Yesterday on NPR, I again heard Dubya claiming that the Democrats in Congress are to blame for high gas prices because they refuse to lift the ban on offshore drilling and refuse to allow drilling in the ANWR.
I guess it still escapes our Dear Leader that gas prices were $1.46 per gallon when he took office. It also escapes Bush/Cheney that opening drilling off the coast of Florida will not help today’s gas prices, or the gas prices in five years, one damn bit. What it will do, is decrease Florida’s tourism dollars because no one visits my home state to sit on a beach and stare at a damn oil rig. Drilling offshore will also destroy marine wildlife habitats, and all the life the Gulf supports. The oil they dig up out there will be some of the most expensive on the market, too. Don’t believe for a minute that Big Oil won’t pass the expense of exploration and building new oil rigs on to you.
One more time: We can decrease our dependence on oil by USING LESS ENERGY. Oil companies already make profits the likes of which we’ve never seen, so why can’t they spend some of that money on developing alternative energy sources, clean energy sources? Gee, there might be a few jobs in that, ya think?
So, we have to pressure our Congressional leaders NOT to allow offshore drilling and drilling in the ANWR and other wild places. There are many ways you can contact them and you have to do it right now!
- The House of Representatives Web site where you can find phone numbers and e-mail contact forms for your Reps.
- The U.S. Senate Web site
- Congress.org, a handy site that allows you to write your own message to any of your Congressional representatives and the President and even has a meter to let you know if your message is an effective length.
- Sign a petition sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer to tell Congress not to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling.
GET BUSY.
s.
Filed under: conservation, global warming pollution, wildlife conservation Tagged: | ANWR, offshore drilling
Thanks Sheryl. This subject just completely enrages me. Oil is not the answer anymore. We need to focus our energy on finding other alternatives fuels to sustain us. Bush/Cheney and all their cronies just want to get richer and richer while our country suffers because of it. Lisa
For those who claim that offshore drilling is going to lower gas, there is a good story in the Washington Post on this at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071302052.html which includes the great quote, “A report last year by the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said that “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017.” It added, “Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.” “
Thanks for the WaPo link, Galen. There’s an interesting conversation about offshore drilling from the last Science Friday broadcast on NPR, too. You can hear it at this link: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200807185
s.