House Approves Bill to Lift Drilling Moratorium - Page 1

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.........


http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/12/house-approves-bill-lift-drilling-moratorium 


The House of Representatives voted to open more of the nation's oceans for oil and gas exploration on Thursday by a vote of 243 to 179.

The "Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act," requires the Interior Department to set a production goal of three million barrels of oil per day for its 2012-2017 leasing plan.

In order to reach that target, the legislation requires the department to hold lease sales off the coast of Southern California, in the Arctic Ocean, off Alaska's Bristol Bay, and in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to North Carolina.

Republicans say that the bill, along with two other drilling measures passed earlier this month, would create 1.2 million jobs and lower the price of oil. The Congressional Budget Office says that the offshore lease sales would generate $800 million in revenue over ten years.

The Obama administration released a statement opposing the bill Wednesday. The White House argued that the proposal would undermine the current leasing process and mandate drilling leases without input from the affected states. 

NOTHING IS FULLY SAFE. I WORKED IN THE OIL INDUSTRY FOR ALMOST A YEAR ON THE ROWAN FORT WORTH AND ALSO WITH THE BILBO DRILLING COMPANY AROUND ALLEN TEXAS AND I CAN TELL YOU FOR CERTAIN THE OFFSHORE RIG WAS SAFER.
 I ALSO WORKED IN THE COAL MINES IN SOUTHERN W.VA, PIKE COUNTY KENTUCKY  LEASING FROM MASSY COAL AND ALSO A SHOT IN THE DARK COAL MINE CLOSE TO GRUNDY VA.
 I HAVE HELPED TO RECOVER BODIES IN OTHER MINES AND HELPED INVESTIGATE OTHER ACCIDENTS.
IN MY 23 YEARS UNDERGROUND AND THE LAST 11 YEARS AS A PARTNER IN THE COAL INDUSTRY WE NEVER HAD A MAJOR ACCIDENT.
 MY POIN IS ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. NOONE WANTS TO HAVE ONE BUT THEY DO. I SAY DRILL WHERE WE CAN AND BECOME INDEPENDENT OF FOREIGN OIL.
  ALSO MINE MORE COAL WE HAVE AN ABUNDTANCE OF IT.

I have relatives that are engineers in the auto industry.  Some of them have worked there for 50 years (obviously retired now) and they all agree that a fuel efficient engine that has great horsepower has been an option for years.  The oil companies in cahoots with the car companies have nixed the ultra efficent engine an unbelievable amount of times. My uncle remembers when he and his department, being so proud of the engine they designed (and it worked) that got over 40 mpg with 250+ HP, (I won't say which car manufacturer they worked for or what year this was although it was many many years ago).  The design crew with my uncle went in and presented the top brass with a demonstration of the working model and the blue prints.  They were told the top brass wanted to "further explore the implications of this engine" with their financial backers and to leave both the model (in a car) and the blueprints.  My uncle and his crew were excited.  A week or so later, they were brought in and told to "think very carefully about the proposition [they] were about to hear before answering".  They were told to think about their families, their kids, their careers and credibility.  Then they were told to forget they ever designed the engine because the " the company and their financial backers didn't see the need for this type of engine". They were told to remember Karen Silkwood and that ACCIDENTS HAPPEN when some of them complained.  They all agreed to forget then they were all given raises and bonuses.  Needless to say, my uncle never got over the dissapointment.

We have to stop blindly accepting big corporations' explanations and justifications and demand accountability

I know my 1997 Mercedes Benz E430 with a V8 and 275 hp gets 18-22 mpg, are you telling me that this is something that can't be repeated??????  I call BS.

Mindhunt - I believe you are over reacting to the spill. Its been about a year now and the environmental damage that was supposed to ruin the gulf for 1000's years to come is almost gone.....when is the last news you've seen about it?

If someone really goes looking, they might find a glob here and there, but that's about it. The fish are back, the beaches are clean, some people in southern LA are whiners who want something for nothing - that's the "Big Easy" style of the culture down there..... the claim that the spill ruined their livelihood - the recession is the real killer of jobs! And now with so many out of work oil workers in the area, the must blame the government and not the oil companies..... even the governor of LA is begging to get the drilling back underway!

The last oil well blow out in the gulf was back in the '70's in Mexico, and once again, the gulf is clean, the fish are back and finding evidence of the spill is a real chore....

Inbetween the two spills there have been thousands of wells drilled, this is one of the safest industries in America.

Our government forces the companies to drill in super deep waters - the most risky drilling possible - instead of letting the oil companies drill in safer shallow water.......

Using any petroleum products and then complaining about what environment is quite hypocritical in my opinion.

 

This is part of an article from Time (in partnership with CNN) super liberal reporting.......and they are even admiting that the whold (horrible) incident was blown out of proportion.......




Yet the damage does seem so far to have been less than feared. Take the oil itself: scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated last August that much of the oil had remained in the Gulf, where it had dispersed or dissolved. Many environmentalists attacked the report for underplaying the threat of large underwater oil plumes still active in the Gulf, yet later independent scientific studies indeed found that oil had largely disappeared from the water. Turns out we can thank bacteria. Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; University of California, Santa Barbara; and Texas A&M University traveled to the site of the blown well and found that microbes had digested much of the oil and methane that remained in the water. By autumn, the levels were back to normal. "It's very surprising it happened so fast," John Kessler, an oceanographer with Texas A&M, told me earlier this year. "It looks like natural systems can handle an event like this somewhat on their own."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2066031,00.html#ixzz1MjUkfaQ7

I have no issue with letting them drill in the gulf but only if that oil stays here.  As it is right now, the oil companies can sell that oil to whomever they want and they sell it to the highest bidder which is increasingly not someone in the U.S.  Why encourage them to drill here and incur the associated risks when we aren't guaranteed any benefit?

That month old article is a joke and an insult to anyone who understands ecosystems. Let's talk about the health of the ocean floor, I would certainly include it when talking about the health of the Gulf of Mexico in the coming years. Not such a rosy outlook, anymore, the true health story will take time in the telling. Like the dolphin deaths, that is just a sign of a beginning. The dismal state of the ocean floor will be filling a whole bunch of new chapters, in our future. IMHO

sorry for the 11 deaths....... the people that work on these rigs know understand that its a dangerous job and they are paid very well for it. Un-educated rufnecks can make upwards of 100k a year for the risk they take.

the free market is what made this country great.....it's what our founding fathers envisioned. a fair wage for a hard days work... BTW the big bad oil companies

i have never gone to work for a poor man....... they don't have the funds to pay my wage....

BTW, most of these companies are traded publicly and if you have a 401K or any mutual funds, then you are one of those greedy corporate owners....... LOL

not only for gasoline, but about 80 of everything in our homes and offices are made with at least some petrochemical products.




BTW........... this is only of of the greedy oil companies......... next time you get something from the federal or state government, thank the oil companies........

While the company is not obligated to publicize its tax return, and thus the actual amount it paid in taxes, ExxonMobil has voluntarily released a figure for its actual federal income tax bill in response to media requests that questioned why the company reported a negative tax liability in 2009. Jeffers told PolitiFact that the "U.S. income tax expense for 2009 activities was approximately $500 million." The company declined to provide documentation for this number, however.

ExxonMobil remitted $6.3 billion in sales taxes, $110 million in state income taxes, and $1.5 billion in "other taxes and duties." All told, the company's tax liability according to its 10-K was $7.7 billion. It paid an additional $70 billion-plus in taxes to foreign governments in 2009, $15 billion of which was for income taxes.