Offshore Drilling

[erpowers]

It was announced that President Bush has begun to push for offshore drilling. Will offshore drilling fix the problem of high oil and gas prices? It seems that high oil and gas prices have not been cause of not having enough oil, but speculation and the buying of oil stocks by hedge funds.

[taterguy]

1. High gas prices are the result of people driving too much

Drilling offshore is like dieting by buying bigger pants

[Liberal In Texas]

2. There is no oil shortage. Seen any gas lines? Seen any gas stations

out of gas?

Stop futures trading on petroleum and the price at the pump will plummet overnight. This is another Enron-type market-manipulation bubble.

[Ian David]

3. The oil supply did not suddenly plummet by 2/3 over the past year. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

4. Oh Goody...More Speculation

Yep...let's open up the leases off-shore and let the bidding begin...let a new form of speculation take place as the big oil companies fall all over themselves to carve up and lock away more oil. Ya really think this will lower prices? Yeah, right!

[Postman]

5. June 11, 2008 edition of the Thom Hartmann Program.

The Oil majors have 10,000 unused, pre-approved, outstanding permits to drill for oil.

They don't have anymore reasons NOT to drill for oil.

It's all a sham to jack the price of oil up and for them to grab yet more land....

[valerief]

6. Can we have some offshore wind farms first? nt

[Sherman A1]

7. I have no problem with increasing off shore drilling

or opening up areas that are currently restricted (and before I get flamed here). I think such a lifting of these restrictions should be tied to several things.

1). Such restrictions that must be applied to ensure the environmental safety of the newly opened areas. These need to be onerous restrictions that would heavily fine and/or jail violators.

2). Are linked to significant increase in expanded CAFE standards which must first be met by the auto industry. Stating that Area "X" will become available only when CAFE standards of "Y" are met. Area "A" becomes available only when CAFE standards of "B" are met. Putting the fate of future drilling into the hands of increased efficiency of the Auto Industry. Such things as a gas guzzler tax and a credit for fuel efficiency could be worked into the legislation, along with wind farms and other concepts to make us energy independent.

So something of a carrot & stick and compromise concept. Making the situation one of at least partially negating the need to increase drilling, by increasing efficiency in vehicles.


I now :hide:

[VP505]

11. I totally DISAGREE!

No matter how stringent the environmental safety requirements, no matter how big the fine or strong the punishment threatened to violators, accidents can and will happen. Why RISK contaminating and a possible costly cleanup to the Arctic Refuge, or Florida Beaches to CONTINUE our dependence on a declining resource. Better to leave that for an emergency by designating those areas as part of the strategic reserve and invest in developing alternatives. There is NO shortage of oil at this time, it seems that the oil companies are using high prices to try and get their greedy hands on ANWR and other no drill places for more PROFIT.

[Sherman A1]

12. The point is to offer a carrot that will never be

actually able to be eaten. It's the okay you can have what you want, but here are the conditions and they are not going to be at all easy to accomplish. If fuel economy standards raise Significantly (and I mean 50mpg as bare minimums) and you introduce Significant alternatives, stringent environmental safeguards (and CEO's really don't want to go to jail) in various areas then you will most likely never need to drill. The basic idea is to negate the need to drill and take the drill ourselves out of our "predicament" off the table.


"Oh, sure you can drill, buddy, just a few things we need to have you help us with first......."

[VP505]

13. I agree with your point but it

bothers me to offer them ANYTHING. Kind of like, be careful what you wish for you might just get it. The way Booo$hCo operates they might well agree and then go in do what they want, destroy and pollute everything and then thumb their noses at us. I prefer not to take any chance with that bunch.

[spanone]

8. his partiing gift to his big oil buddies....

[seasat]

9. The US offshore reserves are a drop in the bucket with high risk.

Since oil prices are based on global supplies, adding the small amount of oil in US offshore reserves would not increase the supply enough to drop oil prices. In addition it would take up to 10 years to get that supply online. Opening up ANWR would only save 0.75 cents a barrel in oil prices 10 years from now and it is probably a cheaper area to drill with a greater reserve than that in the area off of Florida. Another reason that they are now pushing offshore drilling is that the prices of oil have skyrocketed enough to make the more difficult expensive drilling sites profitable. That means that if they expected the price to drop significantly when that supply came online, they wouldn't be pushing these areas.

The environmental and economic risk would be great, especially to areas like Florida. The loop current in the Gulf of Mexico runs through the areas where the rigs will be. In the process of drilling and pumping under the current system, they'll release tons of polluting material each year. That material can be transported by the loop current around the tip of Florida and into the Gulf Stream where it comes close to East Coast. Any of the waste or a spill will end up smearing along SW Florida, the reefs along the Keys, and the shore along the East Coast.

The oil industry is only required to voluntarily report spills from oil rigs. Unless they are particularly honest, the only spills that get reported are the really large ones that everyone will notice. The chance of damage to sensitive environments and Florida's economy only to enrich a few oil companies is not worth the risk.

[Dukkha]

10. drill so people can drive again on vacations

But they'll have nowhere to go since all the beaches will be ruined with oil soot and the coral reefs will be dead so no diving. Anyone who's been to Mobile Bay can see the evidence themselves. It looks like a giant dirty bath tub.

Typical * stupidity: solve a crisis with a cheap band-aid that's not even applied to the wound. It's just for show to appear something has been done so the gluttonous greed of big oil continues.

[spanone]

14. this has cheney written all over it