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Kill the Drill: Environmentalists Outraged Over Obama's Offshore Plan
Environmentalists outraged, but White House hopes decision will help get climate change bill through Senate
Barack Obama earned the instant anger of environmentalists and many of his core liberal supporters yesterday by declaring his intention to open vast areas of off-shore waters for future drilling for oil and gas, reversing decades-old policies of leaving the waves to fish, gulls and holidaymakers.
Protesters against offshore drilling demonstrate in San Francisco, California, last year. President Barack Obama announced a plan to expand oil drilling off US coasts, drawing protests from green groups but charges by Republicans it did not go far enough
(AFP/Justin Sullivan) The highly controversial plan, unveiled at Andrews Air Force Base, could, over time, give multi national energy companies access to the seabed along much of the eastern seaboard from Delaware all the way south to Florida, in eastern areas of the Gulf of Mexico and off the North Slope of Alaska.
While the President often derided Republicans during the 2008 campaign, including Sarah Palin, for holding out offshore drilling as an answer to escalating petrol prices with their rallying cry "Drill, baby, drill", he has been dropping hints for months of his intention to shift position.
The White House is hoping it may help garner Republican support in the push to get a climate change bill through the US Senate. His aides pitched the change as just one part of a wider effort to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. "This is about giving energy security the American people," press secretary Robert Gibbs said, pointing out that the US is currently about 60 per cent dependent on foreign oil. Mr Obama, he was swift to add, is equally supporting solar and wind options and the construction of new nuclear electricity plants.
The impact would be seen first in a swathe of ocean territory off the coast of Virginia where leases will be put up for sale to energy companies within two years. No new drilling has been permitted in US Atlantic waters for two decades. Meanwhile, government geologists will begin assessing the viability of exploration in other areas along the eastern seaboard.
"This is not a decision that I've made lightly," Mr Obama said, standing in front of a jet fighter that will fly with biofuel. "But the bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we're going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, home-grown energy."
"There will be those who strongly disagree with this decision, including those who say we should not open any new areas to drilling," he added. "But what I want to emphasise is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on home-grown fuels and clean energy."
The retort from environmentalists was swift. "Is this President Obama's clean energy plan or Palin's 'Drill, baby, drill' campaign?" asked Greenpeace executive director Phil Radford. "While China and Germany are winning the clean energy race, this act furthers America's addiction to oil. Expanding offshore drilling in areas that have been protected for decades threatens our oceans and the coastal communities that depend on them with devastating oil spills, more pollution and climate change."
Other groups reacted in a similar way. "Offshore drilling, especially as close as four miles from Florida's Atlantic beaches, tastes bad no matter which president from whatever party is serving it," said Mark Ferrulo of Environment Florida. "The President's support doesn't change the facts: expanded drilling won't lower gas prices and it represents a dirty and dangerous activity that risks catastrophic damage to our beloved beaches."
"This is stunning. Baffling," said the environmental website Grist. "Obama appears to be taking a major step toward siding with carbon-polluting industries in the battle to defend the energy status quo."
It is not an all-out cave-in to the fossil fuel industry, though, nor to conservatives. The ban will remain for the Pacific coast from California to Washington, where political opposition has been strongest, and a planned sale of leases in the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay area of Alaska will be cancelled.
Moreover, while areas available for exploration in the Gulf of Mexico will be greatly expanded - contingent on approval by the US Congress - officials said that a buffer will be imposed off the Florida and Alabama shorelines to ensure that rigs will not be visible from land.
Emphasising the need for a broader retooling of energy policy, Mr Obama also announced the introduction of thousands of hybrid cars to the federal fleet while revealing that new rules on fuel economy standards for cars will be finalised today. "This rule will not only save drivers money; it will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil," Mr Obama said. "That's like taking 58 million cars off the road for an entire year."
But the political backdrop is the pending attempt to get the climate change bill through a very reluctant US Senate. Already passed by the House of Representatives, the final version may or may not include a cap-and-trade system designed to enable the meeting of American emission ceilings. The passage of some kind of climate law will be crucial to Mr Obama's credibility on the issue on the world stage.
With yesterday's announcements on offshore drilling, Mr Obama may have availed himself of a crucial bargaining chip, particularly with Republicans in the Senate, whose support for the climate change bill will be crucial if it is ever to pass. However, 10 Democratic senators representing coastal states recently signed a joint letter expressing fervent opposition to an expansion of offshore exploration.
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Show AllEnvironmental organizations must immediately hold an emergency summit.
They must demand that Obama meet their delegates in a nationally televised live forum, at which they must call him onto the carpet, in front of the tens of millions he has betrayed. What 'green jobs?' What cutting our addiction to fossil fuels? What 'change?' He must be held accountable. And told that our green money is not coming his way for 2012.
There's nothing nuanced about this one. It's a direct, clear-cut violation of the social contract that got him into office. Enough.
Just as Obama fired Van Jones (green jobs chief)when Glenn Beck told him to, Obama will scuttle any public discussion of same when Genn Beck tells him to.
Environmental organizations need to take the money they have been giving Obama and his band of pirates, and support environmental candidates who will challenge Congressional Democrats (in the 2010 primary elections) who have been rubber stamping Obama's agenda for the past year.
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How come it takes some people so long to figure out Barakus Obombus is on the side of the power elites including these carbon polluters?
AD
How come it takes some people so long to figure out Barakus Obombus is on the side of the power elites including these carbon polluters?
AD
The amazing thing is that any environmentalists are at all surprised.
Meanwhile, the thought that he's selling out to Big Oil in order to get his crappy, meaningless "climate change bill" through Congress is ironic on too many levels to count.
I think these bastards are immune to Irony. How about "this is part of a strategy that will move us away from a fossil fuel based economy" or some such shit... Drilling for oil to stop using oil. Yes and we had to bomb the village in order to save it!
Dear Environmentalists,
Lobby congress for public transit: high speed trains between cities, subways and quiet trains within cities and suburbs, electric buses, and more electric cars.
When you get half the population commuting with clean, comfortable public transit, you will have cured the oil drilling problem.
During the campaign Obamageddon said "yes we can;" after the election he said: "make me do it."
and "make me do it" is now "I'll do what I want"
Hey, at least Obomber is consistent. He's still using our troops to kill for fossil fuels in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and soon, South America. Now he is simply adding North America to his list of disaster sites.
is this just a red herring, a big distraction to keep people occupied while something truly insidious is sneaked through the side door?
They've done it before. so whenever I see them proposing some ridiculous, over-the-top proposal I get suspicious. Harper did it just last month when he proposed changing the words to Canada's national anthem just days after the Olympics when the populous was in a patriotic fervour. At the same time he introduced a bunch of regressive Reagan-esque mandatory minimum get-tough-on-crime bills. the opposition went along with the pantomime and the media all but forgot to mention it.
So the real question we should be asking is what is under that tarp by the side door.
a drone...
one of thousands...
exactly.. it is most certainly NOT a bargaining chip or any such nonsense. That was the BS line for the whole health care debate. The media (including this author), however, dutifully report it as given. He's doing what he wants b/c: a. he wants the campaign $ from energy co's and/or b. he listens to the elites b/c he likes them, and/or c. he really believes this is best
In a 2008 press conference in Florida, Obama rejected calls to open new areas of the coastline to drilling. He said, “It would have long-term consequences for our coastlines but no short-term benefits, since it would take at least 10 years to get any oil.”
“Offshore drilling would not lower gas prices today, it would not lower gas prices tomorrow, it would not lower gas prices this year, it would not lower gas prices five years from now.”
“When I'm president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts.”
good one, thanks. Rank this up with "I never campaigned on a public options". Worthless words from a liar.
Oh, let us not forget, Obama the liar was also against insurance cartel mandates then he flipped on that one too.
Enough of the I-told-you-so. Please don't waste this space with it.
Most of us on this site knew before the vote Obama was in the corporate pocket.
Some likely felt it necessary to vote for him as the only practical way to stave off a nightmarish world of Palin. Maybe they were wrong, but that's a moot point now, folks. Need some unity on this one. It should be so easy to have. This one is clear-cut. Bickering on this is playing into the hands of the corporate beast.
No purported environmentalist group, from Sierra Club to EarthFirst!, can shirk this one and continue to look in the eyes of those who pay them to work for our interests. They need to hold a major summit now and put the lights and cameras on that liar.
Got to agree with this...
"...particularly with Republicans in the Senate, whose support for the climate change bill will be crucial if it is ever to pass"
Oh boy, WTF is this reporter talking about? This is the 60-vote BS all over again. What a crock. Does this reporter do any thinking on his own? Any? Reporter, yes. Journalist, no.
"..However, 10 Democratic senators representing coastal states recently signed a joint letter expressing fervent opposition to an expansion of offshore exploration."
Great! Sign those letters Dems! It really means a lot! -end sarcasm- .... This would be like when 80-some congress dems signed a letter claiming they would not support a health care bill without a public option? Exactly.. all but a few caved.
BS (Bush Shadow) Obummer can't fool Mother Nature, nor is She a DEM ransom for blackmailing miserepubilkans!
this was all probably going to happen no matter who we got for president. maybe barack is a liar but he is truly just having his strings pulled. he makes a pretty good puppet though, being tied to the corporate elite and all the power and money.i think they are the ones making these awful decisions. i'm not trying to stick up for barack but he sure has his hands messy.
No this would only happen with any stupid and/or corrupt president.
"maybe barack is a liar"
As far as I'm concerned, there's no doubt about it.
Chelsea
Is Bristol Bay the pristine Alaskan waters where the Inuits live off their subsistence fishing? Well one for Obombers credit, I think he also allowed the big oil subsidies to expire, maybe not.
Obomber's strategy is like saying "I am readying my car for a new paint job by driving it into a brick wall."
My first thought was of course sorrow for all the dead wildlife. My second thought was happier, that given the location of the proposed drilling areas, most of the sludge will wash up on Republican beaches. Followed by the certainty that the first act of our new Republican president in 2012 will be to extend those areas to New England and California, if not into Central Park and the Malibu Yacht Basin.
Just out of sight behind both Bush and Obama stands General Bullmoose, and you and I ain't going to vote him out of office. All we can hope for is that the society over which he presides becomes so economically dysfunctional, so hopelessly diseased, so oil sodden and filthy, so ignorant, sociopathic, violent and corrupt, so crammed with unemployable, uninsurable, desperate yokels that the whole insane contraption sinks beneath his feet into the tar pits of history - hopefully (another happy thought) before the coyotes (God's chosen people) become extinct.
That is probably what will happen but then they will put us all in the corporation jails. Unless the FEMA camps are really real.
Obama has out-Bushed Bush. Add this to the list of betrayals by this pseudo-liberal.
They don't call him Bush III for nothing. All you've done is trade a bumbling and incompetent neoconservative for an articulate and competent neoconservative. Either way you get a neocon whose job is to sell out the country out to the corporatists who are out to keep robbing the country until there's nothing left to steal.
No change so far. Obama's entire campaign was nothing but lies.
Hate to say it, but it's probably about time the liberals starting looking for some common ground with the TBaggers:
"Naomi Wolf: Tea Parties Help Fight Fascism"
http://www.truthout.org/naomi-wolf-tea-parties-help-fight-fascism58127
Walter,
Good post.
Chelsea
Why the surprise? It's payback time to the moguls who got him elected. If he does this, they may, possibly, sorta, back him in 2012. If he doesn't, they won't.
We, the fragmented, but probably sane, dissidents can see what is happening, but until we ALL bury the hatchet and form a coalition to fight these bastards, nothing will happen. They and their propaganda driven MSM will just keep playing us off, one disparate group against another, while they pick the next shill in the game.
Obama is turning out to be what many of us feared, just a lackey in a high place. If he "does good" he may get a chance to run again. If not, or if they are not pleased with his performance, they'll throw their support to some other demagogue who will promise us anything we want, and give them anything they demand.
Other nations have formed coalitions of small parties to bring down powerful "out-of-line" governments. There is no reason why We the People can't do the same thing. We don't have to be a focused "Green" or "Libertarian" or "Environmental" or any of the other special interest parties that regularly show a small percentage of the vote while the two-backed beast makes its selection.
How many times have you read in the foreign press, "The Coalition Government has enacted..."? We could do the same thing, IF we quit squabbling and try to protect our nation, and our planet.
We COULD form a coalition that had strength if united. Divided, we fall, as usual.
P.S. Has anybody noticed lately that our glorious leader only seems to show himself at heavily guarded military bases? Hmmmmmm.
This may be a "head fake" The proposal really does say, "eventually", "if", "providing","with the agreement of"
There doesn't seem to be much substance in this proposal at all. Another lie?
"Seinfeld" fans will remember an episode in which Kramer, an aspiring professional golfer, latched on to "Stan the Caddy".
Without boring or annoying non-fans with a full recap of the episode, Kramer regards Stan the Caddy as a guru; he turns to him for advice on every question, down to whether he ought to wear a sweater or jacket on the links.
Throughout the episode, Kramer constantly defers to Stan the Caddy and unhesitatingly follows Stan's advice. Ultimately, Kramer pays the price.
Apart from Ratboy Rahm Emanuel, I think that the vile, odious Senator Lindsey Graham is Obama's "Stan the Caddy". Whether it's perpetuating the Bush-pioneered post-Constitutional, post-civil liberties authoritarian government, passing the health insurance corporation bailout, or offshore drilling, Graham always seems to be on the sidelines nodding approvingly.
I can easily picture Obama as Kramer, turning to Graham and asking how HE would play it. And when Graham signals "kill the public option" or "drill baby drill", Obama snaps his fingers in delight and says, "Hey, now-- THAT makes sense!"
Graham the Caddy?
Possibly now, obummerbots will see thru the lies ! War criminal obomber with the stupid jacket just keeps carrying on with lie after lie !
In case anyone is interested in a fairly simple solution...
I'm writing a formal challenge of rightful jurisdiction to be publicly presented in May 2010, in Sacramento, California. Obama, Schwarztenegger, et al are being mandated to sign an Executive Order recognizing Cannabis "hemp" as a "strategic food resource" (in the footsteps of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton); and to identify Cannabis as the world's most completely nutritious, globally available, environmentally beneficial, and industrially useful rotational crop; in time for "essential civilian demand" being presented this May in Sacramento; and an intensive planting in every state of the Union, in the Spring of 2010.
Reconnecting to the legitimate, historical, ancient spiritual dimensions of agriculture affords immediate First Amendment protection. Honestly, I really don't understand how people who love this country can delegate responsibility for our legacy to an insolvent, dysfunctional, immoral regime that's suppressed the world's most ancient global culture for the past seventy three years.
The limit of law is love. A shift in values is needed to wrest control of our future from the inertial economic momentum in to which we were born. Wake up people. Real value is at hand in the form of heirloom seeds of all kinds, Cannabis especially included.
I feel we are challenged with the opportunity to transcend the "extinctionistic" chemical industrial war machine by a simple shift in fundamental values. With proportionate gratitude for the common miracle of heirloom seeds, we have the ability to reclaim our freedom to farm "every plant bearing seed" to revive regional, spiritually integrated, organic agricultural economics.
Cannabis isn't illegal, it's essential. It's not an evil drug (drugs don't make seeds); in fact, quite the opposite -- it's the world's most nutritious and useful agricultural crop. It's the ONLY crop that produces sustainable biofuels and a complete food from the same harvest.
Can we all just get absolutely real for just one minute, and stop going along with the toxic values of the dominant "extinctionistic" paradigm?
an article:
"Local hemp advocate petitions to address Attorney General"
http://www.mtshastanews.com/news/x1121876453/Local-hemp-advocate-petitions-to-address-Attorney-General
and
"An evolving vision of "Hemp is Our Legacy Week" May 17-23, 2010"
http://californiacannabisministry.blogspot.com/2010/03/evolving-vision-of-hemp-is-our-legacy.html
may be of interest to people who understand that solutions have been outlawed because problems are profitable.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. We don't have a planting season to waste.
And here we go with the peak oil freak-out.Drill baby drill.
Hold on to your butts...wee...
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Brigade.
It's a sop to the Party of NO. It didn't work with "healthcare". why think it will work now?
Reactionaries react to a Liar's lies...!
Shocking...!
Outrageous...!
Predictable...!
All the Liberals need to do is review every one of OilBama's campaign promises that he hasn't violated yet, and then they can start planning their next protest ahead of time...
Now that would be proactive reactionarianism...!
"This is not a decision that I've made lightly," Mr. Obama said. Nor was his most recent decision on Afghanistan. He held ten meetings with like-minded participants for crying out loud!
Maybe the president should play speed chess as an exercise and read some Malcolm Gladwell on split-second decisions better than the other kind.
More "change" we can't believe in.
Suppose Move-on and MM are still supporting this Clown?
At least it takes the pressure of the Clinton Circus who gave us Nafta and the outsourcing of our industrial base to China.
MoveOn sux-- bunch of neoliberal corporatist bhastids!
Chelsea
STOP PRESS!!
NEW OBAMA PROCLAMATION: "YES WE CAN"..."SCREW UP THE BEACHES ON THE ATLANTIC COAST WITH FILTHY OIL SPILLS" -YES WE CAN!!!
President Obama was elected by large with the vote of idealistic young people who are frightened for their future. Most of today's climate change is a direct result of our addiction to oil. I would hate to see his young voters become disallusioned with the political process and feel betrayed. The least that President Obama could have done is to announce his intentions ahead of time and try to explain why he has made this fateful decision.
I lived in Santa Barbara during the the 1969 oil spill so I have direct knowledge how disasterous an oil platform can be to a local community. Not only did it cause loss of wildlife and habitat and tourist money but it tore the community apart for years. The folks who worked in the oil industry felt threatened by the folks who fought to keep the coastline free of new drilling.
There was direct anomosity that went on for over 20 years over this issue. It often came to blows and got very nasty.
But it was probably THE major event that started the environmental movement.
Ten years ago my husband I gave up our automobiles for bicycles.
My husband is a conservation biologist so we get all the bad news first about global warming.
We felt that we needed to walk our talk.
One of the reasons that we were so hopeful when Mr. Obama was elected is because of his promises to begin the process to get us on to clean and renewable energy. Our hopes have been dashed many times over the years for positive change so we are used to it. But I feel sorry for today's young people who may get so disgusted by the political process that we lose their vote for the next 30 years.
Let's put our money and resources in a more positive direction and lead the world in our quest for renewable energy and a hopeful future.
President Obama needs to be pushed by the people to do the right thing. Let's don't give up. Keep those cards and letters coming, take to the streets, call a general strike and most importantly drive less. Do something with your anger! How about not collectively paying our electric bills for a month or two? That would get their attention.
Peace on!
Birdie
Both corporate-sponsored parties just keep getting worse.
No one who cares about the environment can continue to support the Democratic Party.
Join the Green Party today.
gp.org