Posted on 07/17/2008 2:35:21 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The Bush administration didnt waste much time after its lifting of the executive ban on off-shore drilling to make its second big gesture towards the oil markets. Late yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management opened 3.9 million acres of land in Alaska for drilling and exploration. The land had already been reserved for petroleum production, but had been kept in limbo by complaints and legal action by environmentalists:
The US federal government on Wednesday said it would open 3.9m acres of land in a designated petroleum reserve in Alaska for drilling as a means to help curb rising petrol prices.
But the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the US Department of the Interior, said the Alaskan land that will now be offered requires no other approvals and will be up for leasing in the autumn.
The site was set aside decades ago but development was blocked by lawsuits from environmentalists concerned about disrupting wildlife. The government has tackled these fears, making it a condition of the lease by oil and gas companies that polar bears, waterfowl and caribou are protected.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!
Good.
Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but where the HE!! has Bush been on this the last seven years?
Heaven forbid that waterfowl not be protected in a particular place so this great nation can have energy. I imagine waterfowl are abundant in Alaska which is enormous and full of lakes and rivers, but let’s require that they be protected everywhere they are found. Oy.
HooRay!
But what about Obama’s plan?????
Asking for it every year. His administration has been continuously fighting lawsuits against more drilling and new refineries. The environmentalists ahve been suing Cheney from day one to find out the names of the people he consulted to draft his enegy policy.
Where have YOU been?
If this is true, I can’t wait to see what the price of oil has done by this time tomorrow.
he now has the support and anger of the populace on his side.
No political support minus a crisis.
And this from a man who is a vegetarian, whose wife is also, who does not allow hunting or fishing on his property, who recycles faithfully, and who keeps as much of his property in its pristine, natural condition as possible as a natural habitat for wild animals and plants.
My wife and I are true envionmentalists. The nutcases who perpetrate all this insanity and insane legislation are Environazis who want power and are of highly limited intellect and highly questionable benevolence and morality. I have seen them in action. I dispise them.
The recent price drop is more likely caused by quarterly sell-off and profit taking because of a stipulation placed on speculation.
Wait another week or so, and see what happens then. I highly doubt the announcement of lease land being made available and not even yet sold will cause a panic sell-off and prices to tumble as a result.
This land is nothing new and there’s only one reason President Bush announced it’s open for business, to show the American people that the Environmental Wing of the Democrat Party will effectively shut it down.
Is this ANWR?? It just says in Alaska
All quite true, but unfortunately, it still begs the question...why didn't W exercise his emergency powers to declare these predictable domestic constraints a state of national emergency and issue these orders back after 9-11?
OK, the Fed released 3.9 million acres BUT that isn’t to say oil is beneath this land. I sure hope there is oil beneath this land. Oil has dropped some $16/ barrel in the last three days. Thank you Mr. President. Hopefully this will catch the eye of voters.
Good move. But I wouldn’t count on the environmentalists and judges not to try to block it again.
Hopefully at least the judges in Alaska will have some sense.
“My wife and I are true envionmentalists.”
Good for you! Seriously. You are acting on your beliefs, taking responsibility for your own actions, and controlling your own property and resources. You personal actions and taking responsibility for them proves you to be a true conservative and a true environmentalist, the complete antithesis of the modern “environmentalists” who are really more interested in imposing their will on others than they are in doing any good for the environment.
If only there were more like you and your wife and less of the modern “environmentalists.”
If I had the time and money I would start a lawsuit against the wackos for disrupting commerce, blocking evolution,and, and,....
The masses are generally stupid. It requires a crisis to change course. There was no outrage when Congress was debating the less than %1 of the caribou. There is now.
If it brings the price of gasoline down 5-10 years from now, the Democrat President will take credit for it.
No it isn't ANWR.
Look at those poor caribou - don't you just feel their pain?
isn’t this the case!
Remember with Bush #1 signed the highway construction bill late in his term. It was said then that it would take about 18 months for the impact to the felt in the economy.
Lo and behold, the happened, just as they said it would.
Clinton took all the credit.
Here we go again.....
“All quite true, but unfortunately, it still begs the question...why didn’t W exercise his emergency powers to declare these predictable domestic constraints a state of national emergency and issue these orders back after 9-11?”
Because without public support (and frankly anger) on the issue, he would have gotten his head handed to him by the press and the brain-washed electorate. Sure, some of us have been all for the idea for years, but just take a look at public polling on ANWAR and the OCS even 2 years ago. The President can act unilaterally, but without public support, it can be political suicide. If he didn’t have bigger issues — the war in particular — he could have risked it. As it was, he needed to spend all of the political capital he had on that issue, with barely enough left over for tax policies that have helped keep this nation’s economy afloat so far. Now, though, public support on the issue means he can do this without expending political capital. In fact, doing so and handing the donks their political heads may generate some for him for other issues.
Pres. Bush asked, nicely, when he was first elected, that Congress open up ANWR for drilling. Congress said, “No.” I guess it’s Pres. Bush’s fault for asking nicely.
I'm sorry but that just isn't credible.
The case of the crisis in the middle east requiring "domestic independence" trumping any other constraining issues was never better.
well oil prices go with the news,good news(like this)price goes down,funny the dems said it wouldn’t help for 10 years,,but the bad guys countered today with gore saying we need to be completely away from fossil fuels by 2018 and of course Iran or Venezuela will rattle the sabres to get the price up,but drilling in our own reserves will stop the news speculation and no one will manipulate anything then.
I will tell you where he has been, on the wrong side of congress. With Rinos and Dems both opposing him on drilling. He now has the public on his side and he is taking advantage of it. Get real, he isn't a dictator, he is the President.
That is where W should have gone on prime time to go over their heads, and have a Press Briefing...right at Prudhoe Bay...and remind them that the terrorists were basically foreign oil-funded.
There is now.
Yeah, but now its probably too late to fix this. Especially if the RATs manage to exploit the ongoing unhappiness with W by the electorate, get the White House, and hang on or increase their Congressional majority. Then we are looking at least another four years of interference with US energy production.
I’m wondering what happens to the complaints and legal actions? I suspect they don’t just go away.
“Not that I dont appreciate the gesture, but where the HE!! has Bush been on this the last seven years?”
Pardon me while I whisper, but I think the truth is, the only thing the Republicans can claim as being better on this issue then the Dems., is that they did try several times to get drilling in ANWR approved. Other than that, they’ve been fully on board with all the offshore drilling bans, which were put in place during Reagan and GHWB’s administrations, and renewed by all presidents since.
W’s recent reversal on offshore drilling is welcome, but let’s not kid ourselves where he’s been other than on ANWR.
Because, if the world price should fall to any significant degree, I think both parties would slink right back to the old bans and hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil about the international oil market. - The public will have to stay after their asses, or they’ll be right back to doing the bidding of environmental whackos and others not so interested in seeing our domestic production of crude increased significantly.
Bush drills Pelosi and Reid. (sounds like bad porno)
You should know good and well that any action the President would have made towards the oil industry would have just been political fodder for the left.
How many times have they gone out of their way to denigrate the name “Haliburton”?
RINOs that W and Rove have been defending (such as Jeb Bush) or helping to put into place, and displace actual conservatives. Hence we got Schwartzenegger as one example.
W can't escape his own not-so-covert RINO support strategy.
Now you might jump up and down and complain, but it is time conservatives stopped doing the heavy lifting for someone such as W who clearly isn't conservative.
We can support him when he's right, such as the rather belated drilling decision, but let's not suddenly develop amnesia over all the previous times of conservative backstabbing, RINO supporting, and spinelessness.
We don't do true conservatism any favors.
My wife and I owned 158 acres of some of the most gorgeous, pristine wilderness in the world. We intended to keep it pristine and natural, a habitat for wild animals and an old growth, unspoiled forest.
The "Environmentalists" gave me a fit--with one stupid interference after another. After years of struggling against them and their stupid, inferior minds and morality, I told them that, if they didn't leave me alone, I would have to sell the property, and the only buyers available would be developers who would destroy it.
The "Environmentalists" didn't care. They merely wanted to be "Big Shots" and to let "everybody" know it.
They kept after me.
A group of developers offered me four times what I paid for the property. I sold it.
The forest was immediately cut down. I have no idea where the wild animals went. The place is now a desert of treestumps and weeds.
My wife and I made lots of money, and we almost wept. My wife has never been back to the site; she can't bear to go.
I went there just four days ago just to see what it was like.
It was worse than I ever imagined. I almost wept again.
I took lots of photographs.
I dispise the "Environmentalists" who destroyed that gorgeous place through nothing more than sheer stupidity and malice.
Actually this was released two days ago, the drop in oil yesterday and the day before was due to this release(that the MSM didn't report)and the fact Bush lifted the executive order for drilling offshore, this, coupled with taxpayer response(on the positive side)has caused oil prices to drop. We need to actually start drilling before the price goes way down however. The price in my area of CA, which has been 4.48 to 4.61 for about 4 weeks, has dropped today to 4.46 to 4.58, not much but a start!
ANWAR = ANWR grrrr....
The Bush administration didnt waste much time after its lifting of the executive ban on off-shore drilling to make its second big gesture towards the oil markets.
After how many years of not lifting the ban?
Yes, there will be oil in the 3.9 million acres.
The President didn’t even need approval from his mother to lift an executive order.
Ever = every
Bush has been accused of being in the pocket of big oil forever as has Cheney
Cancelling his dad's executive order before now would have accomplished nothing but give the Rats more ammo against him. This is the first time in his presidency that cancelling the order has a chance of being followed by a positive vote in congress. He knows that even if they won't vote FOR new drilling, they won't have the stones to write legislation prohibiting this sale.
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