Posted on 08/13/2008 5:36:21 AM PDT by IrishMike
Republicans may be planning a crude surprise for Democrats this October. I mean crude in the sense that it will involve unrefined petroleum.
Since the House recessed earlier this month, Republicans have been demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call it back into special session to vote on whether to allow new offshore oil-drilling.
The Republicans know Pelosi won't do that. So, what do they really want?
Let's start with some sense of the oil resources America could develop if Congress would allow it.
In 2006, the Interior Department estimated that about 85.9 billion barrels of "undiscovered technically recoverable" oil sits offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf within U.S. territory.
In 2007, the Energy Department's "Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels" reported that: "America's oil shale resource exceeds 2 trillion barrels, including about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in high quality shales concentrated in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. ... Depending on technology and economics, as much as 800 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be recoverable from oil shale resources yielding (more than) 25 gallons per ton."
This combined 885.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil that the government estimates lies undeveloped within U.S. territory is almost three and a half times as much as the 260 billion barrels in proven oil reserves that lie under Saudi territory.
America is an oil-rich country.
Since 1982, however, each year's Interior appropriation has included language forbidding Interior from selling oil-drilling leases in about 85 percent of the acreage comprising the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. (In July, President Bush lifted an executive order — originally imposed by his father — that essentially duplicated this congressional moratorium.)
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
Now, were I a Pubbie on Capitol Hill, I would schedule hearings from October 01, daily, about who is standing in the way of our own oil, and why......but that would require some testosterone...which seems as short in supply among Capitol Hill Pubbies as is estrogen in the women across the aisle...
1945: The US invents, produces, and delivers a nuclear bomb to end WW II.
1969: The US lands astronauts on the moon and returns them to Earth.
2008: The USA, despite sitting on top of immense coal, oil, and uranium reserves, is in the middle of an energy crisis that threatens the economy and national security.
WTH is wrong with this picture.
Please, this is blatantly unfair. They are showing lots of spine. They're being there every day fighting and it's showing results.
McCain has come around, Obama is getting weak-kneed and even Pelosi is feeling the heat. It would not be happening without the bravery of the House Republicans. They're willing to sacrifice their vacations and they deserve our thanks, not our ire. I am very proud of the House Republicans.
Excellent post!
Your comment seems especially silly given that DAILY House Republicans have been holding hearings and press conferences and making speeches.
Russia’s recent actions will definitely help move the nation into drilling everywhere we can.
It is obvious even to the most dense that energy has become the new age replacement for the nuclear weapon.
We will drill or we will be nothing.
CSSJR
The Office of the Secretary of Defense prepared a PDF presentation that has maps and charts proving the US has in excess of 2x the hydrocarbon resources of Arab OPEC.
see:
http://www.westgov.org/wieb/meetings/boardsprg2005/briefing/ppt/congressionalbrief.pdf
“Obama is getting weak-kneed”
And to think he wnats to be leader of the free world.
The answer to your question is known to anyone who interacts with today’s average young person. That is, we are living on the right side of the statistical bell curve that powered the USA to being the most advanced civilization that ever lived on this planet. Those times are over. The drive to innovate and personally achieve, usually mandated by necessity, is no longer as powerful as it was for our grandfathers. Not everyone is that way of course. But spectacular success is no longer measured by it’s contribution to society but by it’s financial return. And since that reward is not shared by others, it benefits few. If there is no perceived benefit, there is no drive to excel.
Still, we do live in the country that everyone wants to break into, not break out of ...
It doesn’t matter if we have 20 times as much. As long as Nancy is hoarding it in her basement we can’t get at it to use it.
that’s funny!
and the saudi’s wonder why we don’t drill our own oil.
As a practical matter, how would you manage to do that? Remember: Republicans are the minority party -- they don't "own" any committees. What Democrat committee chairman would allow you to use his committee?
bttt
Here is Nancy's motivation not to drill...I wonder how many other invested and have the same conflict of interest?
Not to mention the Bakken shale.
Bush should call out the democrats everyday and the republicans need to grow a backbone.
Unfortunately, the American Left, of which Hussein O’Bama is the current headliner, is determined that we will be nothing.
I truly hope the R side stands firm with Blunt and holds up any further legislation including the appropriation bill to fund the gov past Oct. 1. If the DemonRats plus a few RINOs manage to get enough votes to put a continuing resolution on Bush’s desk, I hope he will veto it. I doubt it, but we can hope.
Unfortunately, the MSM will once again paint the mean and dastardly Republicans as wanting to stop granny’s SS check in favor of enriching “big oil” instead of forcing attention to our legitimate domestic energy needs.
And the clueless, average John and Jane will accept it.
There are a lot of House Republicans giving speeches and revolting right now about Pelosi calling the recess and not allowing the vote on drilling.
I know and nobody knows... Bush should be demanding congress back into session.
DRat Energy Policy -”Right now, our strategy on gas prices is, ‘drive small cars and wait for the wind.’ “
AND we seem to have so much domestic natural gas... methane should be cheap.. We have enough natual gas to supply us for a thousand years some say.. and its not even all been discovered yet.. Surely there is crude oil deposits on the East Coast?... Why has NOT the East Coast been prospected for crude oil?..
they’re still grandstanding. There is an opportunity to break the back of the “business as usual” scam that shuttles lobbyists with bags of cash from K St to Capitol Hill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2060977/posts
What this is about
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2061060/posts
The Senate-the most easily bought and paid-for branch of Congress is fighting back. That major interests have bought the Speaker of the House is a new development in the sell-out of America. Newt Gingrich refused to sell-out-and was removed.
This is far bigger than just acute energy policy. The House has always been the last bulwark against the total synthesis of government and business(technically fascism) fleecing the public.
You make no sense at all. You first say the Pubbies have no cojones, then you say they have always been a bulwark.
Whatever...
I have to believe that the figures in the article include the Bakken field.
We should be drilling everywhere we can, using what we need, and exporting the rest. **** OPEC.
Can a minority member of Congress convene a hearing? I thought, but had never really thought about it, that hearings were scheduled and run by a committee chair.
In my mind it’s moving beyond being a financial threat into the realm of a national security threat.
The RNC should make that into a campaign commericial.
The numbers were attributed to specific fields. Bakken was not mentioned. Bakken seems to be only rarely part of any mention of the total of resources. Maybe it is too new or is being developed anyway because the government doesn’t own all of it.
This is huge
Drill drill drill!
The problem, mo, is that the Dems control Congress and only the Dems can schedule a hearing.
“...They’re willing to sacrifice their vacations...”
That is highly commendable. I hope they don’t lose the momentum and continue to focus on the prize. Five weeks is a long time to go and not get sidetracked with other issues. I pray they are successfull with this stand.
I have also had to sacrifice my vacation due to 9%Nan and her gang. She has priced me out of a realy nice vacation that was planned. Instead, the wife and I had to make do on our staycation and hang around the house. I sure hope SanFranNan and the Gang of Idiots are enjoying themselves. We sure as he!! aren’t.
So have you called a single one of them to demand what you want or are you just sitting here complaining?
I’ve called so many of these people, long distance that my phone bill next month will rival my house payment.
And Twitter. And #dontgo. A whole bunch of us are showing support for the House Rs. How about you?
Don’t bitch, dial.
If you answered the United States, you are CORRECT. Next question, why should the the USA be the only country in the world, not to develop their oil resources? Is it, as Nancy Pelosi says, "to save the planet"? How could the USA on its own save the planet by not developing its own oil resources?
bump
Recall several of them, save the taxpayers a pile of money. Vote Pelosi out so she can devote more/full time saving the planet. Y2K
“America’s oil shale resource exceeds 2 trillion barrels, including about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in high quality shales concentrated in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.”
But it is not equivalent to saudi oil, it is bitumen in rocks that is very hard to get out. the economically recoverable fraction is small (although still vast reserves of about 400 billion barrels) and it would require special methods to recover it. Shale will not be as cheap as drilling for oil. It was tried in the 1980s and it failed because it was too expensive at the time. What they need to do is develop ‘it situ’ methods to cook the shale so it get refactored into oil that can be pumped out.
It should be a part of our energy future though.
Only prob., like Lucy with the football, every time Charlie goes to kick she lifts up her ball.
The fear is the price of crude will "mysteriously" fall just as they get going.
btt
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