Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

President Obama, bless his heart, has to date prevented off shore drilling off our shores basically on environmental grounds.  This is regardless of the fact that the majority of Americans believe the time is now...Drill Baby Drill!

A recent court ruling has opened up the possibility of off-shore oil leases in the Gulf, but still not in Alaska, and the East and West coasts. August 19th was the date set for negoiations to start.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a vocal proponent of offshore drilling, had plenty to say.

"So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than $2 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobas, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources?" she asked on her Facebook page.

Ugh... Let me get this straight Brazil is in our environment last time I checked. Where is Obama's concern?

OK now IF and only IF drilling starts in Brazil AND the US anywhere soon, AND wells are actually producing oil as one would suspect, then loaning Brazil the money to develop might just make sense. Let's loan money to other South American countries as well. Let's flood the market with oil and get the prices back down to rock bottom prices.

If this should happen, commodity speculators would have no other choice than to speculate the prices as dropping. OPEC of course could reduce production to offset that but how far can they drop production and maintain thier economy?

It's a big shell game that we could ultimately win....but we gotta drill and do a lot of it as soon as possible to see the results. Even that though is not the whole solution...we need more refining capacity to go along with it.

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11 responses
Couldn't agree with you more.
— Sam's Life
Thanks!
Initially I was ticked off like Palin was but I thought about it a little while. Of course I'm also just speculating as to the President's possible motive in doing this. I am still concerned about the details an can't say I trust him to fully divulge his reasoning....considering his track record on transparency sofar.
— TechZilla
the refining capacity is the deal breaker,we havn't built any new ones in years,and do we get at least first dibs on this oil..
— ken
Even if we don't refine our own oil, we can sell it. The amount of dollars going out of the country for buying refined oil can be offset by what we can sell in unrefined oil and what we no longer have to buy unrefined from other countries.
In the long run I agree with you but we can have the greatest effect initially by flooding the market with product.
— TechZilla
Nice write up. Just one note though; the Government doesn't have to drill any where for all we must do is support and build more vehicles like the Chevy volt with its revolutionary gas mileage claim.
— xmangerm
Which in concept is ok except not all people want a Chevy Volt or similiar vehicle because it lacks the features everyone "needs". I need a 4x4 because of what I do and where I live. And yes we do need to move for more energy efficient vehicles.
Lower oil prices means that diesel fuel will be cheaper for the truckers and farmers. That results in lower prices for food and basic necessities, and all sorts of consumer products...Also results in lower sales taxes we pay.
Lower oil prices can effect prices and markets globally in a shorter time than the time involved in transforming the world into energy efficiency. Paying fewer taxes and lowering the cost of basic goods and commodoties translates into the fact individuals would have more disposable income.
Disposable income is what practically every American citizen is finding less and less of. The result of that is foreclosures, plant closings, cutbacks, and unemployment.
You have to be able to afford a new car to buy one do you not?
— TechZilla
Yes, you do have to afford a new car however my point is this electric and similar types of tech can be produced very cheaply if special interest could be stifled. Some people will need efficient 4x4 but the overwhelming majority of citizens need the tech that is in the Volt and Prius like yesterday.
— xmangerm
So do you have some plan to get this idea flying? Cash For Clunkers was a failure. It resulted in getting a few cars off dealer lots. The 2010 models haven't even been released yet.
There are a lot of details that need to be worked out and I suspect that will take several years based on current technology advances in that area.
— TechZilla
Not sure if this is true or not but George Soros, a major campain contributor to the Obama camp, is also a major stock holder in the Braziallian Oil company these funds will go to.
Our leases are still on hold!
— TechZilla
I am still confident that American innovation will come through and deliver us from this oil based system.
— xmangerm
I share your confidence. My biggest concern is the timeframe involved in actually developing a solution and then implementing it. We don't have the infrastructure to support it.
Our country is spending billions of dollars per day buying refined gasoline. That's money going out but not coming in. On the short term, we need to produce and sell more oil to offset that. In doing so, the cost of energy would go down not only for us but around the world.
What ever we end up doing, or whatever technology finally evolves, we need to try hard to think a little bit about how we go about things. We need to make sound decisions that make both economical AND environmental sense.
Ethenol, is one of those blunders we have allready made. Not only are we subsidizing it's production, it drove up corn prices. Then it turns out it can't be piped across the country like oil and gas can...it needs to be trucked across the country.
A better solution would have been to setup local co-ops for the farmers. Let them grow the corn and then have it refined in the local co-op and then use the fuel they produce to run the farms. Forget about forcing ethanol on the entire country.
In addition to higher fuel prices that created, have you noticed the price lately of anything that corn was used to produce it? I remember when puff bread was 5 loaves for a dollar. Notice the price of that imported corn? I remember 12 ears for a dollar.
Anything that has to be subsidized, is not a viable solution. If our legislatures really want to jump on a bandwagon, they need to find one that's self-propelled.
— TechZilla