Obama in a Bind on Gulf Oil Drilling?

Hardly. Gas can probably hit $15 a gallon before he'd do anything. He's too beholden to the environmental lunatics.

Though The White House lifted the official moratorium on drilling last October, no new permits have so far been awarded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, part of the US Interior Department. Officials are insisting that the industry must be able to clearly show that it has the capacity to contain an offshore spill before it grants any permits.

On Friday, Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, met in Houston with Marine Well Containment, a consortium from the oil and gas industry working on containment plans.

The rapidly unfolding events in North Africa and the Middle East have given greater voice to those who want to see permits granted immediately for drilling in waters deeper than 500 metres. The calls will only grow louder if there's any evidence of the sweeping political changes reaching Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait, the three biggest oil producers in the region.

Until he has polling numbers that say it'll threaten his re-election, he won't lift a finger to help the American people. If he was on our side, we'd be drilling already.

Now for the ultimate irony.

BP Plc agreed to bring Pride International Inc.’s drilling rig from the Gulf of Mexico to explore off Libya next year after delaying the plans because of limited rig availability in the Mediterranean.

The company also needed to analyze the outcome of the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf before going ahead with the move as originally planned for this year, said Toby Odone, a London- based spokesman at BP.

“We’ve hoped to drill as soon as we can and we’d hoped to drill this year,” Odone said by phone today. Libya’s state oil company approved the use of the Deep Ocean Ascension rig in November, he said.

More thoughts here.

Obama still has media cover. Whenever gas prices spiked during the Bush year the lamestream media basically camped out at the pumps for live remotes. Now they could care less.

Can We Start Drilling Offshore Now?

Everybody is aware of the horrible accident that occurred on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana which has resulted in 11 missing workers. The oil rig suffered an explosion and the resultant fire and has now slipped below the surface, but guess what? There has been no leakage of oil.

No environmental disaster which all of the enviro weenies constantly harp about and use to fear monger to block the further exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas in the offshore fields that have been identified. This of course is horrible news for the environmental crowd.

There is no crude oil spilling from the sunken oil rig off the Louisiana coast, an official told "Good Morning America" today, easing fears of a massive environmental disaster.

"We've been able to determine there is nothing emanating from the well-head," Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said. "That being said, we have positioned resources to be ready to respond should a spill occur... We will continue to monitor 24/7 for the next several days."

That information is contained in a print version of the report on the ABC news web site, but see if you catch any mention of it in the video report.

Now guess which version of this report will have a bigger effect.

Of course this won't matter one bit in the minds of the apocalyptic mindset of the liberals who seem to see the destruction of the planet just around every corner.

The incident is horrible and I am not trying to make light of it, but it does provide empirical data, that means provable and concrete for those who worship at the altar of Al Gore, that we can drill in the waters off of our coasts safely. The cause of the explosion of course needs to be investigated completely so that the cause can be determined and steps can be taken to prevent such a thing from happening again, but there is no reason to continue blocking the expansion of the oil companies efforts to tap into these resources.

It is time to stop the politics of fear that the liberals engage in. Basing arguments on unseen boogey men with specious and unproven arguments has got to end. Exchange woulda, coulda, shoulda with proven information from solid sources and quit scaring people with their imminent demise.

Our efforts to reach the moon also met with some failures and loss of life, but it also provided some of the best examples of what it is that used to make America great and highlighted our indomitable spirit and good old Yankee ingenuity and know how. It is time to try and recapture that spirit and quit living in fear of what happens if we fail.

Environmental Wacko Tempter Tantrum to Follow

Frankly, this seems to me to be part of a shell game to win over some "moderate" votes in order to shove an unpopular "climate change" bill down our throats. Not for a minute do I believe Obama is serious about drilling offshore. But the temper tantrum on the left will no doubt be delightful to watch.

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.

The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.

It will be interesting to see Sarah Palin's reaction.

Now Obama Thinks Offshore Drilling Isn't Such a Bad Idea

The shamelessness of it all. Although you knew at some point he'd get here.

Of course, just drill on a limited basis.

Sure.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

Democrats are merely paying lip service in the hopes they can bamboozle people through November. If this moron wins the White House and they hold Congress and the Senate, forget any notion that we'll be drilling offshore.