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3/30/10 IW: The post below was from 2008. It was pretty prescient. With Obama opening up the Atlantic to drilling, it has become even more useless to try to differentiate the Republican and Democratic positions. Its either the corporate parties or the Green Party. Your choice.
Were you sickened as we were by the chants of “Drill, Baby, Drill” at the Republican convention? But it got worse. In a cynical election year attempt to win voters hurt by skyrocketing gas prices, the Democrat-led House voted to allow oil companies to drill for oil along the nation’s coastline; effectively breaking a long-held promise not to do so. If they can do this, what other promises will they break?
Democrats would rather angle for short-term political gain rather than promote real solutions like renewable energy, building local economies, and reducing consumption -solutions that will take us into the post-petroleum future. Only the Green Party offers real solutions for tomorrow’s world. We are running candidates to promote Green solutions; and electing officeholders who put these ideas into practice in our communities. We take no money from oil companies, investment firms, or insurance companies; In fact, we don’t take any corporate money because we think corporate money in politics is wrong.
Green Party vs. Republicans and Democrats
The Issue: Offshore Drilling
Since 1981, drilling in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific off U.S. shorelines has been banned under a federal moratorium. Last week, in response to high gas prices and continued dependence on an oil-based economy, the Democrat-controlled House voted 236-189 to open these offshore areas to exploration and drilling. If passed into law, the House bill would allow oil drilling 50 miles from shore with a state’s permission and 100 miles from shore without a state’s permission. The bill would also remove restrictions on oil shale drilling in the western United States (which the National Wildlife Federation called a “double disaster” for our climate), eliminate some tax credits currently held by oil companies, and require that 15% of U.S. energy production be by renewable sources by 2020.
The Republican view:
The McCain/Palin rallying cry has been “Drill, Baby, Drill!” House Republican leaders spent the summer holding weekly press conferences calling for resumed drilling. Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, strongly supports oil exploration in her home state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. John McCain – who asks crowds at his campaign rallies for their support for drilling for oil wherever they happen to be standing – states that he will “cooperate with the…Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources,” illustrating his belief that U.S. energy policy and the invasion and occupation of oil-rich nations are clearly linked.
The Democratic view:
The key word has been “compromise”. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traded support for a 27-year old moratorium on offshore drilling for slightly higher taxes on oil companies, who will likely immediately continue making record profits by passing increased costs onto customers. Instead of focusing on the need for new, truly clean energy sources, Barack Obama trumpets his willingness to work across the aisle on increasing vehicle fuel efficiency (instead of replacing polluting engines with replacement technologies) and further development of so-called “clean” coal. Obama’s support for new coal development (and the mountaintop removal and strip mining we use to obtain it) is a step back to a 19th-century, not 21st-century, energy strategy.
The Green view:
We oppose the toxic and environmentally-destructive national oil-based energy strategy. We agree with the experts who insist that new sources of domestic oil could not be discovered, processed, and refined within a decade. We urge immediate investment in strategies that can have both a short-term and sustainable impact on our national energy strategy, such as solar, wind, and other non-polluting alternative energy sources.
As Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney says, “Leave the Oil in the soil.” We support leaving it in the soil, ocean floor, shale, and wherever else the oil parties imagine they might find it.
Filed under: activism, cynthia mckinney, Ecology, economy, election, Election 2008, elections, Environment, Global Warming, grassroots democracy, Green Party Websites, Green Presidential Campaign 2008, News, Political Websites, reform, third party, US Politics Tagged: | barak obama, democrat, John McCain, offshore drilling, republican
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thanks
When was this article posted? I need to know so i can use this for a project.
You dense thinking little people. If you stop the drilling, it will be our killing! We are already becoming so vulnerable to attack, and without the oil we will be open season for any country who wants to come after us. Oil can be drilled in a clean way, but green people do not want to admit it. There is a place for both, but for our own protection, right now we need to find and have our own reserves. Wake up before it is too late.
Funny that you should say reserves. We already have oil reserves.
There is a simple equation that your thinking is leaving out:
We need more oil, so we must do something to get more, more, more.
But…if we could use less oil, we would not have to find more, more, more ways of getting it.
Just drive less. Pretend gas is $4 a gallon again. Buy a smaller car. Stop making things from plastic.
Then, when you are using less, less energy and oil, it will be easy to keep up our use with renewable energy. Not just solar and wind, but soon there will be ways to harness the power of the waves to create electricity.
Perhaps we think less than you. But, we are using our imagination better…think outside the box.
Ok, one thing that needs to be made clear is that America is the terrorists. You might not realize but America was the one that took the land from the middle east. That is the reason behind the whole war. I am an American, but America is only hurting itself. And if we do get attacked I would not blame anyone willing to do it, because of what we have done to other countries in the past.
It’s too bad it has to be versus anyone. All parties are necessary for governance.