Palin: Drill Baby Drill, but blame Obama for the Spill!

Sun August 3, 2008

Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama told The Palm Beach Post early into a two-day swing through Florida.

But on Saturday morning, Obama said this "wasn't really a new position."

"I made a general point about the fact that we need to provide the American people some relief and that there has been constructive conversations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on this issue," he said during a press conference in Cape Canaveral.

"What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems," Obama added.

"If we've got a plan on the table that I think meets the goals that America has to set and there are some things in there that I don't like, then obviously that's something that I would consider because that's the nature of how we govern in a democracy."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/02/campaign.wrap/

Obama's drilling decision seen as compromise
Posted: 04/01/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT

It was a compromise governed by the tough choices the country now faces, Obama said, and he urged both sides in an entrenched debate to give a little.

"This is not a decision that I've made lightly," Obama said, with an experimental jetfighter that flies on biofuels serving as a backdrop to the announcement at nearby Andrews Air Force Base.


Although the question of offshore drilling had been under study for nearly a year, according to Salazar, the particular timing signaled a quick pivot from the administration's win on health care to the looming debate over climate-change legislation.
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Experts said the administration may believe that concessions on offshore drilling would be attractive to key senators, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

But Obama also appeared to set up a larger argument the administration will make as it pushes for sweeping legislation that would rewire the way the country produces and consumes energy: Democrats are willing to give on nuclear power and drilling if Republicans are willing to accept limits to carbon emissions.

"(Democrats) consider an energy bill with some nuclear and some oil as the price to getting support for a cap on carbon," said Robert Dillon, Murkowski's spokesman on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who indicated Republicans had different ideas.

The Atlantic coast section of the plan alone would open up to exploration more than 160 million acres of ocean that had been off-limits for at least 15 years.

That drilling moratorium had been lifted by President George W. Bush in 2007, but Salazar put Republican plans to allow offshore drilling on hold pending further review.
http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_14797310

“Obama’s False Promise on Offshore Drilling”
Steve Everly, American Solutions:


More than a year into his presidency and after imposing numerous delays on American energy production, President Obama announced today that he would open up portions of the Outer Continental Shelf to offshore drilling.

But the plan is defined more by what it restricts than what it opens up. The Obama administration chose to take off the table large portions of the OCS in an announcement that was supposed to be about expanding American energy.

The announcement signifies:

* No drilling in the Pacific Ocean.
* No drilling in a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean.
* No drilling in some of the most promising areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
* No drilling in much of Alaska.

While opening up any portion of the OCS for responsible energy development appears to be a great step forward, the truth is that none of this has been finalized, and most new drilling will not occur until after 2012 at the earliest.

The offering also comes with a hefty price: President Obama wants to force Americans to swallow a massive new energy tax before any state will reap the benefits from this new offshore drilling. The bill Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass last summer, the Waxman-Markey energy tax, would eviscerate the economy, killing more than one million jobs per year while raising the cost of energy for all Americans.

If an energy tax passes Congress this year, the negative impact on the economy will happen long before the first oil comes from these new offshore leases.

In addition, the multitude of steps to be taken before any of these lease sales are made after 2012 are still a work in progress. Each offshore tract that the administration proposes will no doubt fall victim to an array of court challenges and bureaucratic hangups, each of which will push back new offshore drilling even further.

Instead of following the will of the people and moving forward immediately with offshore drilling, the President is asking us to trust him to proceed in the future, kicking the can of energy independence years down the road. Recall that during the 2008 campaign then-Senator Obama affirmed his support for offshore drilling, only to take office and implement a series of delays and roadblocks to responsible oil and gas development.

According to a study by the American Energy Alliance, offshore drilling has the potential to create millions of new American jobs and could provide more than $2 trillion in new government revenue at the local, state, and federal level.

By delaying offshore drilling for at least another two years, the President’s decision does nothing to allow us to begin reaping those benefits. Mr. Obama’s insistence on imposing a new tax on American energy also hamstrings any future job creation or new drilling revenues.
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