In a bit of an about-face, President Obama's administration is considering the expansion of offshore oil drilling:
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: March 30, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing to open 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, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.
The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.
Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.
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This action seems to be in direct conflict with the President's avowed stance on energy:
Perhaps two pieces of reality are setting in:
- Climate issues are a distant 317th on voters' minds and the connection between climate and human-produced CO2 is tenuous, at best.
- It's the economy, stupid.