Fox news just now noted that 61% of Congress are against off shore drilling. Why?
Sorry, but the report stated 61% of Democrats in Congress. Sory about that.
In the early days oil spills from offshore drilling fouled a lot of beaches and killed wildlife. The problems have largely been resolved, but the emotions are still there. And politics is almost exclusively driven by emotion.
People in congress are usually do nothings that have learned nothing of how the world works outside the beltway cocktail circuit. Most of them have no idea where oil comes from.
Congress lives isolated from our daily concerns. They know that they will be amongst the last to suffer energy shortages (as long as they can get re-elected)
Politicians think only of the next election, the long range thinking that sees rising prices as a harbinger of even higher prices is foreign to them. Because the wells won’t produce for years they don’t see it as a problem to solve.
And to the big Kahuna, the driving reason. It’s a shakedown. Congress wants bribes from the oil companies. Once the oil majors drop a few million is some numbered bank accounts you will start hearing all kinds of pronouncements about securing America’s energy future.
June 6th, 2010 at 8:27 am
because it harms the environment and is killing all the wildlife
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June 6th, 2010 at 8:32 am
It is to their advantage to have us all paying sky high prices because it allows them to control us better.
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June 6th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Because than if something wrong happens it ends up like Iraq, were they dont want us to offshore drill but we want to so we go kill their leader.
We need to drill in our own fucking country, let them drill their own damn oil and we do the same, simple
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June 6th, 2010 at 9:51 am
I can tell you I’m against it because I think the world needs to ween itself off of fossil fuels and develop it’s renewable energy more. I think that may be why congress is against it.
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June 6th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Tree huggers have them by the nuts!
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June 6th, 2010 at 10:32 am
If a mistake is made during drilling and oil spills all over in the water, it’s bad for the environment and it also kills creatures in the ocean which also would have an effect on other professions, like fishing, tourism, etc.
Also, who wants to look out into the ocean and see an oil rig?
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June 6th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Because drilling offshore is environmentally risky (both for the land and sea and global warming) and delays switching to alternative technologies.
Aren’t the oil companies rich enough at the expense of the rest of the economy?
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June 6th, 2010 at 11:36 am
because pelosi is hedging oil.her and obama’s buddy soros owns more stock in halliburton than all of bushes cabinet.they are all heavily invested in eco friendly fuels and schemes to milk the public.so they push agendas that will line their pockets.it’s the democratic way of things.everyone knows that!
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June 6th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Because they want the price to go up to help them win the election. If they do win watch Obama "sway" congress into drilling. As to harming the environment it doesn’t if you believe other wise look it up there hasn’t been any damage to the environment due to drilling in many decades.
http://navlog.org/anwr_truth.pdf
Notice how many dead animals are hanging out around this drill site in Alaska.
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June 6th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
I can’t help but point out that according to your own statistic, there must be quite a few Republicans in Congress who also disagree with offshore drilling. Democrats make up only 51% of members of Congress, yet 61% apparently think offshore drilling is bad. At least 20% of Republicans in Congress must also think it is bad. But for some reason you are not troubled by their opposition.
And by the way, offshore drilling was first prohibited by an executive order from George H.W. Bush, and no Republican Congress voted to repeal it during the 12 years in which Republicans controlled Congress.
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June 6th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
bc the envornmetalists say it will hurt the fish
aww id rather depend on terrorists for my $10 gas then hurt the poor little fishys
they need to get real its not gonna destroy the eco system to hav a metal tube going into the ground
chinas doing it and its not causeing a problem
the fish can swim around it!!!
and these rigs will be 60 miles of the coast
u can only see about 5 miles out
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June 6th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Most Dems are anti american and would rather wind an election than provide energy to this country.
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June 6th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Because they lack foresight.
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June 6th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
The Democrats are against it because it would hurt their God, the environment. Unfortunately for them, it will become harder to convince Americans that the economy must be sacrificed to the Holy Environment now that the Greater Depression is in its early stages.
I expect an Obama victory and increase Democrat majority this election, but the tide will turn back toward Republicans in 2010 and 2012 (provided that Republicans stop nominating candidates that are liberal on economic issues).
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June 6th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
because it’s just a gimmick political pandering .drilling for oil offshore to bring the price of oil down 2 cent in 2020 want help this economy .
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June 6th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Because they know that is not the solution to the probelm and don’t want people to rely on that to ease fuel prices. the Only way to solve the problem is reduce our dependancy. Even if we do drill, it’ll be 10 years before geological studies are complete, the rig is buidt set up and anchored, then they drill, start pumping, but there isn’t a refinery to refine (hasn’t been any built in almost 30 years) and when it fianlly hits it only affects gas prices by .03 – .04 cents per gallon. And by then gas will be $8.00 a gallon anyway so it won’t matter.
EDIT: On the enviornemntal issue – does anyone know why Katrina was so devestating? It was only a CAT 2-3 storm when it came ashore. But The Politicians, and oil lobbyists had made deals and created 30 superfund sites (Toxic waste dumps used by oil and chem companies) in the wetlands between the 9th ward and the Gulf. The Wetlands act as a buffer between the storm(ocean) and the city. Once it was destroyed by the superfund sites destruction of the wetlands New Orleans was doomed. So that caused the death of 1,836 Human beings – not just fish.
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The Great Deluge – Dr. Douglas Brinkley
June 6th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
If we let them drill and the oil companies have MORE oil, do you really think they are gonna give us a break when it comes to gas prices? I just don’t have faith in them
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June 6th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Dems oppose anything positive that happens during a Republican administration. God could appear in the sky for all to see and announce that he is converting every American’s car to run for free (and cleanly) on air and the Dems would protest.
Congress however is stupid. If 61% were against drilling but their popularity is like 8%, if they had half a brain, they might see a co-relation.
There actually is more NATURALLY occuring leakage/spillage/seepage than would occur with drilling.
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June 6th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
It won’t solve the problem of high oil prices.
The oil companies are planning to drill in places where severe hurricains are a sure thing, a couple of times a years.
The oil companies have put comparatively little effort into trying to make oil rigs safer in case of destruction, and oil spills are horrifically expensive to contain, and massively destructive when they occur.
Also because the states themselves don’t want them, Florida doesn’t want to take the chance, its biggest business is tourism, that disappears when you look out and see oil rigs. It becomes a headache and significant loss if a leak hits a beach, and there goes the sports fishing and boating.
For the record, there is offshore drilling, just as there is drilling in the US. For some reason this is overlooked and its made to seem as if we don’t allow drilling and thats not true, oil companies lease and drill all over the US. THis mostly concerns land that the US owns not private individuals, and national lands in parks and preserves.
So now they are asking us to sell our land for their profit, not our profit.
I’m glad they are taking time to examine things.
Even if they pumped oil in five years time, and most think its closer to ten, it wouldn’t help you at the pump this year, or next year.
But selling bits and pieces of our country off to corporate interests is a little creepy and needs lots of looking into.
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June 6th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
1. harmful to the environment
2. new oil that could be found and produced on the new Outer-Continental Shelf won’t take place for at least 8-10 years, so there would be no immediate relief for gas prices
The bigger question is why is President Bush not releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to force down prices when we have 700 million barrels that are ready to be deployed?
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June 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
It is bad for the environment and we’re already pretty low on the list of environmentally-friendly. We don’t have the resources to manufacture it, so what’s the use? It’s a short-term plan; eventually we’ll either be using alternative energies or have killed ourselves through polution. It’s not very reasonable: we don’t have enough oil to make a difference. It’s quite costly and time consuming and we’re not in a position to risk even more money and time on a venture that will not benefit us in the long run. Even Bush banned offshore drilling. I’m not sure what the argument for it is.
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http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/extraction_offshore.asp
June 6th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
heres the answer to everyones question, and its not b/c of the wildlife, or protecting the environment.
http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html
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June 6th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
In the early days oil spills from offshore drilling fouled a lot of beaches and killed wildlife. The problems have largely been resolved, but the emotions are still there. And politics is almost exclusively driven by emotion.
People in congress are usually do nothings that have learned nothing of how the world works outside the beltway cocktail circuit. Most of them have no idea where oil comes from.
Congress lives isolated from our daily concerns. They know that they will be amongst the last to suffer energy shortages (as long as they can get re-elected)
Politicians think only of the next election, the long range thinking that sees rising prices as a harbinger of even higher prices is foreign to them. Because the wells won’t produce for years they don’t see it as a problem to solve.
And to the big Kahuna, the driving reason. It’s a shakedown. Congress wants bribes from the oil companies. Once the oil majors drop a few million is some numbered bank accounts you will start hearing all kinds of pronouncements about securing America’s energy future.
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June 6th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
You are so very wrong. Stop listening to Faux News. These people are not against off-shore drilling, they are against ***NEW*** off-shore drilling. Get your facts straight.
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June 6th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
They want higher gasoline prices so people will drive less. Nancy Pelosi said "she is trying to save the planet." Maybe she won’t be riding around Denver in a limo and won’t be flying into Denver in a private jet.
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June 6th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Because they are even more stupid than the population.
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June 6th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
There are currently about 30 offshore drilling rigs operating in the gulf of Mexico. Others are operating in the North Sea and The Atlantic Ocean. There are more drilling rigs off the California Coast. So far we haven’t had anything happen similar to the Exxon Valdese incident. These rigs are providing much of the thirty percent of oil we produce ourselves. Since there is oil available for drilling offshore and we don’t have alternative fuel sources on line now or in the near future we have an energy crisis that sixty-one percent of people who are elected to represent us disagree with our position. That being we need more energy now to influence the market price and to strengthen our defensive needs for energy. If you are for more lower cost energy or need it right now congress does not represent you . Lets do something about this in November.
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