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Democrats allow drilling ban to lapse Party lawmakers decide to allow a long-standing ban on drilling for oil to expire next week, opening up the nation's coastlines for business.
Last Updated: September 23, 2008: 6:55 PM ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a month-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.
Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.
Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.
"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.
Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore.
Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90% of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.
The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath coastal waters now off-limits.
Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 million in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.
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I'd let those idiots in Detroit go out of business too!!! Why can't those idiots in Detroit make vehicles that people want?
Great news that the offshore drilling ban is dying this week. However, that won't do the job. What we need is an aggressive drilling effort - EVERYWHERE THAT THERE IS OIL! Let's drill everywhere; aggressively pursue nuclear power; aggressively pursue wind; aggressively start building efficient cars (like the Toyota Prius) and tell those Saudis where to go!!!
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: I'd let those idiots in Detroit go out of business too!!! Why can't those idiots in Detroit make vehicles that people want?
Great news that the offshore drilling ban is dying this week. However, that won't do the job. What we need is an aggressive drilling effort - EVERYWHERE THAT THERE IS OIL! Let's drill everywhere; aggressively pursue nuclear power; aggressively pursue wind; aggressively start building efficient cars (like the Toyota Prius) and tell those Saudis where to go!!!
Saudi's draw oil at a cost of about 9$ per barrel PM...
this was a political victory and nothing else...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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Drilling won't get us to even a sliver of energy independence and railing about drilling only takes the focus off alternative energy, where attention must be aimed.
Bytchin about your favorite baseball team not having enough home run hitters and preaching to the general manager to trade for more muscle bound sluggers isn't addressing the problem of loosing because the pitching staff has a gargantuan ERA and, even if he should be so good and so lucky as to find a whole collection of born again Ruths, such a pitching staff will pollute the scoreboard with more than enough runs for the opposition to still make the team come out losers.
The devil with drilling. It ain't a solution and it ain't even a reasonable attack on a solution.
(Anyway, petroleum is way too valuable to be burned up for taking aunt Jane shopping or making electricity so junior can play "Dungeons and Dragons" on the net with some other freckle faced kid in another state whose mama won't let him play little league baseball because she saw a tv show that claimed he would get hit in the chest with a standard baseball and have a heart attack. We need that smelly black stuff to make all the miracle drugs and plastic that makes us have what we call a modern society.)
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