Bush urges Congress to lift ban on offshore oil drilling

Thursday 19th June, 07:11 AM JST

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SuperLib at 02:12 AM JST - 20th June

Sushi.... You've established that drilling won't lower prices. I happen to agree with that.

So if higher prices are here to stay regardless of drilling...and if higher prices spur the need to invest in alternative technologies...where do you find the link between drilling and less investment in alternative technologies and more damage to the environment?

If anything you're saying that drilling won't change anything on the price side, so drilling won't change demand to invest in alternatives, so there's really no reason why the US shouldn't drill for oil, especially when we get the benefit of being less dependent on foreign governments. It seems that you and I agree on the facts but we don't agree on the conclusion...?
Eulji_Mundeok at 03:00 AM JST - 20th June

Here's what I did the last time I heard about the magical "Gull Island":

Eulji_Mundeok at 06:47 AM JST - 11th June

I've been google-ing "Gull Island" for the past hour and all I've gotten are individual blog posts, Alex Jones-style conspiracy sites and various rants in the comments of some major news articles. Apparently: 1)this island is off the coast of Alaska 2)it's so named for the "rare seagulls" that inhabit the island 3)it's claimed that it holds "more oil than Saudi Arabia" 4)oil is apparently not being pumped out of the field either to protect the "rare natural habitat", or to serve the Carlyle Group 5)Gene Kelly once visited Gull Island while searching for Brigadoon

My brain hurts- can I go now?
ezonner at 03:43 AM JST - 20th June

To: Eulji Mundeok It's mighty strange that YOU can't find anything on Google about Gull Island. I thought that they might have removed it from Google, since there's been some rumblings about their political motives lately. But, 'lo and behold, the very first item that popped up when I went there was "Gas Price Manipulation and Gull Island Oil" and it's located at http://www.rense.com/general82/gull.htm. Why don't you, and the other "oil boys" try looking again. This is the first paragraph in the article: "It's well and good that Congress vote to stop filling the US Strategic Oil reserve because the US already has billions of barrels in the ground in Alaska--entire oil fields capped and drilled, but kept off the market. The filling of the Strategic Petroleum reserve is merely one more attempt to keep fuel in short supply. I will be blunt. There is a conspiracy to raise fuel prices and it is pernicious. No one is targeting the collusion we see daily between the oil companies." HAVE A NICE DAY!
adaydream at 03:57 AM JST - 20th June

ezonner - you can only find something if you want to find it.

I've been talking about this for a month at least.

Bet if I buried a tax break on Gull Island, he'd find it.

Gull Island has the capacity of oil to supply the US for the next 200 years. < :-)
Sarge at 06:37 AM JST - 20th June

SuperLib - "drilling won't lower prices"

If the Democrat-mis-lead U.S. Congress can ever get its act together and get rid of this silly ban on oil drilling and allow U.S. comapnies to start drilling for our own oil, it'll be interesting to see what happens to world oil prices.
adaydream at 06:54 AM JST - 20th June

I hear that Gov. Arnold Swartenagger (sp) is fighting the drilling. Until Gov. Chrisp (sp) fell into line with george bush, just this week, now he's on the bandwagon.

It's easy to cry that the democratic congress can't get anything done. What happened to the republican congress. Your boys had 6 years to do something and did nothing.

It's the republicans fault. They had 6 years and couldn't fix it. Don't blame the democrats for republican failings. < :-)
Sarge at 07:11 AM JST - 20th June

"your boys had 6 years to do something and did nothing"

When the Republicans had the majority in Congress, oil wasn't $130 a barrel.

And, anyway, it's the Democrats who have been gumming up the works and standing in the way of America becoming energy-independent, not the Republicans.

And you know what's funny? Obama claiming McCain has "flip-flopped" on this issue. Being against oil drilling when oil is $50 a barrel ( I guess I can forgive that ) and then supporting oil drilling when oil is $130 a barrel is not flip-flopping, it's common sense.
Eulji_Mundeok at 07:15 AM JST - 20th June

the very first item that popped up when I went there was "Gas Price Manipulation and Gull Island Oil" and it's located at http://www.rense.com/general82/gull.htm.

As I was saying- [in my hour-long google search for info on Gull Island] all I've gotten are individual blog posts, Alex Jones-style conspiracy sites and various rants in the comments of some major news articles.

Unless you can provide me with something a bit more authoritative (hell, even The Nation, Mother Jones or The New Republic would be a step up), you'll just continue embarrassing yourself (but don't let me stop you).
yabits at 07:20 AM JST - 20th June

When the Republicans had the majority in Congress, oil wasn't $130 a barrel.

LOL!!!

When President Squander declared his "strong dollar policy" in December of 2004, the smart money started shifting to Euros. (And what a smart move that was.) He's the closest thing I've ever seen to Colonel Klink.

Bush and the Republicans were handed a strong dollar and projected 5 trillion dollar surplus in 2000. And what did they do? They squandered both!
adaydream at 08:21 AM JST - 20th June

Eulji_Mundeok - Here's a few links for you. If you think that the oil industry is just going to put information out there that they have reserves that they refuse to pump, don't be silly. But there is enough information to soundly conclude that it's being manipulated right under our noses.

But you believe what you want. I'm still looking into it but I think I've located the owners of the oil field.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/gullislandoil.html

http://www.newswithviews.com/Monteith/stanley1.htm

http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis-ch17.html

http://www.rense.com/general69/noncrisis.htm < :-)
Betzee at 09:43 AM JST - 20th June

“Some of that energy comes from unstable regions and unfriendly regimes. This makes us more vulnerable to supply shocks and price spikes beyond our control, and that puts both our economy and our security at risk,” he said.

Some??? More like just about all. And the uncertainities associated with these places have long been factored into the cost so it doesn't account for the 40% increase in price over the last few months. Most analysts assign a large portion of the blame to speculators who have driven the value of the dollar down. Speculators tried to do that to the Hong Kong Kong currency in 1997 after the Asian financial crisis broke. But the HK govt was able to thwart them owing to its large reserves. By contrast, all Uncle Sam has to offer is debt and that's what made the greenback vulnerable to such speculation in the first place. GWB has to take some responsibility since USD 5 trillion was added to the national debt during his watch.

Instead, the man who campaigned he could "jawbone OPEC" is now claiming it'll be the Democrats fault you have to pay higher prices unless they pass legislation lifting the ban on offshore drilling by the July 4th recess. As Gail Collins observed in her NYT's column today, watching the president speak in the Rose Garden was akin to "some half-forgotten celebrity popping up out of nowhere and announcing that he wants an Academy Award. By Tuesday. And if he doesn’t get it, he cannot be responsible for the consequences."
Betzee at 11:16 AM JST - 20th June

Bush chastised Congress for blocking his Republican administration’s efforts to boost domestic oil production, and called on lawmakers to increase access to the Outer Continental Shelf, citing experts who say access the OCS could produce about 18 billion barrels of oil.

“That would be enough to match America’s current oil production for almost 10 years,” he said.

Then what? Well, that's somebody else's problem. Just like how to pay off the national debt. That seems to be GWB operationing motto, "Let somebody else deal with the consequences of our choices."

Getting people to believe domestic drilling is the solution is an attempt to put off hard choices about conservation. Environmentalists are often portrayed as wackos who care more about polar bears than people. But it's only partly perservation of natural habitat for the sake of wildlife that motives the opposition; the only is what spills do to affected communities. Many in Alaska never recovered from the Valdez tanker spill back in 1989 which devasted the economies of water-front towns. While technology can be improved, it's only as good as the humans at the controls.
SuperLib at 01:47 PM JST - 20th June

Being against oil drilling when oil is $50 a barrel ( I guess I can forgive that ) and then supporting oil drilling when oil is $130 a barrel is not flip-flopping, it's common sense.

Years ago I remember reading about this and the main argument was that it was cheaper to import that oil than to spend the investment in getting our own. I think that was when oil was $20 to $30 a barrel. I remember the cost of getting it ourselves was several times higher....so it made no economic sense then. With the new price of oil it starts making sense.
yabits at 11:51 PM JST - 23rd June

Thomas Friedman puts it beautifully in today's New York Times:

Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”

Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”

It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is. But it gets better. The president actually had the gall to set a deadline for this drug deal:
RedMeatKoolAid at 09:19 PM JST - 25th June

NY Times is saying Obama is in the pocket of Big Ethanol -

Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol By LARRY ROHTER Published: June 23, 2008 The ethanol industry has provided some top advisers to Senator Barack Obama, who has delivered ringing endorsements of ethanol as an alternative fuel.