NYT: With Democrats' Midterm Victory, Bill Allowing More Drilling Along Coasts Appears Dead

[DeepModem Mom]

Bill Allowing More Drilling Along Coasts Appears Dead
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: November 11, 2006

HOUSTON, Nov. 9 — Just a few months ago House Republicans and representatives of the energy industry were poised to rewrite a quarter-century of national energy policy and open the seas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling, which environmentalists had fervently resisted.

But Tuesday’s Democratic victory in midterm elections has changed the legislative landscape, obliterating the chances that anything close to the aggressive drilling bill passed by the House of Representatives will be enacted for years to come.

Now, with the Democrats’ mid-term election victory, the proponents of drilling off the nation’s beaches are reluctantly jockeying to settle for a small patch of new offshore exploration allowed in a competing and more modest Senate drilling bill. “I don’t want to end up having no progress,” said Representative John E. Peterson, a Pennsylvania Republican who is a leading proponent for expanded offshore drilling. “Something is better than nothing.”

He added, “With Nancy Pelosi as speaker it will be difficult to talk about producing in the outer continental shelf.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/business/11drilling.html

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. ...

[Hekate]

2. Nancy Pelosi will no doubt listen to my representative, Lois Capps, regarding drilling off our beach

Two California Democrats, both interested in the environment. What're the chances they actually talk to each other? :-)

Big Oil has been greedily eyeing the oil fields off the Santa Barbara coastline since forever. However they don't want to comply with any regulations that might inconvenience them.

Every day there's another bit of good news, isn't there? :-)

Hekate

[XemaSab]

4. They already drill off here

so what would be the difference? :shrug:

[Hekate]

5. Three words: 1969 Oil Spill

Since that time (see below), the oil companies have continued pressing to tanker oil through the Santa Barbara Channel rather than sending it through a safer pipeline. The Exxon Valdez shipwreck/oil spill of 1989 showed that single-hull ships were still in use and that oil companies had no intention of spending the money to build safer double-hulled and compartmented ships.

Yes, there are a number of platforms off our beaches today. But if the oil companies had their way we would have platforms as far as the eye can see.

Some of us have no reason to trust their word or their good intentions.

Hekate

http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/sb_69oilspill/69oilspill_articles2.html

1969 Oil Spill
source: http://www.silcom.com/~sbwcn/spill.shtml (current as of 5/03)

On the afternoon of January 29, 1969, an environmental nightmare began in Santa Barbara, California. A Union Oil Co.
platform stationed six miles off the coast of Summerland suffered a blowout. .... A natural gas blowout occurred. An initial attempt to cap the hole was successful but led to
a tremendous buildup of pressure. The expanding mass created five breaks in an east-west fault on the ocean floor, releasing
oil and gas from deep beneath the earth.

For eleven days, oil workers struggled to cap the rupture. During that time, 200,000 gallons of crude oil bubbled to the surface
and was spread into a 800 square mile slick by winds and swells. Incoming tides brought the thick tar to beaches from Rincon
Point to Goleta, marring 35 miles of coastline. .....

Ecological Impact

Animals that depended on the sea were hard hit. Incoming tides brought the corpses of dead seals and dolphins. Oil had
clogged the blowholes of the dolphins, causing massive lung hemorrhages. Animals that ingested the oil were poisoned. In the
months that followed, gray whales migrating to their calving and breeding grounds in Baja California avoided the channel
—their main route south.

The oil took its toll on the seabird population. ....

>snip<

What Went Wrong?

Union Oil's Platform A ruptured because of inadequate protective casing. The oil company had been given permission by the
U.S. Geological Survey to cut corners and operate the platform with casings below federal and California standards.
Investigators would later determine that more steel pipe sheating inside the drilling hole would have prevented the rupture.

Because the oil rig was beyond California's three-mile coastal zone, the rig did not have to comply with state standards. At the
time, California drilling regulations were far more rigid those implied by the federal government.

>snip<

Many credit the 1969 oil spill with igniting the environmental movement. For eleven days, 200,000 gallons of crude oil spilled
into the channel from a disabled oil rig. ....

>snip<

[XemaSab]

8. But now we have pretty strict laws to prevent that sort of thing

Besides, why should we export the environmental problems associated with oil drilling to countries which don't have stringent laws? :shrug:

[w4rma]

10. Why should we weaken our laws to accomodate foreign nations with lax laws? (nt)

[Hekate]

14. Recall who we are currently working with in Washington DC, and which Oilmen wrote our energy policy

I moved to the Santa Barbara area in 1979, so I missed the 1969 disaster. However, my husband was here then, and did his part trying to save gulls and grebes that were dying even as he tried to get the oil off their feathers.

I came from Hawaii, which has a different local political structure than California, so I didn't understand at first who the Board of Supervisors were and how they figured into the local standoff with the oil companies. But here's the deal: ever since 1969 it has been the local county Board of Supes who, prodded by the citizens who founded and energized GOO (Get Oil Out) and other environmental groups, consistently stood in the way of rampant and uncontrolled oil drilling. I think this has something to do with the excessive amounts we are charged for gasoline at the pump, almost the highest in the nation, despite the refinery at Gaviota.

The county did not have a huge number of people then, and still doesn't. (The latest census shows only 400,000.) The county government is not wealthy. Oil companies have an endless supply of both money and lawyers. But the government and residents here have mostly stood their ground, and I'm impressed.

Nearly all of us here drive cars, and nearly all of us understand the current necessity of drilling for oil. But we also want environmental responsibility, and the Bush-Cheney regime has shown it doesn't give a damn for anything but power and profit for their cronies. Even Richard Nixon understood (and cared about) ecology far, far better than anyone in the Bush administration ever will.

Hekate

[XemaSab]

18. Richard Nixon was the best environmental president

we have ever had.

Ronald Reagan was a pretty good governor as far as the environment goes too.

I'm just skeptical of NIMBYs and their ilk. :shrug:

[Hekate]

19. Nixon surprised us. Reagan said if you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all...

...back when he was governor. Then as president he appointed James ("The End is Coming") Watt as Secretary of the Interior.

The SB attitude toward drilling goes beyond NIMBYism. Think globally, act locally.

Hekate

[XemaSab]

20. Reagan signed into law

the California Environmental Quality Act, which is the foundation of environmental protection in the state today. And a good 75% of my job. :+

[Hekate]

23. Touche -- I did not know this. Congratulations on your career choice, too. nt

[Robbien]

3. Good riddance to Pombo and his pollution gang

Not only do they want oil companies to drill in protected areas, they want oil companies to have those drilling rights free of charge.

Pombo has alot of bad Karma due him for his crimes against the environment.

[shanti]

11. yes, pombo

his defeat made this possible!

[fooj]

12. Three cheers for the Stockton/Tracy/ Brentwood area!!!!

:applause:

[struggle4progress]

6. But notice the article is REALLY about the fact that Congress is expected

to open 8.3 million acres for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

[NOLADEM]

7. This is needed....It is an essential interim step to be less dependent on foreign energy

We must have more domestic production. The oil industry here in Louisiana is a poor steward of inshore wells because they destroy the marsh with their channels and increased erosion. However, any person with any experience in the gulf will tell you they have been a good offshore steward. When you fish the Gulf, part of any trip is to fish the rigs because that is where they are.

I wish we could all drive solar cars and have windmills on our roofs, and maybe one day soon we can. But right now, it is fact that it is an improvement to get oil from our gulf while creating tons of good paying middle class jobs rather than getting it from our enemies we are simultaneously enriching.

Flame away.

[Robbien]

15. With all the government giveaways to domestic oil drilling companies

Domestic oil is so much more costly to obtain than foreign oil. Foreign oil is cheap as dirt compared to the cost of our current domestic oil.

Rebates, credits, royalty kickbacks and other types of taxpayer supported government subsidies all flow to the bottom line of Exxon. Through government subsidies we pay BigOil for all their costs, then we stand in line at the gas station paying BigOil again for the gas.

But you go ahead and keep spouting erroneous propaganda put out by the think tanks supported by BigOil. The think tanks are about the only thing BigOil pays for, but I wouldn't doubt BigOil gets us the taxpayer to reimburse them for that cost also.

You say you need this exploitation, but I say I (and the planet) do not. Being exploited is never a thing I need.

[Miss Chybil]

21. Maybe, we should nationalize our production? It surely would be

cheaper than providing multi-million dollar bonuses to oil execs at taxpayer expense. Just a thought.

[rodeodance]

9. Dems need to start a FDR style national program on Energy NOW!

[Pastiche423]

13. Could this also lead

to stopping Liquefied Natural Gas from being imported from around the world?

Could it stop the LNG tankers, which are a magnet for terrorists?

[Straight Shooter]

16. *whew*

:woohoo:

[blue4barb]

17. I hope drilling for oil in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge is off the table.

[MGD]

22. Drilling for more oil is NOT energy policy reform. Oil is the problem, not the solution.

It's like putting a bandaid on a wound that needs a touniquet.