Oil Addiction: Senate Working in Denial
congresswatch | Energy | Pollution | Water
As stated in an August 1, 2006 editorial by the New York Times, “almost six months to the day after President Bush urged Congress in his State of the Union address to help break America’s addiction to imported oil, the Senate approved a bill yesterday that would do nothing to cure that addiction and could actually make it worse.”
The bill in question is Senate Bill 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, introduced by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) that ends a twenty-five year moratorium on new offshore oil and gas drilling off the coast of Florida. The bill, which would open up 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for new energy development, would also send one-third of the royalties that would normally benefit all Americans from drilling in federal waters to just four Gulf States.
This reckless piece of legislation was first reported in the May 2006 edition of Congressional Watch. At that time, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected an attempt to end the oil and gas drilling moratorium on coastal waters with most Republicans and Democrats from coastal states opposed to lifting the drilling restrictions. Many conservation organizations spoke out against the proposal, asserting that it would threaten the Nation’s coasts, air and marine wildlife, and lead to further drilling in farther-flung locales, including the Rocky Mountain Front and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
During the bill’s debate, groups including Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club stressed that landlocked western states, which hold important energy resources, were to be concerned if the moratorium was lifted, as drilling bans, such as the one in Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, are precarious to political whims.
The offshore drilling moratorium was installed by the first Pres. Bush to protect offshore ecosystems and the popular idea was later expanded by Bill Clinton. The ban prohibits drilling near most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as well as Florida, but only covers around 20 percent of U.S. offshore gas reserves.
Unfortunately, Senator Conrad Burns voted in favor of SB 3711. Senator Max Baucus did not vote on the bill, as he was in Montana attending the funeral for his nephew who recently died in Iraq.
Contact Conrad Burns and ask him why he is sacrificing our beaches and marine ecosystems to oil and gas drilling, instead of pursuing real solutions to the nation’s oil addiction, such as increased energy efficiency, renewable energy and fuel-efficient cars.
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