Pelosi Will Allow Vote on Off-Shore Drilling; Rejects Idea that Edwards Cost Clinton Iowa

Increased drilling will just add to ExxonMobil's record profits while doing nothing to ease gas prices.

How about auctioning the rights to drill in these protected areas and rebating the revenue back to the taxpayer? Now THATS something I think a lot of hard-hit democrats could get behind.

Several of the areas have been explored and remember there is a very high cost to explore those areas. If the idea is to lower the cost of energy why would we only allow companies to explore areas with a small rate or no rate of return? The costs will come back the american people in two ways; the cost of the petroleum based products as well as the decreased value in the stocks most of us have invested in these companies.

What do you think of my proposal to swap leases for the new land for the old land that is not explored? That would negate a lot of this argument.

What do you think of my idea

sane democrat, saying it doesn't make it true. The Bush Administration has not violated the U. S. Constitution.

1. The 4th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution protects against "unreasonable search and seizures" without a warrant. THAT means there are reasonable searches and seizures that do not require a warrant. One of these is seizing your breath in order to take a breathalyzer test during a traffic stop. No warrant is necessary for that. Well, what could be more reasonable than searching and seizing communications between the enemy abroad and individuals here at home during time of war?

2. Prior to the U. S. Supreme Court's recent overturning of Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), the law of the land was that foreign detainees held under American command outside the boundaries of the United States did not have a right to a writ of habeas corpus in American courts.

3. The U. S. Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq. While many on the left claim the authorization was based on a lie--no WMDs--that is not the case. President Bush rescinded the 1991 cease fire because Saddam Hussein failed to comply with the conditions of said cease fire. The fact that there were no WMDs in not relevant.

"no one is stupid enough to open off-shore drilling off California's coast....not even neo-conservatives..."

Exactly, because it's bad for the environment to produce and buy locally. You need production on another continent that is then transported here.

That's why I buy all my produce from China. For the good of the environment.

Oh, I'm supposed to buy produce locally, and manufactured goods locally (when possible) but buying oil/gas locally is bad, and we should ship that across the ocean to save the world?

We should require drilling to be done in countries that have fewer environmental restrictions in order to "save the world"? Really?

Interesting. Well, when you want to act seriously then I'll be willing to take you seriously.

But maybe we can trust Pelosi. In July of 2007 she told us she was very worried about $3.00 gasoline and would act quickly to resolve the issue.

How has she done so far? Are you happy with the "resolution" of the problem?

"James Danley They don't all have to be made from oil, and some of them are indeed expendable."

This sort of issue I think comes down to ideals versus efficiency such as the whole energy issue does. How much of our lifestyles should we compromise to meet ideals, what is the value of those ideals, and how fair is it to push the costs of one's ideals onto everyone else ?

Is restricting freedoms and choices in the name of ideals for the environment (of course sensible environmentalism is not an ideal but necessary), the children or the poor any better than restricting freedoms for national security? I personally don't think so except to a limited degree.

Cyros, First of all, it can't be determined yet whether the presently leased areas actually have oil or gas because there hasn't been exploration yet of these regions. And likewise, it can only be speculated if the protected areas can be exploited. So how about if the determination of existing fossil fuels is put in front of the drilling, or more simply stated, the horse is put ahead of the cart? There doesn't need to be this sense of urgency and demand when the existing leases are dormant.

RE:Cryos. So if this is a world market, which I agree with, how are we going to keep prices down by drilling for more oil? You think this oil is for America only. This is just another ruse by the Republicans and big American oil to fill their bankrolls even more. Once they get the go ahead to drill, do you think in 10 years that they will just sell it to the US? No, they will sell it on the world market for the highest price possible. It will be too late then and we won't be able to do a thing about it! It's called deceit...look it up in the Rove Dictionary of Deception and you will see Bush and Cheney's pics on page one.

"no one is stupid enough to open off-shore drilling off California's coast....not even neo-conservatives..."

And what is the reason for this again? Couple counters to what likely will come up.

1. Most rigs would be far enough offshore not to ruin the view

2. Strong environmental rules are in place to prevent and/or recover from any spills (very low incident rate in modern times). The Santa Barbara incident is looking at 30-40 year old technology.

3. If oil drilling is bad why do Norway and Canada agressively pursue oil? They have a couple of the best environmental records in the world.

As a life-long Democrat, I am sorry to admit the way Pelosi has manipulated the outcome of the primaries and now is considering drilling offshore as an answer to our oil woes. Surprise, surprise...this falls just in line with Obama's change of heart on the issue! As much as I detest those ignorant, backwards Republicans, I'm NOT voting for Obama either. He is a phony who was shoved down our throats by the DNC and media outlets like CNN and NBC.
Pelosi should be run out of office as quick as possible. Poor America...what a shape you are in! Bush and Cheney would be tried for war crimes and be in jail by now if we upheld our Constitution.

As a life-long Democrat, I am sorry to admit the way Pelosi has manipulated the outcome of the primaries and now is considering drilling offshore as an answer to our oil woes. Surprise, surprise...this falls just in line with Obama's change of heart on the issue! As much as I detest those ignorant, backwards Republicans, I'm NOT voting for Obama either. He is a phony who was shoved down our throats by the DNC and media outlets like CNN and NBC.
Pelosi should be run out of office as quick as possible. Poor America...what a shape you are in! Bush and Cheney would be tried for war crimes and be in jail by now if we upheld our Constitution.

"If I'm not mistaken, I think there are presently a substantial number of available leases for offshore drilling in non-protected areas which haven't been utilized."

This is a classic argument that I don't think people have looked much into when they use it.

1. Much of that land does not contain oil or contains oil in small amounts making it cost prohibitive.

2. The land is not considered "active" until all facilities are online and a certain amount of oil is leaving the ground. For example if offshore drilling was approved and oil companies starting surveying and preparing the infrastructure democrats could claim these new leases were inactive until everything was in place and oil was pumping.

Here's a compromise. Since the amount of land seems to be the issue how would you feel about the companies swapping acre for acre the land they already have for the land they want to acquire? Then they wouldnt have leases on any additional land and I bet oil companies would accept this is a heartbeat.

On the Edwards situation who knows what the results would be but I'd hope even the biggest Edwards supporters could admit MSM and democratic politicians tried covering it up as long as they could. I'd like someone to try to honestly say the lack of investigation of simple verifiable facts would have happened if it had been a prominent republican.

First off when people talk about Big Oil I wish they would refer to it as American Big Oil. Apparently libs think foreign companies don't exist and somehow making american companies go out of business is going to help us.

Wake up libs its not the 50s the "corporations versus the people" argument only works with the naive who don't realize in a global economy if we stop our companies from profiting they will go out of business, get bought, or move offshore making us rely solely on foreign companies. I guess to me that is not the most brilliant strategy to be "independant."

Second I guess people like Pelosi need to be taught the definition of strategic. Her main plan is to empty the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The high oil prices are not a true crisis that the SPR was designed for. If we follow liberal policies we'll never be able to fill it back up since the cost of petroleum will just go up and up. We use around 20 million barrels a day. The reserve is at 700 million barrels. If there was a true crisis such as a nuclear war in the middle east we would have 35 days of oil and combined with liberals refusal to drill we wouldn't be able to produce much of our own to cover it.

In the long run getting off oil as much as possible is a good goal but in the short term emptying the reserve makes us vulnerable and slaves of the oil producing countries. Perfect example you won't see much action from the EU on the Russia/Georgia situation because Russia is a huge European oil supplier and they could turn off the oil and Europe would be in chaos.

We'll never know what really would have happened without Edwards, but the evidence in the states that were polled before their primaries is that all of the Edwards supporters ended up casting their votes for Obama, not Clinton. Based on that evidence, it is highly unlikely that something different would have happened in Iowa.

i'm still waiting for one obama lemming to present one original idea or policy this snake charmer has come up with to make America better

no one is stupid enough to open off-shore drilling off California's coast....not even neo-conservatives...

DNC rules state that a petition to place a candidate in nomination at the Convention, signed by no fewer than 300 delegates, must be accepted by the Chair. Our contacts in the 300 Petition effort tell us they are quite confident they will meet and easily exceed the 300 signatures, all of which are notarized, in the likely event that the Obama campaign, following the lead of Barack Obama himself in his discrediting campaign against Alice Palmer in Chicago, will attempt to challenge the validity of the elected delegates’ signatures.

“We know how Obama operates. We’ve seen it in Chicago for years, and we’re not taking any chances,” says one of the delegates I spoke with who is organizing the 300 Petition.

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The totally UN-Democratic PARTY!!!

If I'm not mistaken, I think there are presently a substantial number of available leases for offshore drilling in non-protected areas which haven't been utilized. There is a rush and emphasis to drill in the protected areas before the other areas are exploited. It may be a matter of grabbing what you can while you can, just a simple issue of greed. As far as the Edward's affair goes in speculation to Clinton winning or losing Iowa, that amounts to predicting the past.

Edwards was a spoiler for Obama just as Thompson was for McCain against Huckabee. People who have followed this election know this. Edwards and his wife are both losers, no pity from me, she(Elizabeth) knew going in about the affair, she is just as power hungry as her husband.

Pelosi has to change or she is out. The people want to drill. I hope they see through the lies Pelosi is putting out there.

There'll be a catch.

There's always a catch. This will be bound to something like an amnesty program for illegals.