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US Green Agenda Delivered Blow as Ban on Drilling off Florida Overturned
Senate committee vote runs counter to Obama's push to steer clean energy laws through Congress
The 13-10 vote in the Senate's energy and natural resources committee to lift the drilling ban off Florida's coast runs counter to the push by the White House and Democrats in Congress to steer clean energy laws through Congress.
Oil rigs extracting petroleum in the Los Angeles area of Culver City, California. The vote would put oil and gas rigs within 10 miles of the Florida panhandle, and within 45 miles of Tampa. (AFP/Getty Images/File/David McNew) Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are pushing for a vote on the first US bill to cut carbon emissions by the end of this month. Meanwhile, a Senate committee is close to approving a bill to encourage the use of renewable energy.
Tuesday's drilling measure was brought as an amendment to that bill — already criticised by environmentalists by setting low targets for renewable energy development.
The vote would put oil and gas rigs within 10 miles of the Florida panhandle, and within 45 miles of Tampa.
Congress allowed a 25-year ban on offshore drilling along much of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to lapse last year. But the ban remained in force in Florida, restricting exploration to within 125 miles of the Florida coast, and 235 miles from Tampa.
Senators voted down a proposal to allow oil companies to tap into Alaska's wildlife refuge.
Florida's Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson, said he would block the measure. "We are simply not going to let this happen," he told reporters.
The measure is likely to remain in the final version of the bill. The entire energy package will clear the committee as early as Thursday.
But although the amendment gained the support of eight Democrats on the committee – including the chairman Jeff Bingaman – it faces serious opposition elsewhere in the Senate and in the House that could stop it becoming law.
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8 Comments so far
Show AllThe oil companies and their supporters refuse to respect the wishes of the people who have voiced their opposition of more drilling for a finite resource. The fact that Florida has been destroyed by banks and finance companies who issued criminal home loans (that people couldn't afford or payoff) and home & commercial builders have destoyed more of Fla. natural environment to pad their pocketbooks just shows that there is no voice of reason and sanity in our country!! Slap a "FOR SALE" sign on everything!!! The only excuse you need is "Well, I gotta feed my family" and then you will have full license to kill people, the environment, food sources, and culture! Just drill anywhere you damn well please and say...."Well, people want to drive their cars and live first-world lifestyles. We are just giving people what they want." Our greed is our planetary downfall!!! Good-bye Planet Earth!!!
Time for a little reason here; the chances of this ever becoming law are quite remote. Further, just as off both the east and west coasts, the chances of wells being drilled any time in the near future are remote. The oil companies have vast regions of untapped areas in their current operating sphere in the Gulf, they aren't about to be moving rigs or adding rigs (very scarce world wide) anytime soon. What was surprising in this committee vote was to continue the ban on drilling in ANWR - I smell a trade-off in the committee with the end result being both will never become law. Just my guess.....
Even if they had the drilling rigs, producers can't find qualified people to run those rigs.
When crude goes up again, money talks.
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Nice to hear about ANWR!
RMG, I agree with you. But corporate money has made Congress completely dysfunctional. And the Propaganda Machine has the voting public stupefied. For the top 1%, a match made in heaven. For the rest of us, living hell.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
all Bush's fault, right? Obama can do anything Big Oil wants with a gleefully dutiful press/media and MoveOn. No dissent will be in the news. Not one second. HOPE and CHANGE!!!!!!!
Gotta keep the Strategic Petroleum Reserve growing I guess.
I wonder what'll happen when Global Climate Change powered severe weather storms move across all those new rigs?
The capacity of the Oil Reserve is 727 million barrels (about 37 days U.S. consumption). Current oil inventory in the reserve is about 707 million barrels.
This has nothing to do with the SOR.
Why this article should be a surprise to any one is a surprise itself.
America, you have never had a 'democracy'---your governing system is a 'plutocratic oligarchy' and it will remain as such until the American people make the needed changes.
The Political body in the USA serves the one that "feeds" it.
In order to have the Politicians serve the people they either need to 'outbid' the "money guys" or take the 'money guys' out of the competition altogether.
Passing laws that restrict the 'lobby and the lobbyists' is the only rational alternative to what has become a disastrous result of the lack of control of the 'people' over their own elected government.
If Barak Obama proved anything he proved that 'no matter how things change they always stay the same'-----for the far right who complains that Obama has been so "bad for America" they reveal that they have not recognized that he has simply 'sung the tune, of the one who paid for the music'---the only change he represents is superficial and cosmetic.
He should be a 'bright star' in a dark sky in revealing the fact that the American people have no control of their government----until they take the 'money guys' out---or outbid the 'money guys': after all, whenever something is for sale, it always goes to the one who is willing to pay the most for it----.
One word of 'caution' for America----'time'.
You may not have that much of it left--and "time" can never be purchased---it is always simply 'rented'--
The world cannot possibly tolerate America that much longer--
Good Luck America, you really need it.