A post by Pat

You shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the new offshore drilling. You may have to hold your breath after the EPA declares CO2 a regulated pollutant.

Today’s news will be about the President announcing approval for more offshore drilling. Has he succumbed to the Power of Palin? Not exactly. For one thing Alaska is losing leases. The details hardly matter though because the announcement today will not see fruition for many, many years. That’s the optimistic outlook. If you’re like me, you have a strong suspicion it’s never going to happen until there is a seismic shift in government.

The approval is part of a deal to get some kind of cap-and-trade legislation out of Congress this year. An EPA edict concerning CO2 will be coming this week. CO2 will be poison, a cap-and-trade law will be passed and the promises of offshore drilling will sink into the blue.

Obama to Unveil Offshore Oil Drilling Plans

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia’s shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Obama was set to announce the new drilling policy Wednesday at Andrews air base in Maryland. White House officials pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and create jobs — both politically popular ideas — but the president’s decisions also could help secure support for a climate change bill languishing in Congress.

The president, joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, also was set to announce that proposed leases in Alaska’s Bristol Bay would be canceled. The Interior Department also planned to reverse last year’s decision to open up parts of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Instead, scientists would study the sites to see if they’re suitable to future leases.

Obama also urged Congress to complete work on a climate change and energy bill, which has remained elusive. The president met with lawmakers earlier this month at the White House about a bill cutting emissions of pollution-causing greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020. The legislation would also expand domestic oil and gas drilling offshore and provide federal assistance for constructing nuclear power plants and carbon sequestration and storage projects at coal-fired utilities.

White House officials hope Wednesday’s announcement will attract support from Republicans, who adopted a chant of “Drill, baby, drill” during 2008’s presidential campaign.

Stuart Varney explains:

…There may be deal making and an element of diversion as well. First of all the deal making. As you heard, the President wants a climate control bill, cap and trade of some form, this year, so he throws out more nuclear power, yes, you can have more nuclear power and now some more offshore drilling. That will be the nature of a deal. A climate bill in return for more drilling and more nukes. That’s the deal element here. The diversion is this: as early as tomorrow, our people in D.C. are telling us that maybe we will see new co2 emissions rules from the EPA. That would be tough on business. So what you do is you announce an extra off shore drilling today, divert from the negative headlines tomorrow, capture the public’s headlines with extra drilling today. So you’ve got a bit of a diversion here, and you’ve also got some deal making going on. What you do have, you do have a switch here, you’ve got the possibility of a lot more offshore drilling, but it’s way down the road.

The interior department is going to hold several years, that’s a direct quote, several years of environmental studies on those eastern seaboard, outer continental shelf drilling, then they come in with a report after several years, then the environmentalists will challenge it in court and hold it up for more years to come. I’m not going to put a year estimate on it, but I mean, it is way down the road, towards the end of this decade, before, if you ever see a single drop of offshore oil come ashore.

Martha: …Just so everybody understands, is that co2, as of tomorrow, I understand, carbon dioxide, will be a pollutant that is subject to government regulation. Now, that’s never been the case before, but once you make carbon dioxide emissions subject to government regulation, you’re in a whole new ballpark, aren’t you stuart?

Varney: You are in an administrator ballpark, not a legislative ballpark. It means that the EPA, environmental protection agency, as of tomorrow, as administrative agency, can impose new rules on carbon dioxide emissions. you don’t have a vote in congress, you just impose the new rule. and we hear it’s likely to come tomorrow or certainly this week.

The eco-Left is determined to take any approach to obtain the crippling restrictions it pursues.

More Than One Way to Limit Greenhouse Gases: EPA Looks at the Clean Water Act

When the front door won’t open, try the back. Try the side door and all the windows, too.

If lawmakers are going to be this gullible, the eco-Left will come through an open door, sit down and eat your dinner.

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8 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. animalfarm says:

    If any of you saw the movie “There will be Blood” there is a scene where Eli desperately asks Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) to buy an oil lease from him. Plainview informs Eli there no longer is any oil on this land, he sucked it dry from an adjacent property.

    ” Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake! ”
    [sucking sound]

    This is what is happening to the reserves around our country. Other countries are off shore drilling for the stuff and then we buy it from them. Crazy.

  2. MRFIXIT says:

    As much as I distrust the court system, that’s where this needs to go. At least in court, a real debate and laying out of the errors, and fabrications in the so called science behind global warming will take place. The EPA lawyers know they can’t just sit back and say “the science is settled” so let’s move on. Burt Rutan hired programmers to duplicate the CRU program from the “stolen” files and e-mails, fed it a table of random numbers, and the “climate model” generated a “hockey stick” graph. That’s proof to anyone with a math or statistics background that there is an intentional bias built into the model. There is ovewhelming evidence of intentional tinkering with data, and recording stations. The raw data collected where satellite data has been available for the past 35 years does not match or even correlate. There’s something rotten in Copenhagen. An open hearing will give both sides an airing.

  3. Leon says:

    IPCC (U.N. global warming guys?) scientist Mojib Latif:
    “the weather we’ve seen marks the beginning of a mini-ice age.”
    (for 30 years).
    Now Obama and Congressional greed heads push the “cap and take” knowing we will use lots of fuel STAYING ALIVE!

    They know we will SCREAM for nuclear power and offshore drilling. And, notice the recent news of an executive order grabbing fuel shale lands?

    They want money and power, and their teeth in the nations throat. So they dangle Nuke power, and offshore drilling before us, as they drive the cap and tax dagger home.

    They intend to get fat and rich and powerful on our desperation, needing fuel to stay warm and get some food in a freezing climate for decades (at a minimum).

    http://iceagenow.com/Shoving_Cap-and-Trade_Down_Our_Throats.htm
    http://iceagenow.com/The_Next_Enemy_of_the_State_is_Energy.htm
    http://www.theytoldyou.com/4550/IPCC-Scientist-30-Years-of-Global-Cooling/

    Leon

  4. IloiloKano says:

    I would alter the title to “Liberals, Please Don’t Hold Your Breath for More Offshore Drilling”.

  5. SoCalGal52 says:

    I believe this is just a ruse by the Administration to appease the right for right now. I don’t believe Obama will do anything about off-shore drilling. They know we are so mad that they are just throwing words and lies out there calm us conservatives down. It won’t work B.O., we all know you are a lyin’ sack of s**t.

  6. sandyl says:

    Yes, he will probably authorize drilling for Brazil or China off our shores, not us

  7. Alain41 says:

    If there is off shore drilling, Democrats will then impose an excess profits tax to take the money, as long as they are in power. There is no deal here. It’s just a ruse to establish more government control over the economy. And if government controls the economy, off shore drilling really doesn’t matter.

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