You know what to do... ;-)

Rec'd.  I don't want ot have to explain to my kids why the coastline looks like crap, all smogged and sluged up, for no reason.  I'm gonning to put my faith in that Pelosi and Feinstien, being from CA, will block this.

In Fact, if Feinstein were to put a stop to this drilling BS, I'll take bakc all of the mean things I've said about her.  

And I may be the only one in the left blogosphere that feels this way...

Go nuclear.  Much of Europe has.  Yes, it IS dirty, there is a lot of waste, you do have to worry about it for thousands of years, what if they have a meltdown, terrorist attack, etc., I know, I know, I know.  But at least it doesn't increase greenhouse gas emissions.  And it could help keep the cost of electricity low enough to keep electric cars viable as a replacement for internal combustion engines.  And it can be scaled up.  Solar and wind are great, the technology is improving, and we should pursue them, but they both consume land, and I sincerely doubt we can provide for the whole 21st century on mostly solar and wind.  The history of human civilization suggests that the human race's per capita energy consumption (not just the US's) is going to keep increasing forever.

I think we have some inertia on the left on this issue.  The green concerns of the 70s and 80s haven't yet caught up to the green concerns of the 2000s.  I love the solar and windmill idea, but they are not scalable.

damn! you got two diaries on the rec list? atdleft, you're such a rockstar-

I could go for a really nice rig or two 200 feet off  Palm Beach Florida centered on an east west line through the center of Rush Limbaugh's place. And a nice smelly refinery next to the Bush Presidential Library in Crawford, and put a nukular par plant there right there too.

issue about two weeks ago on ABC This Week. It was interesting in providing a preview as to how the issue may well be framed.

For openers, Kay Bailey Hutchinson smiled the entire time in her best (and somewhat sickening) June Cleaver imitation. Markey seemed to be angry and snarling...but more importantly, Stephanopoulous tried to close the discussion by suggesting that a compromise--combining more production/drilling with increased conservation, and development of alternative sources--was the only way out.

Markey indicated that he was unwilling to compromise...no to nuclear, no to coal, even no to natural gas....Hutchinson followed by saying, "well of course, we have to compromise". Regardless of the merits, the Democrats are going to look unreasonable if they say no to any increased production of fossil fuels. And I think they will lose the argument. The Senate's "Gang of 10" as well as Boone Pickens are both moving in the direction of compromise; everyone will have to give up something.

Your awesome atdleft...Many thanks for the diary and your well=reasoned opinions!

The estimated undiscovered conventionally recoverable oil in the Federal Offshore area is 75 billion barrels.

Of that 21% is estimated to be within the moratorium area, or 15.75 billion barrels.

The estimated consumption of oil in the United States alone is 20.687 million barrels.

By that math, that buys us another 2 years of oil and leaves our children with nothing. We could do that. Or we could get real.

Nappy time with Bush with his bubble economy is over and people are awake, but just ignorant of the facts.

Thanks adleft, after the last oil tanker crash into our Golden Gate Bridge, no, no, hell no to offshore drilling. Between the oil spill and these fires, our ecosystem is trashed, shore birds are MIA, estuaries are polluted. Forget it, Jerome, Jim Webb, and everyone else caving in to this. How'd you like drilling by your greatest natural asset in your state? Think of the ocean, man, we can't even keep it clean from transporting the filthy stuff!

Perhaps this is a national version of "not in my back yard", but it seems like we're saying that other countries should do dirty work like drilling, not the USA. Brazil's Petrobras has made huge finds off their shores, China Petroleum will soon be drilling just 60 miles off Florida's coast, and Canada--through oil sands extractions--now supplies 17% of our oil imports.

Senator Obama seems to have some kind of grudge against Canada, vowing in March to go after Canada "with a hammer" if they didn't renegotiate NAFTA according to his diktat. On the energy front, he last month referred to the oil sands extractions in Alberta as "dirty", and made other claims suggesting that Canada doesn't care about the environment. Finance Minister Iris Evans promptly told the Calgary Herald that she "wouldn't rule out" cutting Canada's oil production for the US if the abuse from Obama doesn't stop.

Bottom line, we have to increase production of both oil and natural gas as an intermediate step (4-8 yrs.) to increase supply and lower prices. It's worth noting that within a week of his innaugural in 1981, President Reagan removed domestic controls on oil production. Energy prices began tumbling immediately, from $34/barrel in 1981, to just $11/barrel in 1986.

I share the environmental concerns of others who have posted comments (I worked for eight years at the National Wildlife Federation), but it's worth noting that the technologies utilized by Oil Services companies like Baker Hughes and Schlumberger have advanced light years over where they were when many of these environmental laws were first passed. Even when Katrina ravaged the Gulf in 2005, not a single oil spill occurred.