Jun

Environmentalists Approve Offshore Drilling… For a Price!

Posted by: Mike's America @ 12:23 am in Uncategorized | 0 views

This kind of “green” doesn’t grow on trees!

Get this: a California environmental group formed in the wake of the disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill to fight offshore oil drilling approves of a new plan for 22 new oil wells offshore.

What brought about this change? A little “green” motivation is all it took.

The group: Get Oil Out, or GOO, joined The Environmental Defense Center and other local groups in supporting a plan by the Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) to tap as much as 200 million barrels of oil and 50 billion cubic feet of natural gas in what is called the Tranquillon Ridge off the California coast at Santa Barbara, site of the 1969 disaster.

In return, PXP will turn over 200 oceanfront acres and 3700 interior acres for parklands and pay millions for low emission buses for mass transit.

The cost of this exchange will be paid for by oil and gas consumers. Think of it as just taxation without the middleman.

Interestingly, the same Environmental Defense Center which approves of oil drilling offshore from Santa Barbara, opposes President Bush’s call for offshore drilling elsewhere. Perhaps if President Bush were to help grease the skids, the EDC would get on board.

What this proves is that when you are an environmentalist, there is more than one way to “go green!”

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5 comments so far

Rovin

While the lawers for the oil company’s have figured out that this is the least expensive way to proceed with the exploration and extraction, the moronic inviro’s have no clue that these additional cost will be passed on to the consumers.

The problem is the environmental community have attained far too much power by bringing suits to any company knowing full well that the liberal judges will rubber stamp everything. Bush should declare that for the next ten years U.S oil extraction is a national security issue and therefor oil companies can proceed with expediency, (just like he did with the southern border fence).

The Santa Barbara oil spill, Exxon Vadez, and Three Mile Island were serious disasters that needed to be addressed and corrected, but why this nation let the invironmentalist dictate our energy policies for the past thirty years has been a sinful strangle-hold on the developement of resources that could have left us far less dependent on foreign subsidies. Under the current economic financial crisis this nation is facing, it’s time they got their wings clipped.

June 27th, 2008 at 4:23 am

bbartlog

I don’t think this is such a bad thing. If a company is going to make some use of public resources (like offshore waters) then having them pay for the privilege in some fashion makes sense. In this case the environmentalists seem to have been willing to acknowledge the need for tradeoffs instead of taking a totally uncompromising line.
Of course, some of the specific things they asked for are pretty questionable, but on balance this is still a decent result. And yes of course the costs get passed on to the consumer. If there are environmental costs associated with drilling, they *should* get passed on to the consumer as best as it can be managed and not just to whoever happens to live near the drill site.

June 27th, 2008 at 8:07 am

bigpapa

Hey Rovin,
I think the envrios do have a clue that the costs will be passed on but they don’t care or they see it as fitting that we should pay more..
They are the new commies…

June 27th, 2008 at 8:53 am

Archie Debunker

[Not my true name]

Hey, bbartlog, the oil companies already pay plenty:

Leases
Exploration costs
EIRs - not cheap
Local Property taxes
Costs of drilling - very expensive
Onshore processing
Pipelines — can’t use tankers, no no no no noooo!
Refineries

If you tried the GOO strategy yourself, you’d be in jail for extortion.
I knew some of these Get Oil Out folks back in the day.
They are exactly who you’d think they would be….magical thinkers, all the way.

June 27th, 2008 at 10:05 am

Mike's America

Archie: bbartlog is a recovering Ron Paul supporter. Reality hasn’t always been his friend.

June 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am