Tuesday Morning Open Thread
1 day ago
Showing posts with label Gas Prices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gas Prices. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
T. Boone Pickens Being Stonewalled By Republicans
T. Boone Pickens -- a conservative billionaire oil tycoon who is putting billions of dollars into a plan to develop wind farms and convert our car fleet to natural gas -- recently gave an interview and said that Republicans in Congress are stonewalling him because the only thing they're interested in is more oil drilling. What a f*cking surprise!
Q: You told the New York Times last month that you’d never vote for a Democrat. Are you finding that difficult in reaching out to Democrats then with your plan? […]
PICKENS: So I am having no problem working with the Democrats. Having a little problem working with the Republicans. They don’t like it because I want to do more than just drill. And they, somehow have gotten it, a lot of them have, that you can drill your way out of this. But you can’t do it. There’s not enough oil there to do it.
As Think Progress puts it:
Pickens made it clear that, despite five straight weeks of calls for an “all of the above” energy strategy, congressional conservatives are interested in little besides drilling. In fact, last week, when the House passed an energy bill that included conservatives’ demand for offshore drilling, House Republicans opposed it because it would have repealed Big Oil tax breaks to invest in renewable energy. Apparently to Republican ears, “all of the above” sounds just like “Drill Baby drill.”
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)
Friday, August 15, 2008
When Fox Attacks
Great new video from Brave New Films demonstrating in stark relief the lying, slanderous, unhinged partisan rhetoric being spewed by Faux News:
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Obama's Olympic Ad: 'Hands'
Here is the video of the ad the Obama campaign is playing fduring the Olympics. It's refreshing to see how positive his campaign has remained, even in the face of the lying, hackneyed dreck that McCain keeps putting out:
Friday, August 1, 2008
Offshore Drilling Pledge Nets McCain Big Oil Donations
This is just sick. Leaving aside the fact that opening up new offshore drilling to the big oil companies will produce NO new oil until 2017 and, even when it comes, will have ZERO impact on oil and gas prices, a new report shows that McCain has received an enormous influx of new campaign cash from the big oil companies after making his pledge to lift the ban on new offshore drilling. I hate the influence of big money in politics.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
McCain Lies About Hurricane Environmental Damage, Oil Spills
THE LIE: Bush, McCain and other rabid Republican stalwarts have been telling us recently that lifting the ban on offshore drilling would be a good idea in part because offshore drilling poses little to no environmental risks because Hurricanes Katrina and Rita didn't cause oil spills.
Well, as it turns out, this is an ENORMOUS steaming lie! (Surprise!)
THE TRUTH: In a nutshell, Hurricanes Rita and Katrina caused the spillage of over 9 million gallons of oil, just shy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska that released 10.8 million gallons! The catastrophic release of crude oil into the environment was called by some: “among the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.”
I understand that politicians sometimes need to put a spin on things but this is LYING! Bald-faced lying!In fact, the clear satellite evidence of major spills was borne out by final reports. In May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) published their offshore damage assessment: “113 platforms totally destroyed, and 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10″ or larger diameter.” […]
Unsurprisingly, this devastation caused significant spillage, according to the official report prepared for the MMS by a Norwegian firm. […]
In addition, the hurricanes caused disastrous spills onshore throughout southeast Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast as tanks, pipelines, refineries and other industrial facilities were destroyed, for a total of 595 different oil spills. The 9 million gallons reported spilled were comparable with the Exxon Valdez’s 10.8 million gallons, but unlike the Exxon Valdez, were distributed throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast states, many in residential areas.
Listen to this interview with Nancy Pfotenhauer, John McCain’s senior energy adviser (!!), who says that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita "DIDN'T SPILL A DROP [OF OIL]":
Bush and McCain: Effect of Drilling is "Psychological"
As if we needed even more evidence that McCain is trying as hard as possible to set himself up for a third Bush term, with policies that largely tow the Bush/Rove/Party line, we get this.
Remember back when John McCain admitted that lifting the ban on offshore drilling will have no short-to-medium-term impact on anything and will only help to create a positive "psychological" effect?
I don’t see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist — and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts — is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have a psychological impact that I think is beneficial.
Well, our Fearless Leader, Mr. Bush, today gave a rare press conference and basically said exactly the same thing!
I readily concede [that new offshore drilling] won't produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology.
Anyone have any hope the media will report on this? Somebody get me my blood pressure medication.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Obama: 'America Already Has One Dr. Phil'
Here's Obama on Phil Gramm's loopy assertion that America is a "nation of whiners" because people are so concerned with their economic position after 8 years of Bush and McCain's disastrous economic policies.
Money Quote: "When people are out there losing their homes and property values are declining, that isn't a figment of your imagination. It isn't whining to ask government to step in and give families some relief."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
More 'Psychological Benefits' from McCain on Energy
On the heels of McCain's admission yesterday that his support of President Bush's proposal to open up the US coastline to offshore drilling would have ZERO short term effect on gas prices and would only give Americans a "psychological benefit" (read: voters think it sounds nice), here's another doozy.
Today, McCain pledged that America would have "strategic independence" from foreign oil by 2025.
Doesn't that sound nice? Do you have any idea what that means? Neither do I.
It sounds an awful lot like McCain a couple months ago:
My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.
If "strategic independence by 2025" is the same as "eliminat[ing] our dependence on foreign oil", here's the big problem with that (via the Carpetbagger Report):
[T]here isn’t an energy expert in the world — not one — who thinks we can “eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East.” It’s a child’s fantasy, but McCain spouts this stuff as if solving our problems really were just that easy. It reminds me of his solution to the fighting in Iraq: “One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’”
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
McCain Admits Offshore Drilling is BS
Here's a nice quote for you. Faced with a nearly unanimous consensus of energy experts and economists who say that McCain's 180-degree flip-flop on opening up offshore drilling would produce ZERO short-term impact on gas prices (not to mention that fact that it would at most drop gas prices about $0.15 in 10 years), McCain basically admitted today that his proposal is just so much feel-good bulls**t:
"I don't see an immediate relief... [but] exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."
Hmm, to what psychological impact are you referring, Senator McCain? Perhaps to the nice feelings it would engender in the "low-information" electorate who, through ignorance, won't realize that you're peddling a substantially useless and environmentally reckless proposal?
Feh. Here's what The Carpetbagger Report had to say:
McCain believes we have to focus on “practical ideas,” which in this case aren’t actually practical, and won’t have a pragmatic effect. At the same time, we have to worry less about practicality, and consider what might have a “psychological impact” on the country, whether the policy makes sense or not.
What?
...
The incoherence here is breathtaking. McCain believes drilling is part of a short-term solution. He also believes drilling offers no real short-term solutions. McCain believes a gas-tax holiday will produce big savings for consumers. And no savings for consumers. McCain believes we need pragmatic policies that work. He also believes we need psychic policies that make people happy whether they work or not.
I have no idea what John McCain is talking about. The real question, though, is whether John McCain knows what John McCain is talking about.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Quote of the Day: McCain - Offshore Drilling
This is a gem from an article at the Huffington Post that tries to find a single energy analyst or economist that supports McCain's claim that his flip-flop on offshore drilling will have any short-term effect:
Obviously McCain's people know this is kind of a joke. But they have the media frame that they want. They have Obama sitting there whining about the environment and he is there doing something about five-dollar gas, when in essence there is nothing his plan does for short term relief. -- Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Obama Pledges to Close Enron Loophole; McCain Opposed
Obama pledged Sunday to close the so-called Enron Loophole. As a bit of background, the Enron Loophole is a provision that was slipped into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted energy trading on electronic platforms from regulation and oversight.
Guess who slipped the loophole into the law? That's right, McCain's chief economic advisor Phil Gramm, who was at the time a powerful Texas senator.
Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday that "as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil." Obama "singled out the so-called 'Enron loophole' for allowing speculators to run up the cost of fuel by operating outside federal regulation."
The Obama campaign "blamed the loophole on former Sen. Phil Gramm," who serves as Sen. John McCain's campaign "co-chairman and economic adviser."
The reason why the loophole got dubbed the "Enron Loophole" is because soon after its passage, the lack of regulation/oversight over Enron's electronic energy trading market led to Enron (on whose board Phil Gramm's wife sat) bilking California out of $40 billion and causing a summer full of rolling blackouts.
Guess what McCain's position on the Enron Loophole is? Yep, he's all for keeping it, on the advice of Phil Gramm.
[A McCain] aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.
Someone tell me again why most of the MSM refuses to give McCain a fraction of the scrutiny devoted to Barack Obama's flag pins and Michelle Obama's patriotism?
Here we have the chief architect of a horrific loophole in a regulatory scheme specifically advising John McCain to keep it and McCain then dutifully going along with it.
Think we'll get 24x7 coverage on CNN on this?
Read More: Obama Vows To Close "Enron Loophole" For Oil Speculators; McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
Friday, June 20, 2008
Quote of the Day: Obama on Coastal Drilling
I am proud of Obama for standing up against McCain's latest ineffectual pander.
Just like McCain's absurd "gas tax holiday" proposal (which all economists agree would save Americans either nothing or $28 on average), McCain's recent proposal to open up America's coastal waters to offshore oil drilling operations (which is, to boot, a 180-degree flip-flop from his earlier position) is a shameless, useless sop to voters that assumes that Americans are too stupid or ill-informed to realize what crap it is (according to recent polls, Americans may indeed be just that stupid ill-informed).
Here is Obama on the latest McCain silliness:
Believe me — if I thought that there was any evidence at all that drilling could save people money who are struggling to fill up their tanks by this summer or this year or even the next few years, I would consider it. But it won’t. And John McCain knows that.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Bush Calls People Concerned About Gas Prices Squawkers
This President really needs to go.
Asked about bringing down high oil and gas prices, Bush responded with a pitch for more domestic drilling. Boulton replied: "There's a lot of people who say that's short-sighted. You know, it's going to run out one day."
Bush: "Well, in the meantime you've got a bunch of people squawking about the price of gasoline. And because we didn't try to find more oil and gas, we're in a pinch in America."
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