There just HAD to be a catch to Pres. Obama seeking to restrict oil drilling in ANWR

[bigtree]

White House to Propose Allowing Oil Drilling Off Atlantic Coast

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday will announce a proposal to open up coastal waters from Virginia to Georgia for oil and gas drilling, according to a person briefed on the plan.

Opening the Eastern Seaboard to oil companies is a prize the industry has sought for decades and is a blow to environmental groups. They argue that the move would put the coasts of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia at risk for an environmental disaster like the BP spill that struck the Gulf Coast in 2010, when millions of barrels of oil washed ashore after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

In opening up the Atlantic Coast for drilling while closing areas off Alaska, Mr. Obama is deploying a strategy that he has frequently used in forging environmental policy — giving both the oil industry and environmentalists a win and a loss...

“Opening Atlantic waters to offshore drilling would take us in exactly the wrong direction,” said Bob Deans, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It would ignore the lessons of the disastrous BP blowout, the need to protect future generations from the dangers of climate change and the promise of a clean-energy future.”

“The BP blowout oiled a thousand miles of coastline, about the distance from Savannah to Boston,” Mr. Deans said. “Opening up part of the Atlantic to drilling could expose the entire Eastern Seaboard to the risks of a catastrophic blowout.”


read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/white-house-to-propose-allowing-oil-drilling-off-atlantic-coast.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


...this absolutely feels like we're being played for suckers out here. I've been thinking a great deal about the reports from environmentalists who believe our oceans are just a short wave away from being uninhabitable for fish and other sustaining sea life. You want to feel that there's absolutely no way America would let that happen to our waters - and then you read about this cynical, deceptive, corporate-driven, damnable bait-and-switch which deliberately risks it all for an energy source which should be phased out and replaced; not encouraged to continue on its destructive course. This just made my heart sink. Just, fuck it.

[bigtree]

1. kick

[RiverLover]

2. We are being played as suckers.

It sucks.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/hes_not_suddenly_paul_krugman_lets_not_morph_obama_into_elizabeth_warren_quite_yet/

[stillwaiting]

10. I don't think you and I are being played as suckers. Others maybe. Not us.

We see it.

Others will continue to shout us down when we point out certain Democrats are serving corporate interests ahead of traditional Democratic Party values or average American interests.

Don't care.

But, I'm not being played.

We are being taken for granted, used, and disregarded though.

[ChosenUnWisely]

17. Some are not all, many folks actually pay attention

[Oilwellian]

3. They've been able to prevent drilling in the Atlantic for decades

until Obama. Absolutely disgusting and yet another attack on one of the pillars of the Democratic party...protecting the environment. Exactly what Democratic principles are left that will inspire voters in 2016?

[bigtree]

4. this is a backstabbing betrayal

...I can think of a number of reasons why this President is so insistent on this, but in an effort to avoid using gratuitously abusive language about his character, conduct, or complicity, I'll just say that this represents an ignorant disregard of basic environmental principle. Absolutely zero integrity on the issues he's been giving lip-service to (global warming, pollutants, alternative energy) demonstrated with this reported proposal. I hope this is proved wrong, but it sounds very much like other slick compromises Pres. Obama has made on other issues and concerns Democrats, liberals, progressives have fought back for decades.

[woo me with science]

14. It is a relentless, glaring, undeniable pattern,

and the only reason it is denied is because orchestrated denial has become an integral part of the corruption.

This government relentlessly propagandizes its own people. They have made previously illegal propaganda aimed at Americans legal now, and we know, thanks to Edward Snowden, that our money is being poured into campaigns of manipulation aimed at us.

Line it up with the relentless, predatory corporate and antidemocratic agenda that does not even remotely resemble what the people want anymore, the mass surveillance, the suppression of protest and investigative journalism, and the dismantling of so much of our Bill of Rights, and the MO more and more resembles that of an emerging fascist state, not a democratic, representative system.

They are not Democrats and Republicans. This is a corporate coup of democracy itself.

[HereSince1628]

22. What basic environmental principle do you mean?

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I can think of a number of environmental issues that could be in play around this.

I just wonder what you mean by basic principle.


At a global level one might have concern about anything that perpetuates continued fossil fuel use.

The nature of the risks seem somewhat different in ANWR and the US east coast.

My recollection of the recent history is that risks to developed areas and the potential impacts to other industries have been at least as important in holding off drilling on the US eastern continental shelf as risks to the natural environment.

IIRC the arguments against drilling in ANWR has mostly been that the arctic is an especially sensitive environment and of significant value to US conservation that deserve/require protection.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. K&R

[Broward]

6. The hits keep on coming.

[QC]

7. Hopetastic!!!

Now look! Over there! At those cute cute little baby animals in Alaska!

[bigtree]

8. kick

[nationalize the fed]

9. This thread is more popular than the ones that detail the US boots on Ukraine ground

coming up in the spring!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026132315

[NCTraveler]

11. When and where was the largest oil spill in US history?

Most people here can probably answer that easily. I highly doubt most Americans could. It took the administration, along with BP, to make that happen. None of this should be of any surprise.

[geek tragedy]

18. So you're directly blaming Obama for Deepwater horizon spill?

While giving BP only secondary blame, and completely letting Halliburton off the hook.

Thanks for the textbook ODS. Unless you can show the class that Obama sabotaged the rig or something.

[NCTraveler]

19. I never said such a thing.

Very strange reply.

[geek tragedy]

20. "It took the administration, along with BP, to make that happen." nt

[NCTraveler]

25. Edit: With your amazing reading abilities, it just isn't worth it. nt.

[bvar22]

12. DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!!!!!

Sometimes, it doesn't seem to make any difference.
Bread & Circuses.......

only less bread these days.


So, who do I vote for if I believe protecting the environment is at the top of the list?

[Octafish]

27. What would Goldman think of that?

Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

[woo me with science]

13. All dishonest, manipulative PR, all the time.

This is the difference between corporate government and government of, by, and for people.

We are witnessing first-hand the moral cesspool of corporate government, in which the democratic, moral imperative of representing human citizens has been replaced by the corporate goal of manipulating and duping an audience for profit.

It's all about propaganda. Setting up the charade or speech or photo op to suggest that you value one thing, while you are relentlessly doing the opposite. That is what they are spending our tax dollars on now: campaigns to manipulate us. A constant, deliberate manipulative charade, down to the stable of Third Way voices on the internet that will predictably intercede with diversion and vitriol if and when truthful observations like this start to elicit too much agreement and support.

[Baclava]

15. State lawmakers want the money?

[IMG][/IMG]

Despite the risks posed by offshore drilling, lawmakers in Virginia and other Southeastern states have pushed to open up their waters to oil companies, lured by the prospect of new revenues.

Both of Virginia's Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, support drilling off their state's coast.

[url]http://www.cnbc.com/id/102371528[/url]

[octoberlib]

23. Most of the lawmakers in the southeastern states are wingnuts and Obama

just made them very happy. Pat McCrory of NC has been lobbying for this ever since he got elected and it's very unpopular in our state.

[demmiblue]

16. K&R

[Ykcutnek]

21. It is very telling that more Obama critics are present in this thread...

Than the ones about ANWR.

For the record, I am against the proposal to drill off the Atlantic coast.

But I give both credit and scorn when they're due.

And I want everyone else to do the same.

[saltpepperdoor]

24. what is your daily driver?

How do you commute? Are you doing your part to "phase out" this energy source?

[madfloridian]

26. They killed the Gulf of Mexico and still no lessons learned.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Good cop vs Bad cop. In the end we always seem to lose.

[woo me with science]

29. kick for Third Way dishonesty.