How important is the offshore drilling decision to you?

[Xithras]

Lots of rhetoric is being tossed around by both sides, so I was curious to see how important this really is to most people.

[impik]

1. It's nonsense. Mere politics and no more. It won't happen for years and probably not at all

[louis-t]

3. Agreed.

Oil companies don't want to increase drilling.

[sandnsea]

5. Agreed. He's calling their bluff, nothing more n/t

[BlooInBloo]

2. Important and shitty, but he did say this was possible during the campaign...

So at least it's not a betrayal of expectations, though I still think its shitty.

[vaberella]

8. Yeah, he did. n/t

[catbyte]

4. Here's my vote...

I oppose offshore drilling, but will still support him with my vote.

Unless he opens up ANWR, then we'll have issues.

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

[Xithras]

6. The reason I posted this, in case anyone is wondering..

Every liberal, when you speak to them, has a "core issue" that drove them to the left. For some, it's social justice. For others it's support for the needy or eldery. For still others, it's womens, LGBT, or minority rights. And for some, like me, it's the environment.

I am a proud tree hugging, Sierra Club joining, GreenPeace donating, liberal environmentalist whacko, as Oxyrush likes to call us. I ride my bike wherever I can, use public transport when that's not an option, and own two PZEV vehicles (both retrofitted) that are used when driving is a must. I have two large gardens, buy only locally grown produce when possible, and mulch my trash. The garbage can? I may fill a single can every two to three weeks...for a family of five, that's huge. I actually DID chain myself to a tree in college (in a Mendocino county logging protest in 1996), and when I was younger regularly attended various environmental protests. While I don't protest much anymore, I DO vote, and I make my voice heard in more official venues where I think it will make more of a difference.

Since turning 18, I have never missed voting in a single election. Since turning 18, I have never ONCE voted for a SINGLE anti-environment candidate. I have never voted for a SINGLE pro-drilling candidate. I have never voted for a SINGLE pro-developer candidate. Not once. Never. Living in a somewhat conservative area, there have been a few instances where the choice has been between a conservative pro-development Democrat and an even more conservative Republican. In those races, I voted Green. I simply cannot bring myself to endorse ANY candidate who supports destroying the environment. I'm a pragmatist and believe that there are some compromises that must be made, but offshore drilling isn't one of them.

And that's why this decision is so troubling to me. I care enough about this that I just donated to DU so I could get my star back and post this poll. I wasn't thrilled with the direction that the HC "reform" went, but that was just a disagreement of political philosophies, and I still think that a PO would have been a better route, but I could deal with that and believe that we'll get there if we keep up the political pressure. This is different for me. This isn't something I can deal with. This may actually be a vote killer for me. This is my "Et tu, Brute?" moment. This, to me, would be like Obama announcing that he's taken up a pro-life, anti-choice position to many of you. I suspect that it will be for many others as well.

Where the hell do we go from here?

[vaberella]

7. I read the articles FOR off-shore drilling. But I'm utterly opposed, but still support him.

As for Nuclear---I've always been so-so. Mainly because the rhetoric and facts pro and con put on a fence. For Off-shore, the against is weighs far more.

[TheKentuckian]

9. Other: Against stupid, ineffective, and/or counter-productive policy

and the President is trying to dig a hole of epic proportions with me.

Conservatives haven't had a good idea in maybe all of recorded history but the President is eager beaver to incorporate or even largely pus their lame-brained schemes with a little tinkering.

I had every opportunity to vote for Poppy Bush and Bob Dole but didn't like their policies or their arm in arm approach to dealing with big money and 15-20 years hasn't changed my mind one iota.

This shit here is pure pandering to greed and/or pure foolishness.

I'll take the improved café standards but even they are weak and basically just put us where some of the worst offenders like China are now in just a decade when assumably the rest of the world will be even further ahead in this area but without the utter lack of public transportation infrastructure that we seem locked into which will make increased scarcity hammer those on the lower end of the stick.

More drilling is a complete waste that also realistically takes dangerous chances with our environment with no measurable impact on cost, supply, or energy independence.
The best use of whatever pitiful supply we have is to leave it in the ground for a very likely to come rainy day as a strategic super reserve or for many years of plastics and whatnot, rather than emptying our last pitiful few drops onto the world market to make Exxon a few more bucks.

We all know this is a bunch of bullshit that has virtually no promise of doing jack apple shit for the average American or the planet. Go ahead and try to act like this is beneficial or even "not so bad" if you like but absolutely nothing has changed since the "drill, baby, drill" chant was fresh and new and your own arguments will likely refute and reject any plausible points made to try to defend stupid policy.

[Phoonzang]

10. Neutral on the issue. nt

[texastoast]

11. I guess this is the line in the sand for me

Back to issues and goodbye politicians. I'll be fighting any administration who lacks the foresight to lead for the generations to come. He should be saying no and making it easier for alternative energy to replace fossil fuels. And if that means telling Americans that converting to alternative fuels might mean a little dip on the convenience meter, so be it. That's what a real leader would do. But we are talking about politicians here. Getting reelected appears to be the ONLY thing.