Today, President Barack Obama announced a sweeping new offshore drilling
policy, opening “vast expanses of
water
along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north
coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling” for the first time.
This plan would also restore the ban on drilling in Alaska’s Bristol
Bay. White House officials “pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S.
reliance on foreign
oil
and create jobs,” the Associated Press reports. For years, Obama has
explained that new offshore drilling would not “reduce U.S. reliance on
foreign oil” :
“The days of running a 21st century economy on a 20th century fossil
fuel are numbered – and we need to realize that before it’s too late.”
“The truth is, an oil future is not a secure future for America.”
“We could open up every square inch of America to drilling and we
still wouldn’t even make a dent in our oil dependency.”
9/15/05
“It would be nice if we could produce our way out of this problem, but
it’s just not possible.”
2/28/06
“Instead of making tough political decisions about how to reduce our
insatiable demand for oil, this bill continues to lull the American
people into thinking that we can drill our way out of our energy
problems. ”
8/1/06
“Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that
drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even
close.”
8/28/08
In the beginning of August 2008, as Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions
for Winning the Future (ASWF) “Drill Here, Drill
Now”
campaign overlapped the presidential campaign, and oil and gas prices
were skyrocketing to record levels, Obama abandoned his “blanket
opposition
to expanded offshore drilling,” saying that he would be willing “to
compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy
that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental
damage” in order to get Republican votes for comprehensive climate and
energy reform.
In 2005 and 2006, Obama talked about the “tough decisions” of “how to
reduce our insatiable
demand
for oil” and “investing in more
hybrids
and renewable energy sources, raising CAFE
standards and helping our auto industry transition to a fuel-efficient
future,” instead of drilling. In his State of the Union speech in 2010,
in contrast, Obama said that “clean energy jobs” means “making tough
decisions about opening new offshore
areas for oil
and gas development.”
Conservatives are treating the announcement with disdain—
ASWF said the president’s plan “is likely to
be an attempt by Obama to seduce the
public
(into) believing that he will do something in the future on offshore
drilling,” but amounts to little more than window-dressing. Americans
for Prosperity vice president Phil Kerpen commented that “the idea that
this is a big
concession
in exchange for which Congress should jumpstart climate legislation is
ridiculous.”