BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism

Subject: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 07 - 11:33 AM

Administration Proposes New Energy Drilling
               
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: May 1, 2007

(NY Times)

WASHINGTON, April 30 — The Bush administration proposed on Monday leasing out millions of acres along the coasts of Alaska and Virginia to oil and gas drillers, a move that would end a longstanding ban on drilling in those environmentally sensitive areas.

...Drilling Off the Coasts Both areas have been closed to new drilling for many years. The areas off Virginia are still covered by laws that prohibit new drilling in all areas along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. But Congress lifted the prohibition on Bristol Bay off Alaska in 2003, and President Bush lifted an executive order in January that had blocked drilling there through 2012.

In the case of Virginia, administration officials are hoping to capitalize on interest in drilling expressed by the state legislature, which passed a bill last year asking the federal government to allow exploration for natural gas in waters 50 miles or farther from the state coastline.

Both proposals are part of a broader five-year plan to open up 48 million acres along the outer continental shelf to oil and gas drilling. Unless Congress objects within 60 days, most of the five-year plan will go into effect, though resistance has been voiced. Starting this year, the Interior Department plans to offer leases on about 8.3 million acres in the central region of the Gulf of Mexico, which Congress specifically approved for offshore drilling late last year.

But the department hopes to open up far more than that. It would offer leases on 37 million acres off Alaska, starting as early as 2008, in vast new areas in the Beaufort Sea, the Chukchi Sea and the Cook Inlet. None of those areas have been subject to a drilling ban, but none have been tapped before.

Starting in 2011, the Interior Department would also lease out 5.6 million acres in Bristol Bay along the Alaska Peninsula, an area that Congress closed off after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. If the plan can get approval from Congress, it would offer up three million acres off the coast of Virginia, starting in 2012.

"The outer continental shelf is a vital source of domestic oil and natural gas for America, especially in light of sharply rising energy prices," said Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior.

But Democrats in Congress criticized the plans for Alaska and Virginia, and they are likely to extend the current ban on drilling off Virginia. Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, said he supported limited drilling for exploration but has refused to endorse production.

"Whatever pressing energy issue comes before the American people, the Bush administration always responds with the same oil answer: more oil," said Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The proposal includes measures to protect against damage to coastal areas from oil spills and other accidents. It would not allow drilling within 50 miles of the Virginia shore and would wall off an additional "obstruction zone" near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay...."

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 07 - 11:36 AM

A summary of Bush impacts on environment since 2000. Not pretty.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 May 07 - 11:52 AM

Oh, fergawd's sake, Amos! The President and the Congress would never do anything to harm the environment! They know that they hold the trust of the American people and they would never, ever, do anything that would violate that trust.

This is just more yellow muck-raking journalism by the Red press....

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 07 - 12:04 PM

I always had my doubts about your latent right-wing tendencies, Rapaire!! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 May 07 - 12:51 PM

Bastards! We drove up into what used to be a beautiful mountain area near here, a few weekends ago. Drilling has been reopened after a long fight; the landscape is dotted with rigs, the roads are swamped with working rigs/vehicles and every other car is from Wyoming (not that I mind Wyomingites!)...there's an oil boom in Western Colorado thanks to the shrub and his idiotic quest for black gold to line his pockets. May it all seep out and mire him like the dinosaurs who turned into goo (or something like that!)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: dianavan
Date: 01 May 07 - 01:02 PM

Isn't it amazing how the politicians hide behind their so-called environmental initiatives and to do their dirty work regardless of what the public wants. I thought this land was our land.

From an e-mail petition is rcvd. about drilling on the B.C. coast:

5 Reasons to Stop Tankers in our Northern Coastal Waters

1. The certainty of spills

At a rate of 320 tankers a year traveling through the Hectate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound and the Douglas Channel oil spills are a matter of when and how large, not if. Industry averages suggest that there would be a "moderate" spill of over 1,000 barrels every 2-3 years and a "major" spill of over 10,000 barrels every 6-7 years.

2. The impossible clean-up

In ideal conditions the oil industry considers a 15% clean-up of spills a success, a target they have never actually achieved. The deeply indented coastline of northern BC poses far from ideal conditions. Extreme weather and the lack of natural flushing in the Douglas Channel will make cleanup from the inevitable spills even more difficult.

3. The local ecology

Tankers would be travelling along the labyrinthine coastline of BC, through grey whale migratory routes, past approximately 650 salmon spawning rivers and through the feeding grounds for humpback and orca whales. Over 20 threatened and endangered species would be negatively impacted by a spill.

4. Jobs and communities

An oil spill would devastate the coastal communities and First Nations that rely on tourism and fishing for their livelihoods. Cruise ships take between 300,000 - 500,000 people a year through the inside passage to Prince Rupert. BC's coastal fishery generates over $1.7 billion and more than 16,000 jobs.

5. Global warming

Oil tankers in BC facilitate the massive projected expansion of the Alberta tar sands, the single largest contributor to the growth of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. A barrel of tar sands crude takes 5 to 10 times more energy to produce than a barrel of conventional oil.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 May 07 - 01:06 PM

Bush is as bad as Reagan, or even worse. They spent their time in office dismantling protections for Americans and enriching their friends as much as possible. Their administrations are beneath contempt. As long as Bush tampers with the American educational process, he can also keep this up by keeping students and teachers so tangled in meeting benchmarks for bogus tests that they don't have time to look around and see what is happening to our civil society. The first goal for someone who wants to behave this way is to have an uninformed electorate.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 May 07 - 10:55 PM

Yeah, and the best way to do that is to distract them with non-issues like gay marriage, English as the official language, "values" of all sorts, and, above all, lots and lots of material things and medical debt so that they're so far into the red they can never get out because wages stink.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 07 - 12:16 AM

Where the hell did my friggin' post go? Deleted for some reason? Kindly say WHAT reason. Same shit, different day.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 07 - 12:17 AM

And I will keep posting until I get an answer. This is fuckin' deja vu all over again. SHIT!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 May 07 - 01:32 AM

I lost one a few minutes ago, but was able to go back and retrieve it, though I had to open a new window to get it to post.

Another thing Baby Bush is doing--instead of working to provide all workers with health insurance, he has decided that the thing to do is the penalize those who have insurance provided by their employers. Now THAT will piss off a whole bunch of people, and will distract heavily from the things he wants to slip through before he's out of office.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Style Environmentalism
From: Donuel
Date: 02 May 07 - 05:30 AM

OH MAAANNNNNNNNNN

I get it now.

AMOS   IS    EDMUND L. ANDREWS ( amos and andrews )

and Rapaire, well he is about as right wing as Colbert.
I bet he's as sharp and witty too.

Peace is .... as Peace does.

Dianavan should testify for a congressional hearing and then start playing mandolin and singing , CSPAN would be rebraodcast aroung the world.

Stilly would supply all 7 tons of newspaper research.

katlaughing would deliver an impassioned speech while more and more people began streaming into the chamber. One for the ages. One for the angels where the sky opens up and a sunbeam falls on her shoulders as the camera slows zooms and everyone feels like we make a difference.

And I would provide the graphics that would accidently have a pic of bush sucking gasfrom the pump and other gems that CSPAN had no clue they were broadcasting.



all ahmgettin at is the true power of these individuals if laser focused as a group would be historic - for all the right reasons.