President to Lift Executive Ban on OCS Drilling
Monday, July 14, 2008The White House has announced that President Bush will make a statement at 1:30 today in the Rose Garden. The news is big and welcome: He will announce that his is lifting the executive order that prohibits drilling on the Outer Contintental Shelf.
The AP has a story: The executive order was signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
The New York Times covered the first President Bush’s prohibition — then only for 10 years — on OCS drilling in this story, June 27th, 1990, “Bush Cuts Back Areas off Coasts Open for Drilling.” The Times quotes a statement from the American Petroleum Institute:
The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group of major oil companies, estimated that as a result of the policy the country will lose about two million barrels of oil a day, about a fourth of current domestic production.
In a statement made public today, the institute complained: ”These decisions on offshore oil and natural gas leasing are harmful to our country and economy. They will lead to decreased domestic production, more imports , more dependency on OPEC, more tanker traffic, and the export of jobs and investment overseas.”
”Locking up these energy-rich lands at a time when our dependency on foreign energy is escalating,” the statement said, ”is a serious mistake.”
API was right, wasn’t it?
UPDATE (11:48 a.m.): In this June 18 news release, the National Association of Manufacturers called on President Bush to lift the executive moratorium.
[...] Advocates of increasing domestic energy supplies have been consistently making the same case for years now: America is foolish to lock away its own energy resources when they can be accessed in a way that’s both environmentally safe and profitable. Let’s not ignore the supply side of energy supply and demand. (Again, take a look at that API statement from 1990.) [...]
hey i think this is the lamest excuse i have ever heard. you guys are bush lovers.