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Anyone hear about this

FlexdXJ

NAXJA Forum User
NAXJA Memorial Lifetime Member
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Columbus, In
Not that i am a big bush supporter but i saw this and thought i would pass it along



Bush lifts oil drilling ban, wants Congress to act

President Bush makes a statement on drilling for oil on the outer continenta...

45 minutes ago
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WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling and challenged Congress to follow suit, aiming to turn the enormous public frustration about gasoline prices into political leverage. Democratic lawmakers rejected Bush's plan as a symbolic stunt.
With gas prices topping $4.10 a gallon nationally, Bush made his most assertive move to extend oil exploration, an energy priority of his presidency. By lifting the executive prohibition against coastal drilling, Bush rescinded a White House policy that his own father put in place in 1990.
The move will have no practical effect unless Congress acts, too. Both executive and legislative bans must be lifted before offshore exploration can happen.
Bush had called on Congress a month ago to go first, then reversed himself on Monday. He said the country could no longer afford to wait.
"Failure to act is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me and it's unacceptable to the American people," Bush said in an event held in the Rose Garden.
"Democratic leaders can show that they have finally heard the frustrations of the American people by matching the action I've taken today, repealing the congressional ban, and passing legislation to facilitate responsible offshore exploration," Bush said.
The president's direct link between record gas prices and offshore drilling glossed over a key point. Even if Congress agreed, the exploration for oil would take years to produce real results. It is not projected to reduce gas prices in the short term. Even the White House routinely emphasizes there is no quick fix.
That did not stop Bush from building his case around today's prices at the pump.
He said every extra dollar that families must spend on gas is one they could be using to put food on their table or to send a child to school. The American people, he said, are now "waiting to see what the Congress will do."
The White House says that acting now on a long-term solution would send a serious signal to the market that more oil supply will be coming on line. That, in turn, could ease oil prices, advocates say. Business groups and many Republican lawmakers applauded the move to expand the energy supply in the U.S.
Democrats were unmoved.
"The Bush plan is a hoax," responded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence."
Several Democratic leaders in Congress said oil companies are already sitting on millions of acres of public and coastal lands.
Yet a proposal by Democrats to release oil from an emergency reserve has been rejected by the White House as a gimmick that won't reduce prices.
So the election-year stalemate remains.
Congressional Democrats, joined by some GOP lawmakers from coastal states, have long opposed lifting the prohibition that has barred energy companies from waters along both the East and West coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A succession of presidents, including the current one, has sided with Congress for each of the last 27 years in barring drilling in these waters.
The main goal has been to protect beaches and coastal states' tourism economies. But Bush says that with today's technology, exploration can be conducted along the Outer Continental Shelf in ways that keep the drilling out of sight and protect the environment.
The congressional ban is renewed yearly, typically as part of a spending bill. The White House said it was too soon to comment on a potential Bush veto.
Under Bush's proposal, states would help decide how drilling would be conducted off their shores. It is unclear how much oil would be available. Bush said it could eventually be enough to produce 10 years' worth of America's current oil production.
Both presidential campaigns weighed in.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called Bush's move "a very important signal" and prodded his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, should drop his opposition to offshore drilling. "If we can show that we have significant oil reserves off our coasts, that will clearly affect the futures market and affect the price of oil," McCain said.
Obama favors another economic stimulus package that includes energy rebates, as well as stepped up efforts to develop alternative fuels. "If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither."
Environmental groups also criticized Bush.
The public, though, is growing impatient for answers.
Nearly half the people surveyed by the Pew Research Center last month said they now consider energy exploration and drilling more important than conservation, compared with a little over a third who felt that way only five months ago. The sharpest shift in attitude came from those who had previously viewed exploration as a less important priority, including people who identified themselves as liberals, independents and Democrats.



ABOUT DAMN TIME!
 
I don't what's so "about damn time" about this.

It's all political mumbo jumbo so that Bush, who is a lame duck (all puns intended) can claim he did something.
His lifting the Executive mandate was as big a suprise as the sun rising tomorrow.
 
Yes, it is a good step in the forward direction.....

Now, if it would only get approval.......

Now, if we have an influx of oil from those wells (when and if they approved), would gas prices drop?? I'm not holding my breath here.....
 
A step forward that we should take is building more refineries, standardizing the fuel production, and building more powerplants. These are the steps that we should be making first, not that this isn't a step forward but fuel is high because more is being demanded than is being produced. Besides the majority of our oil is being turned into plastic goods not fuel. Plastic takes up something like 80% of the oil that we use, so I guess that is another area we could make improvements on is by using less plastic goods and reusing plastic storage containers. Oh well that's my two cents flame me if you want.
 
x2 on standardizing formulations. Also, we need to get rid of the crazy mixtures and additives used these days. MTBE is found in basically all water in the country. That's not a good thing.
 
2drxj said:
lol its a good step forward istead of NOTHING
Thank you!!!! Yeah it may be a ploy to get the attention off of the war but I am tired of these high gas prices. If they drill and find something to offset the F*cking retarded gas prices we can all wheel more. This RAPING of everone has to stop. I work 56 hours a week for what paying bills and Dumping gas in my Jeep. I am sick of it is all. :flamemad:if you wish but look at it from the perspective of the Average Joe. Hmm...... How did i know Zuki-ron was gonna chime in:dunno:
 
It is definatly a step in the right direction, we will not see an immediate change at the pumps IF congress follows suite, but we will eventually. The government needs to try to do something about the oil futures traders as well. They are a large contributor to the rapid rise in prices.

~Alex
 
alex22 said:
It is definatly a step in the right direction, we will not see an immediate change at the pumps IF congress follows suite, but we will eventually. The government needs to try to do something about the oil futures traders as well. They are a large contributor to the rapid rise in prices.
~Alex

If Congress agrees, and so far, there has been heavy resistance from that body. Even if the prospecting would start now, the estimate of it making any dent in the price of oil would be 2030. That's not to say we shouldn't, but I'm saying that Bush's lifting the Executive moratorium was a simple political move.

Agreed about oil traders. Their betting on oil futures has had a large effect on the rapid rise in oil prices that have nothing do do with the actual availability of oil. What amaizes me is that if the price of oil FUTURES goes up today, the price at the pump goes up NOW.
 
poorboy_616 said:
Yes, it is a good step in the forward direction.....

Now, if it would only get approval.......

Now, if we have an influx of oil from those wells (when and if they approved), would gas prices drop?? I'm not holding my breath here.....

Why is this a step forward? Drilling for more oil isn't going to elevate our problems, it's only going to prolong the misery.

You want a step in the right direction try synthetic fuel production using coal or syngas and biofuels derived from algae. Why don't we invest in something that shows promise of being part of the solution and not part of the problem.
 
Its not about "showing promise" now. Its about trying to keep us out of a full blown recession. I believe its a day late and a dollar short for that but it may ease the pain a little.
And the way I understand it, Bush has been pushing for this and congress has been rejecting it. Just a thought for you guys who have been putting Bush down for not doing it sooner. Will you be putting the democratic congress down when they reject this or will it still be Bushes fault?
 
Beej said:
Here is a different point of view, one which I'm not necessarily advocating:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/133994/page/1

Yeah, Ive heard that theory. Lots of holes in it. He takes into consideration the average weight and HP of modern vehicles but says nothing of the average MPG, he stated that in the 70s and 80s people bought smaller vehicles to replace larger ones but he didnt take into consideration that its not as easy to just swap vehicles when youve got a $40000 SUV that you can only sell for $30000 now. Lots of things overlooked like how the price of EVERYTHING is going up because of diesel prices. Yeah, good idea, lets run diesel up to $7 or $8 and we can watch our economy fold like a wet paper towel..
 
Energy mostly equates to a dollar value. What I'm saying is that money equals energy. The cost of replacing an existing vehicle with one more fuel efficient is using money/energy in procuring the materials all the way from steel mining to plastic production. And using energy for transportation costs, from transporting the product, to the commute for the factory worker who puts it all together. There are energy costs in building the factory, consumable energy like electricity and heating costs and in production.
The list goes on and IMO energy is a large part of every dollar. And most of our energy is from oil, natural gas or coal.
No doubt private automobiles are a large part of the usage, but I sure would like to see some charts on what actually uses the most fuel and what percentage each part of the economy uses.
I really don't think automobiles are the whole problem. I doubt eliminating every privately owned vehicle in existence would alleviate our oil dependence completely. It would likely just be replaced with something else, in all likelihood run on oil, coal or natural gas in the end.
The cars bad, get ride of them and all our problems will be solved argument never really worked for me.
Replacing a serviceable vehicle with one more fuel efficient is unlikely to save any fuel/money in the long run.
My wife recently insisted we get a new energy efficient refrigerator. I asked her why, she said it would save energy. I did the math, if the new refrigerator lasted almost twice as long as the old one did, it would pay for itself at todays electricity costs (Kilowatt hour). The warranty for the new refrigerator is actually two years shorter than that for the old one was. As old as I am, the new refrigerator will likely outlast me anyway.
Government like most everybody else with two brain cells to rub together saw this coming a long way off. And they decided to procrastinate until way past too late. And now want to use the same old technique and squeeze the solution (either real or imaginary) out of the consumers wallet. The Germans are really good at this, they *made me* replace a perfectly good natural gas water heater with one that produced less CO2. The old one had like four moving parts, the new one has more electronics than my TV. Guess what, the fuel used by the repair guy probably more than offset anything the water heater has saved.
Between energy, housing, taxes and normal consumables, the consumer has been getting squeezed forever. Many have been living on credit for decades.
The whole system seems kind of precarious to me and greed will likely one day upset the balance so bad it can't be fixed.

What's going on right now is almost the same as the early 70's. America fought a war on credit and when the bill came due, payed for it by printing more money or lending themselves more money to pay off the interest that came due (borrowing money to pay interest). In effect making every dollar worth less, the Saudis and others got pissed and raised the price of oil and/or made it more scarce for leverage. The solvency problems in the housing market aren't all the borrowers fault, government is competing with them for the same dollars.

The same old oil war is being fought all over again with a few new twists, there are more customers now than there were before, the demand is higher.
Gold in the ground in 1970, was worth a lot more if left in the ground. Gold then was $24 an ounce.

If they took all the money they've pissed into Iraq and put it into renewable energy, we would likely have been better off in the long run.
 
Now I am far from a Bush fan, and while I agree we can not go on forever on Gas, but this is long overdue. We keep talking about our dependeancy on FORIGEN oil, so lets loose the forigen oil. Hell we have lots of good oil in Alaska too. We need to drill there too. If every little bump anywhere in the supply chain, ie a issue in the middle east, or a shutdown of a rifinery for repairs etc, sets the spectualators to raise prices, then the promise of more oil should send it down no? I mean yes we wouldnt see the oil for a while, but i think even the promise of more domestic on the market will help to lower the price. But that's just my guess. :dunno: Either way, when I started driving 11 yrs ago gas was $0.89, you show me one vaild reason for a 400% increase in a decade? yes yes china and india are buying more, but it's not like they arent pumping out enough to meet all the demand. It makes no sense.

Also X2 for gas from coal, at this point it would be avaible as a refined product for around $2-3 a gal last i hear, but that could be wrong.
 
Zuki-Ron said:
Agreed about oil traders. Their betting on oil futures has had a large effect on the rapid rise in oil prices that have nothing do do with the actual availability of oil. What amaizes me is that if the price of oil FUTURES goes up today, the price at the pump goes up NOW.

I hope everybody reading this understands it, and realizes that we are going to be challenged in a way that hasn't happened since the great depression
 
streetpirate said:
I hope everybody reading this understands it, and realizes that we are going to be challenged in a way that hasn't happened since the great depression

And that's the scary thing, I think the indvidual does, but media, coporate america, and the Gov't dont. :scared:
 
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