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Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time


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Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time

 

By JOHN M. BRODER NY Times Staff Writer

 

Published: March 30, 2010

WASHINGTON — "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."

 

Read more here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?hp

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The more oil that is taken from domestic sources, the less oil that is taken from countries that don't like us very much. I think this is a good move. The whole reason the studies are being done is to see if there's any detrimental environmental effects, which should appease the environmentalists.

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The more oil that is taken from domestic sources, the less oil that is taken from countries that don't like us very much. I think this is a good move. The whole reason the studies are being done is to see if there's any detrimental environmental effects, which should appease the environmentalists.

 

IMO, they shouldn't open up the reserves now. What they should do is wait until the Middle East runs out. Then, start selling it at a high price.

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As long as it leads to a sustainable energy future i'm all for this, we can use the natural gas for busses, cars, trucks, dare i say it... locomotives... We can't just keep pumping oil either from an unstable region, it isn't safe, we need our troops to fight real wars, not ones over goop from the ground.

 

- A

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Not to turn this into a war about Iraq, but if it was so much about the oil, then wouldn't prices be like $1 since the US is occupying the 3rd largest oil rich nation in the world?

Since prices here are like $3, that war for oil conspiracy is totally false.

 

As for this drilling: about time. Though I dunno why there's no opposition being Obama over Bush for the drilling, but if it means less reliance on the Mid east, then all the better.

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I think Obama is using this off shore drilling thing as an olive branch to republicans and show Americans he is not that much to the left as he is in the center. The Republicans tasted defeat with the health care bill and this is Obama way of reaching out to the Republicans and taking this stance on an issue they cant disagree with him on.

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IMO, they shouldn't open up the reserves now. What they should do is wait until the Middle East runs out. Then, start selling it at a high price.

The Middle East is doing exactly that with oil monopolies such as OPEC - which we suffered from back in 2008 with the near-$5 a gallon. The US isn't opening up reserves right now, it's only starting to look into the feasibility of offshore drilling rather before actually doing it. Also, we can't rely on the Middle East for oil when quite a few of the countries we are getting oil from do not hold very good relations with us. If they ever decided to hold an embargo against us (hypothetical and oversimplified), then we're ****ed. Also, if these countries are our oil suppliers then we hold that as an interest and we essentially have to shape our foreign policy to protect those interests, even if it's not the ideal foreign policy we want to hold.

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