Simple Man Politics

Aloha to all my internet ohana today. I am glad to see that you all have been eagerly awaiting my Tuesday blog post. Today’s blog is about the energy bill that will be voted on in the House of Representatives tomorrow and later in the Senate. I think you will find this very interesting so lets get started.

On Wednesday September 17th 2008 the House of Representatives is going to vote on an energy bill that includes solar, nuclear, geothermal, wind, bio fuels, and oil. I think it is a good idea to have an energy bill that will include all of these options. The problem I have with the bill is that while it opens up areas for exploration and drilling on the outer continental shelf it will impose a ban on drilling where the bulk of the oil is located.

The new bill introduced to the House of Representatives will open up new areas for oil production which is true. The problem is it will also impose a permanent ban on drilling where the oil is most abundant. The ban will be against drilling anywhere within 50 miles of the coastline of the US out to 100 miles. All new drilling will be allowed beyond the 100 miles. The problem is that the bulk of the oil resides within the 50 mile area proposed to be banned roughly 88% of the oil deposits we know about. There is enough oil in this area to match the oil purchased from Saudi Arabia for at least 20 years.

They say the reason for the ban is one of environmental and ecological concern. One of the most notable events cited for the concern is the 1969 oil spill of the coast of Santa Barbara California which was in truth an ecological disaster causing wide spread damage to the coastal area and marine environment. The Exxon Valdez incident is also another event that has been frequently referenced.

Current numbers indicate that it is almost impossible for these kinds of spills to occur with off shore drilling because of the advancements in technology and the safeguards we now have in place. The experts say that the mostly likely event that would cause this sort of crisis would come from oil tankers that have sustained some sort of hull damage that allowed a leakage to happen.

Another fact that no one seems to be expressing here is that more oil enters the ocean from seepage through the ocean floor than from spills involving oil drilling platforms. The numbers indicate that less than 1% of all oil that gets into the marine environment comes from these platforms and that the rest come from seepage that occurs when there is to much pressure below the surface of the ocean floor. Experts suggest that by drilling the pressure would be greatly relieved and that there would be even less seepage.

Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat Illinois) says that he doubts when the bill coming before the house reaches the senate that it would even pass especially with the bans being proposed in the bill. He also stated that there are two other bills as well and that neither one of them is likely to pass either. Political commentators and experts believe that the Democrats in the senate will let the bans expire and hope that if Obama gets elected to the Presidency they will have the opportunity to remedy that problem. The reason being that most of the bans are put in place through spending bills which the senate does not have coming before it before the general election.

Now I will tell you that I personally don’t understand why you would open the OCS to new exploration and drilling and then ban drilling where the oil the most abundant. You might as well just keep buying oil overseas at exorbitant prices because the cost to produce it here would not be worth effort for so little. With regard to ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) I haven’t even heard a thing about that in this new bill and we should be drilling there to. As usual I just report the facts but you have to decide for yourself. I will see all of you tomorrow have a wonderful day, CIAO4NOW!!!!!

Howdy ya’ll I hope this finds all of you having a terrific Thursday. I know that today is the anniversary of 09/11/2001 however I will not be politicizing the terrible event that took place this day 7 years ago. I will pose this question to all of you though. If we were attacked again in that or some lesser fashion, who would you want defending you against someone who only understands violence? An elitist, diplomatic, poodle, or a warrior pitbull? For me my choice is simple. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way what do you say we get down to discussing the last part of the O’Reilly/Obama interview?

The 1st part of the interview was on the subject of energy. Bill queried Obama on the nuclear power citing France and Sweden as examples of countries who use nuclear power successfully and asked Obama why no nuclear power plants. Obama said that he was not against nuclear power contrary to opinion. They also discussed drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) which Obama is against and O’Reilly is obviously for.

The 2nd part of the interview was on our national security interest abroad. Afghanistan was the 1st place Bill brought up telling Obama that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) did not even fight there except for the French and asked Obama why the Germans would not fight. Obama said the reason that NATO and Germany did not fight there is because we had weakened our relationship with the German people and NATO with the war in Iraq. They next discussed Russia attempting to assert its influence over the countries that immediately border Russia like Georgia. They also talked about the missile shield in Poland which Russia opposes saying it is being deployed against them. O’Reilly and Obama both agreed that Russia knows that the shield is not aimed at them and that it is just political posturing on their part. Obama also said he would keep the missile shield there providing it worked.

All in all I would have to say that this 4 part interview was a good interview and fair and balanced to. I would also have to say that it showed me two very important things about Barack Obama 1 that he has given some thought to his positions and 2 that he is weak. I think that O’Reilly was right to keep Obama on track with the topics they discussed and not to let him ramble on or spin. As usual I am going to put the link for the interview at the bottom of the post so you can watch it for yourself. I also hope you enjoy the video and never forget. Have a wondrous day, CIAO4NOW!!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/index.html