Bush lifts his father’s ban on offshore oil drilling

Just one month after John McCain flip-flopped and called for lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling, President Bush will announce later today that he too will flip-flop and “lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that has stood since his father was president.” Bush and McCain supported the ban when running for president in 2000. The White House says it is trying to get Congress to agree to increase drilling:

But Perino said Bush no longer wants to wait. She pinned blame on the leaders of the Democratic Congress for inaction. ”They haven’t even held a single hearing,” Perino said. ”So we are going to move forward, and hopefully that will spur action by the Congress.”

Asked if Bush’s action alone will lead to more oil drilling, Perino said, “In terms of allowing more exploration to go forward? No, it does not.”

White House officials acknowledge that Bush’s calls for expanded drilling will not “have immediate impact on prices at the pump.”

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reply to post by nahsik

The job is done Bush Senior,Cheney and their robber baron mates have stripped everything including things bolted down and the US is headed for a train wreck so now it doesn't matter anymore to supress US oil exploration and development in order to milk the masses.

Its symbolic, but unless congress wakes up, thats all its gonna be.
Now if we can get congree to repeal thier ban as well..... that'll be something.

Congress still has to approve this. They have the technology already to see underground and to know what is there and what isn't. Someone is not being truthful because if there were huge amounts of oil under the ocean in these locations then they would have already set up shop to extract it.

This all might be an effort to get more money out of the taxpayers. I would not be surprised if they subsidize this offshore drilling. People are forgetting their government is on a robbing spree at the moment.

Originally posted by cloakndagger
Congress still has to approve this. They have the technology already to see underground and to know what is there and what isn't. Someone is not being truthful because if there were huge amounts of oil under the ocean in these locations then they would have already set up shop to extract it.

This all might be an effort to get more money out of the taxpayers. I would not be surprised if they subsidize this offshore drilling. People are forgetting their government is on a robbing spree at the moment.

Actually, the fact that there is huge amounts of oil underthe ocean, and "Big Oil" still cant touch any of it, is kinda the whole reeason I dont buy the "bush oil empire" BS. The fact is every Oil exec has known that we in the US have more natural energy supllies than Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq, combined, but because of environmental concerns its untouchable. Btween coal, natural gas, crude oil, oil shale, etc. We have enough energy supplies to actually be "energy independant" in the sens that we could easily create mopre energy than we use.

Congress? We still have one?

Thanks for the head's up! Drilling offshore... sigh... if only we had an army of marine animals attack the bosses of those rigs. Great whites... giant squid...

reply to post by Shazam The Unbowed


The Congressional ban expires on September 30th of this year.

This was done for one reason and one reason only: to help McCain and other Republican candidates this fall. Bush is forcing a major political fight on the issue in the last month of the campaign.

reply to post by Shazam The Unbowed


Except... The Oil Companies refuse to drill. The Democrats are actually tying to force the Oil Companies to drill for oil but the Republicans are trying to block it. I kid you not, the Democrats are trying to FORCE OIL COMPANIES TO DRILL BUT THE REPUBLICANS ARE BLOCKING IT BECAUSE THE OIL COMPANIES REFUSE TO DRILL!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by vor78

The Congressional ban expires on September 30th of this year.

The congressional ban expires every year. And is renewed every year. Thats how the ban was designed.

This was done for one reason and one reason only: to help McCain and other Republican candidates this fall. Bush is forcing a major political fight on the issue in the last month of the campaign.

Its an issue which deserves to be fought for.

Originally posted by Krieger

Except... The Oil Companies refuse to drill. The Democrats are actually tying to force the Oil Companies to drill for oil but the Republicans are trying to block it. I kid you not, the Democrats are trying to FORCE OIL COMPANIES TO DRILL BUT THE REPUBLICANS ARE BLOCKING IT BECAUSE THE OIL COMPANIES REFUSE TO DRILL!

Not quite. That bill is actually designed to strip currently held leases away from oil companies.

You see your falling into the "lease = oil" fallacy.
The problem is once land has been leased then
1) there must be environmental, geologic and geographic studies done to determine if thier might be oil on it.
2) If condition indiate there should be oil and environmental studies show that a company can explore without undue environmental impact then
3) test wells have to be drilled, and if oil is shown to be economically recoverable, the oil companies must then get government approval actually begin large sacle drilling, including another environmental impact assesment.
4) then after oil wells have been erected,
5) oil companies must then get permission from the government to actually pump the oil out of the ground.

Even when all this has happened, even after spending millions on exploration, studies, test wells, etc, the federal government still refuses pumping permits for more than half of all applicants.

The idea that the oil companies are spending millions of dollars every year on leases in order to refuse to devlop them is simply stupid.

reply to post by Shazam The Unbowed


Don't get me wrong. I agree with you and fully support additional offshore drilling. I'm simply willing to call a spade a spade, and in this case, the Republicans are using it as a political sledgehammer.

I don't necessarily have a problem with that, either.

I'm also in full agreement on the issue of the oil leases. If it were economically viable to do so, the oil companies would have to be idiotic not to be pushing as much oil to market as possible at current prices. The only conclusion I can reach is one similar to yours: for whatever reason, it apparently is not economically viable to drill on those tracts of land at this current time. Forcing them to do so anyway?