turn them over to oil companies.

www.opednews.com...

I am not sure if this is exactly what Romney means by his plan, that absolutely anywhere is a potential drilling site.

Either way he hardly sounds like a supporter of weening the US off oil (unsurprisingly) or in protecting the environment from further unnecessary contamination.

What do members make of this in particular those living near national parks in the US etc?

The link to the Washington Post article,

www.washingtonpost.com... ml

Sometimes you have to make a stand and I'm for AMERICA FIRST. Simple thing really it's time to take care of our own. The company I work for is bringing jobs baca and good paying ones but people still whine. Jobs are out there but a lot of people have no idea of how to work.

th GOP plan

tax breaks for the wealthy

deregulation for the corporations

pass

reply to post by syrinx high priest


Ha ha yeh thats about the way I see it.

Leading the Romney campaign’s energy strategy is Harold Hamm, who made almost all of his $12 billion fortune from oil and gas drilling in North Dakota.

www.opednews.com...

According to the WP article old Harold has just been "consulted".

Still balancing both cutting carbon output, protecting the environment and providing conditions for increased employment is a tricky task, with different estimates of impacts of changes in regulation etc bandied about by both right and left.

Politically I don't see this as a winner for either candidate.

IF you are going to demolish a house, would you not take out all the valuables before doing so?

reply to post by Shadow Herder


An apt metaphor.

E-mail that to the Romney-Obama camp with no explanation and wonder how they will work that one out.

I personally am 100% for drill here, drill now, drill everywhere.
As long as it is safe for humans drill away!

This Harold Hamm is appearing at Congress tomorrow to argue for the continuation of subsidies to oil companies.

Harold Hamm, the billionaire oil exec who chairs Mitt Romney’s energy advisory team, will warn Congress Tuesday that going along with White House proposals to strip oil industry tax breaks would slam the breaks on the U.S. drilling boom.

Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources, will appear before the Senate Finance Committee to argue against repealing tax breaks that benefit independent oil companies (as opposed to multinational behemoths like Exxon).

While some proposals would only target major integrated companies, the White House proposes to raise roughly $40 billion over 10 years with a plan that would hit “Big Oil” and, in some cases, independent producers. (The White House plan would repeal the so-called percentage depletion allowance, which isn’t available to the big integrated companies, as well as repeal expensing of “intangible” drilling costs, which is fully available to independent companies and partially for the others.)

The White House argues that the oil industry doesn’t need the tax breaks.

thehill.com...

He eems to be signalling out any effect on independent oil producers as opposed to the effect on the multinationals.

The blog also mentions the contribution from Hamm to Romneys PAC's,

Hamm — who has given $985,000 to the super-PAC backing Mitt Romney for president — is appearing in his CEO role at the hearing on tax reform and energy policy, not as a Romney campaign representative.

I cannot believe the amount of money sloshing around American politics.

Has there been any ridiculous climate change denial Super Pac adverts coming out of the Romney camp?

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
th GOP plan

tax breaks for the wealthy

deregulation for the corporations

pass

Darn those wealthy corporations who create jobs for other people.

reply to post by Thunderheart


Well drilling will lead to more oil production and more climate change which will directly effect people across the world, including Americans?

Still ok with it?

i would be for drilling in the u.s., but here's the thing:

it won't bring oil prices down. even though cartels are illegal in the u.s., there are global oil cartels outside the u.s., and american companies will all stay at the cartel's price so that they can make more money for less work.

An article from FP about Romney and his links with the oil industry.

Calculating that clean energy is passé among Americans more concerned about jobs and their own pocketbooks, Romney is gambling that he can tip swing voters his way by embracing dirtier air and water if the tradeoff is more employment and economic growth.

A flood of new oil and natural gas production in states such as North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas is changing the national and global economies. U.S. oil production is projected to reach 6.3 million barrels a day this year, the highest volume since 1997, the Energy Information Agency reported Tuesday. In a decade or so, U.S. oil supplies could help to shrink OPEC's influence as a global economic force. Meanwhile, a glut of cheap U.S. shale gas has challenged Russia's economic power in Europe and is contributing to a revolution in how the world powers itself.

Romney grants that Obama is not precisely Mr. Clean -- while the president has championed clean energy technologies, he has also stewarded over the greatest buildup in U.S. fossil fuel production since the 1990s. But Romney insists he will be dirtier: He vows to open more land to oil and gas drilling, approve the import of more Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries, and allow more coal mining. As for Obama, Romney recently told a Colorado coal community, he isn't dirty enough to deserve a second presidential term. The president has "made it harder to get coal out of the ground; he's made it harder to get natural gas out of the ground; he's made it harder to get oil out of the ground," Romney said. The approach aligns with a campaign by the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. oil industry's main lobbying arm, called

"Vote4Energy." The API campaign, which consists of big political events and advertisements, targets 15 or so mostly swing states, those that both Obama and Romney will most need to muster the 270 electoral votes required to win.

www.foreignpolicy.com...,1

Corporate money sloshing about defended as a right by the First Amendment of the constitution. A sickening abuse of these great freedoms earned with the overthrow of the British.