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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
(Updated) Jim O'Donnell Guest Blog: The Right-Wing Offshore Drilling Scam
Update: Also see New Mexico FBIHOP's post that expands on this post by discussing this issue in terms of the views being expressed by New Mexico's Congressional delegation.
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We're exceptionally satisfied to have another wise visitor blog from Jim O'Donnell, creator and previous organizer of the Coalition for the Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico:
In the course of recent years, the quantity of boring licenses issued for advancement of open terrains expanded by over 361%. Have you seen your fuel costs drop? What about your power costs? Propane? Gaseous petrol? Uh ... no.
Try not to be tricked, amigos. So much discussion about seaward oil penetrating and the cost of gas and the pump is a bundle of stallion compost. Truth be told, the Republican Party is conniving with the oil and gas industry to drive up the cost of vitality.
This is criminal.
The oil and gas industry, floated by their Right-Wing flunkies are on a planned and well-thoroughly considered mission to end the twenty-six year old ban on seaward oil and gas boring. The objective? Increment corporate benefit to your detriment.
As a matter of first importance, there is no "boycott" on penetrating. Truly, there is a ban on boring in certain seaside ranges. Different zones are interested in penetrating as well as leases and boring licenses have just been issued. Also, they are not being penetrated.
Actually, just 17% of the rented zones are underway. All in all, with around 33 million sections of land of seaward ranges effectively accessible to bore and not being bored, why does the oil and gas industry need access to in any case more? The truth of the matter is that several BILLIONS of barrels of oil off the bank of the United States are as of now accessible for boring ... what's more, industry is not penetrating it. It has been assessed by the Energy Information Administration that if those as of now idle leases were penetrated, the USA would create an extra 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of flammable gas EVERY DAY, representing a multiplying of US oil generation and a 75% expansion in US petroleum gas creation. The Minerals Management Service reveals to us that around 80% of non-renewable energy sources accessible in seaward are as of now accessible for improvement.
This is the story all through the nation. On the whole (coastal and seaward), 68 million sections of land are rented and sitting inert. More than 10,000 grants are as of now "amassed" by industry. Yet they need more.
In the mean time, Senate Republican a week ago blocked open deliberation of a bill that would have offered about $17.7 billion in charge impetuses for buyers to manufacture sustainable power sources. Pleasant.
What's happening here is yet another skeptical endeavor by the GOP and the oil and gas burglar nobles to increment and guarantee immense industry benefits to the detriment of the American individuals.
These organizations would prefer not to bore these regions. They need to hold them as resources for restrain the measure of oil and gas available so costs rise even more - and they profit. They need to clutch these ranges with the goal that they can bore them ten or a long time from now when oil is at $300 a barrel and make a much greater fortune.
This is criminal.
John McCain, George W. Shrubbery and the Republican Party don't care the slightest bit about high vitality costs. Actually, they are intriguing with the oil and gas industry and Wall Street dealers to intentionally drive up costs and increment benefits while you and I endure.
Try not to be tricked.
This is a guest blog by Jim O’Donnell, who is the former coordinator of the Coalition for the Valle Vidal. He is also the author of "Notes for the Aurora Society," due out later this summer. He writes, walks and marvels from northern New Mexico.
Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express their opinions on pertinent political issues. If you'd like to submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.
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June 18, 2008 at 04:26 PM in Energy, Environment, Guest Blogger | Permalink
Comments
You really nailed it. I wish all Americans knew these facts but unfortunately the TV media especially likes to ignore inconvenient facts like the ones you give.
I'm going to pass this along to my family and friends around the country. We have to get the word out.
Posted by: greentomorrow | Jun 18, 2008 5:22:25 PM
So I take it the author favors more drilling. Right? Isn't he implying he wants to see all existing leases maxed out by increasing the drilling off our coasts? Good for him. We need more oil and gas...and more solar, wind, and nuclear. And it follows logically that Jim should also have no objection to exploring other deep water areas to tap what could be 10 years of energy for the entire nation, energy that can keep us going as we transition out of hydrocarbons to the next energy paradigm, whatever that may be.
Posted by: Jim Scarantino | Jun 18, 2008 10:30:08 PM
Way to go, Mr. Scarantino. Strawmen and Red Herrings. You might instead want to engage in an honest discussion.
Posted by: O'Donnell | Jun 19, 2008 7:38:50 AM
I think it's clear the author is calling attention to the fact that the big oil companies and their cronies are dishonest about the facts and use deception and scare tactics to try and grab more capital and tax breaks. These are the same tactics they use on every issue because their goal is always the same - enriching themselves and their friends and to hell with any other considerations.
We don't have time for a long "transition." Humans have to deal with the fact that we can no longer live in the unsustainable way we are living or the consequences will be dire. Pretending we can go on as we are for decades is illogical and dangerous.
Drilling for more poison to keep the poison burning going after it's been shown that doing so will endanger our entire planet is plain crazy talk. The sooner people get this through their heads the better off we will be. Anything else is just a fairy tale.
Start the ball rolling by insisting that cities require all businesses and highrises to turn off all their lights after the end of the work day. There are a gazillion ways to cut down on energy use that is wasteful and unnecessary.
The people who want to drill for more oil at this point remind me of people who wanted to hang onto the whale oil business when better sources of energy came into play. We are at another crossroads and we need to move forward, not cling to what was and what's killing us and the natural world.
Posted by: itle="https://www.energyplanet.info/" href="https://www.energyplanet.info/">roadrunner | Jun 19, 2008 9:08:51 AM
Here are more facts that refute what Jim Scarantino and other apologists for the oil lobby are saying:
In fact there's been an explosion of drilling the West for the past 7 years under Bush and prices have skyrocketed.
Hey Jim, why don't you look at the role of international oil speculators if you want to see what's driving costs up way faster than demand is going up.
Posted by: itle="https://www.dailykos.com" href="https://www.dailykos.com">Kossian | Jun 19, 2008 10:37:41 AM
You are propagating a misrepresentation guaranteeing that 4.8 million barrels of extra oil can be delivered from the 68 million sections of land of non-creating leases. The 4.8 million figure is totally counterfeit on the grounds that the technique to infer the sum is an aggregate misrepresentation.
The extortion was made by the House Committee on Natural Resources, with their June 2008 uncommon report, which was discharged 18 June 2008. The report gives neither data.or strategy. I had been striving for 10 weeks to acquire the technique. On the uncommon event when somebody at CNR would answer the phone, I was rearranged off to another person bringing about voice message and never an arrival call. Past endeavors through Rahall's office were constantly back to the CNR switchboard. This time I disclosed to Rahall's local staff member I had been striving for 10 weeks and that I viewed Rahall on CSPAN discuss this incredible transparency that now exists.
The affirmation with regards to the CNR strategy was from Katherine Romans, Policy Section, House Committee on Natural Resources. The affirmation began with a 25 September 2008 phone call to her that was made through Rahall's area office. I at last thought of the strategy all along and Ms. Romans affirmed that I was right in her 26 September 2008 email to me, which is underneath
The Method
- made a level of a non-creating real estate to delivering land for the two rent sorts, coastal and seaward
- increased every rate by the measure of the day by day generation from each of the two rent sorts that create oil
- included the two numbers together
The strategy is a misrepresentation for nobody in oil and gas or the administrative offices that give creation evaluations to the administration (US Geological Survey, Energy Information Administration, Minerals Management Service) could ever utilize such a technique. Creation gauges depend on evaluated holds, which Mr. Feldgus did not utilize. Generation gauges are constantly given with a low, mean and high sum, which mirrors the vulnerability yet Mr. Feldgus issued a solitary number, which indicates assurance. Creation gauges are dubious in light of the fact that the measure of oil is questionable and is reflected available for later being included additionally of three measures of low, mean and high. The distinction amongst high and low are in the billions of barrels. As an expert staff member who manages vitality matter, Mr Feldgus knows how generation gauges are made and why so for him utilize the strategy that he did is extortion and he knows it.
The sum and technique were the formations of Steve Fledgus, a staff member on the CNR subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources. On the evening of 2 September 2008, Debroah (Subcommittee Energy and Minerals) affirmed to me, by phone, that the information originated from Materials Management Service yet did not state what the information was. I got back to a similar evening to the subcommittee and addressed one of the other two subcommittee female staff members who said Steve Feldgus took every necessary step. I cleared out a phone message twice with Mr. Feldgus for the technique yet did not restore my phone call. .
America can not keep utilizing oil as we have and we can not deliver enough oil to get us to vitality independence. New wellsprings of vitality are required and in addition expanded efficiencies. In any case, oil and gas will, in any case, be the rule sources even in 2030, as per the Energy Information Administration and even the Wilderness Society.
In spite of the fact that I live in Houston, I don't work in oil and gas and I am not an agent for any gathering. I am one resident who dug profoundly into the state of our country's oil and gas.
Divided governmental issues are the way the framework works on the grounds that there are distinctive perspectives on issues yet that does not give anybody in Congress the privilege to lie and execute a misrepresentation to advance any reason. Partisan politics is the way the system works because there are different views on issues but that does not give anyone in Congress the right to lie and perpetrate a fraud to further any cause.
Posted by: itle="https://users.hal-pc.org/~cfmoore/" href="https://users.hal-pc.org/~cfmoore/">Charles Moore | Oct 29, 2008 4:09:31 PM
A debt of gratitude is in order for imparting your insight, however, I don't generally think it transforms anything. What you are putting forth is bandy with the real actuality that we can't go ahead as we have and that the oil organizations have considerably more to penetrate before they have to get more rents. We should change, not improve the situation burrowing the toxic substance.
Posted by: Roger | Oct 29, 2008 4:39:55 PM
