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Thursday, September 18, 2008

McCain Continues Offshore Drilling Lies

Lies, mistruths, prevarications - name them what you will. McCain is up to his old tricks and in one speech today on offshore drilling, he manages to pack in three easily disprovable lies about offshore drilling:

LIE 1: Hurricanes won’t damage oil rigs.

TRUTH: The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 offshore oil platforms and caused 124 offshore spills for a total of 743,700 gallons. In fact, damage to offshore producers accounted for 77 percent of the oil industry’s storm costs. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, there are at least three offshore oil rigs missing and “presumed to be total losses.”

LIE 2: Fish love oil rigs.
TRUTH: McCain is pushing an oil industry talking point. While marine biologists have seen fish congregating around oil rigs, it doesn’t mean they are good for wildlife. “That’s like taking a picture of birds on a telephone wire and saying it’s essential habitat,” said the Environmental Defense Center’s Linda Krop. Without the platforms, fish would likely return to natural reefs.

[This] is especially silly, [considering that] [n]ot too long ago, conservatives were also trying to argue that the United States should start drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve because oil pipelines would “become a meeting ground and ‘coffee klatch‘ for caribou.”

LIE 3: Cuba is allowing China to drill near the U.S. coast.
TRUTH: The Congressional Research Service has unequivocally concluded that Cuba has not permitted China to drill near the U.S. coastline in the Gulf of Mexico. Even Vice President Cheney has admitted this talking point is false.

(from Think Progress)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post. Oil rigs are good for fish, man John McCain has really lost his marbles.