Dems To Relent On Offshore Drilling

Democrats Will Allow 25-Year Ban On Drilling Off Coast To Expire

(AP)  Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

The House is expected to act on the spending bill Wednesday. The Senate is likely to go along with the House.

"The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue."

While the House would lift the long-standing drilling moratoriums for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, a drilling ban in waters within 125 miles of Florida's western coast would remain in force under a law passed by Congress in 2006 that opened some new areas of the east-central Gulf to drilling.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore. It quickly became clear that measure would not get the 60 votes needed in the Senate.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, about half of it off California.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn't mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters - much less actual drilling - would be imminent.

The Interior Department's current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to make offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president. He has called for developing the oil and gas resources along all of Outer Continental Shelf and for the federal government to share royalties with states who go along with drilling.

Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has said he would support limited drilling in certain areas - possibly the South Atlantic region - if it is part of a broader energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and more energy efficiency.

The debate over offshore drilling is not expected to subside in the first months of the next presidency - no matter who sits in the White House.

Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.

But Democrats decided not to use the must-pass measure as a battering ram to carry an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless past White House veto promises, prompting grumbling among some lawmakers. Efforts to boost food stamps and give states billions of dollars to help with Medicaid bills also fell through.

But the measure would double, to $5.2 billion, funding for heating subsidies for the poor, Obey said.

The measure also would provide more than $600 billion to fund the 2009 budgets for the Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and the Veterans Affairs Department. Nine other spending bills for the 2009 budget year starting Oct. 1 remain unfinished.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that don't cut the number and cost of pet projects known as "earmarks" sought by lawmakers in half from current levels or cause agency operating budgets, taken together, to exceed his request. Obey said, however, the White House would reluctantly sign the measure.

[libluv2cnsor]

A Democratic President and Congress can and will reverse the George Bush enacted laws and BS.
Let the Trials and Investigations Begin! Just get rid of Pelosi California she is the reason Bush has not been impeached!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by txpatriot4us at 12:06 AM : Sep 25, 2008
+ report abuse

*********

please when your done with your drama and read and understand the article YOU WOULD REALIZE THAT AFTER 25 YEARS................that the democrats WERE WRONG ALL ALONG.............

[nothappyatall]

"We can ''''produce'''' way more oil by conserving than will ever come out of off-shore drilling."

We can ''produce'' far more oil as well as save the planet by NOT HAVING 4 KIDS PER COUPLE!!!!

"STOP OFF-SHORE DRILLING now...take that money and put it into clean alternative sources of energy.
STOP the fossil fuel expansion...

Posted by joe68sg1"

STOP having 4 kids!!
STOP having 3 kids!!

''Till there are none, Don''t BREED- ADOPT ONE!!

[nothappyatall]

"We can ''''produce'''' way more oil by conserving than will ever come out of off-shore drilling."

We can ''produce'' far more oil as well as save the planet by NOT HAVING 4 KIDS PER COUPLE!!!!

"STOP OFF-SHORE DRILLING now...take that money and put it into clean alternative sources of energy.
STOP the fossil fuel expansion...

Posted by joe68sg1"

STOP having 4 kids!!
STOP having 3 kids!!

''Till there are none, Don''t BREED- ADOPT ONE!!

[joe68sg1]

We can ''produce'' way more oil by conserving than will ever come out of off-shore drilling.
Who pays for the cleanup of oil spills off our shores?
WE DO...big oil wins again.
They take the record profits, and leave the cleanup bill for the American taxpayer. What a deal !!!
STOP OFF-SHORE DRILLING now...take that money and put it into clean alternative sources of energy.
STOP the fossil fuel expansion...

[armydog2]

when republicans win the country and her citizens loose!!!

[petro49l]

Hey jaydee, take your Haldol and Thorazine. Al Gore''s loyalty to the Saudis won''t work either.

[petro49l]

The Saudis claim total domination of the oil industry. Why not drill for petroleum in the Americas? The Central and South American Governments have the greatest off shore reserves of oil in the world. They are in dire need of revenue to regenerate rain forests. There is no reason to buy Saudi sludge.

[nvorr]

Posted by newster1 at 09:58 AM : Sep 24, 2008
---------

Your facts can''t possibly be right (flooded with sarcasm). Princess Palin firmly stands on the fact that Alaska produces 20%. I''ve heard her say it many times.

[sk8erbryan]

Every day homes are being built that put more energy into the grid than they use. Hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars are and are going to continue to dramatically increase the efficiency of vehicles we drive. Recycling and waste management, manufacturing, and every step that gets products to consumers is slowly becoming more efficient and "green".

Billions of dollars every year of government and private research, the benefit of having some of the most advanced technology industries in the world, and some the smartest people in the world, and you mean to tell me that the best thing we can come up with is to drill more oil?

What a sham. We sold out America.

We are going to waste billions and billions of dollars on drilling for oil when it won''t even help the problem, while ignoring every day solutions that will. We freak out when gas goes for $4 a gallon and we demand we drill up our own country rather than contemplating the idea that we don''t need an all-wheel-drive SUV to simply get to work every day.

I can''t tell if government is so out of touch with reality, if they are really tunnel-minded to think this will actually change anything, or if they are being paid off not to think of something outside of the box.

[nothappyatall]

Alaskan wells produced 263.6 million barrels of oil in 2007, or 14.3 percent of the total U.S. production of 1.8 billion barrels.

But Alaskan production accounts for only 4.8 percent of all the crude oil and petroleum products supplied to the U.S. in 2007, counting both domestic production and imports from other nations. According to EIA,

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpak1a.htm

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/ene_pet_con_percap-energy-oil-consumption-per-capita

Alaska @ #1 for most usage consumes 76.0 barels of oil per capita per year, Louisiana @#2 uses 63.8
Alaska has around 700,000 residents, 700,000 X 76.0 =
53,200,000 barels of oil the state USES, they produce 260,000,000 barrels a year- so the consume 1/5th of the total oil themselves that they produce!