Shifting Public Opinion On Offshore Oil Drilling
Despite their problems, the Republicans still can't be counted out. That became clear when GOP leaders, including Bush and McCain, caught the Democrats off guard with their calls for an end to the 1981 moratorium on U.S. offshore oil development. There has been little sentiment to allow such drilling in recent years, but the soaring price of gasoline may be making the public more receptive. A recent Gallup Poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support drilling in the nation's coastal and wilderness areas that are currently closed to exploration—if it helped reduce gasoline prices and if the drilling were conducted under strict environmental safeguards.
Opening up these new areas to drilling won't reduce prices quickly or even produce much more oil for many years. But in political terms, the GOP may have found a way to identify with millions of motorists who have a hard time affording gasoline that costs more than $4 per gallon and want some action from Washington. Democrats say that reducing America's dependence on foreign oil will take a lot more than additional drilling offshore. It will require conservation, use of alternative fuels, and many other steps that the GOP has not fully embraced.
Reader Comments
"Nelson" Rockefeller?
I think you mean John D
ENERGY SCARCITY SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES
Is there not bi-partisan support for treating both the symptoms and the causes of this fossil fuel crisis; or, shall that be left to the detriment of the next generation. Are the patriotic Reagan Republicans and Kennedy Liberals to finally unite for the benefit of the nation or not?
The trillions that have been bi-partisanly squandered with no economic return, on un-Constitutional intrusive foreign wars in Serbia and Iraq, should all have been invested in research and development of solar, tidal, wind, and hydrogen sources of inexpensive and clean sources of energy.
Subversive Neo-Marxist ideology, Podhoretz Neo-Con and Leiberman Neo-Lib, is the root cause of the break-down of the traditional bi-partisan government, the un-Constitutional foreign wars, and the escalating Cultural War in defense of traditional Christian culture.
Alcohol is the Answer
Who says that any oil that is drilled in America will stay in America? Last I checked, we were still a capitalist-democracy not a social-democracy. We also don't live in Kuwait or Venezuela. Therefore the international free market is the recipient of any new supplies of oil. In which case, India and China would receive the lion's share with the "All-Exalted" Market Forces leaving America with a few additional drops. Wake up people and get off the emotional side of the issue. Either oil dies or more Humans die.
Alcohol was the original fuel Henry Ford designed his cars for. It was not until his new competitor Nelson Rockefeller funded the Women’s Temperance Movement which successfully demonized alcohol thereby opening the door for the gasoline engine, making Rockefeller (Atlantic Richfield) the sole supplier of this once discarded petrol by-product. To survive, Ford had to convert all new cars to flex-fuel and eventually to the gas-only vehicles.
It is time to bring flex-fuels and ultimately 100 per cent alcohol engines back. Each community could easily grow the infrastructure needed for it’s own bio-fuel supply and distribution. This would not only rid us of our dependence on foreign oil but also end our servitude to multinational oil monopolies here at "home".
The best thing about burning biomass is that it completes the “Krebs” cycle by recirculating carbon into dioxide while gasoline, oil, and kerosene convert to monoxide. When it comes to discussion of the issues, our learning becomes impeded when we are no longer led by experience but by ideas; by what should be rather than what is.
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