Washington Extra – Chicken and ducks
The wrangling continues over the Bush-era tax cuts. President Barack Obama said he was confident Democrats and Republicans could break the deadlock and reach a deal soon. But with time running out, there is something of a game of chicken being played by the two sides. Each is watching to see who blinks first, and with the economy still struggling, both know the stakes are high.
Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling warned of the risks of failure: “In a lame duck session, a lame duck Congress should not turn our economy into a dead duck economy.”
Let’s just hope they don’t duck the issue.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
Obama’s oil oratory — Katrina, drill baby drill, boom and shave
President Barack Obama, in his first formal press conference in almost a year (since July), answered questions about his handling of the oil spill.
There was the one about Katrina comparisons. (Slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina turned into an albatross for former President George W. Bush).
“I’ll leave it to you guys to make those comparisons … and make judgments on it, because what I’m spending my time thinking about is how do we solve the problem?” Obama said.
But it turns out he did have an opinion about future judgment about past actions. “I’m confident that people are going to look back and say that this administration was on top of what was an unprecedented crisis.”
Did he regret calling for expanded offshore drilling before the spill? Obama said he continues to believe that “domestic oil production is an important part of our overall energy mix,” but is insufficient to meet future needs, which is why investment in clean energy is needed.
Then, the president, himself, without any prodding, brought up the phrase that Sarah Palin made famous.
“Extraction is more expensive and it is going to be inherently more risky,” Obama said. “And so that’s part of the reason you never heard me say ‘drill, baby, drill’. Because we can’t drill our way out of the problem.” (If someone wanted to get technical, he actually did say it to make the point that he never said it).
I think the president is sincere however, every effort should be made to solve the problem. This spill will impact not only the gulf, it will affect the entire nation and ocean currents will carry it beyond our shores.
NASA has great photos showing the movement of the oil, noting that the under current could be more severe than what is on top. They also lists books available on line priced at less than 50 dollars that explain the dangers and the impact on the environment oil catastrophe produce.
At the present time it can be seen being draw and surrounding the Mississippi Delta.
Volunteering ideas is fun, but we need people to get on board and clean up the mess and political leaders with resources and wit, and financial means to engineer an answer to stop the spread of the oil.
Hilary spoke today about smart power…? Does she realize she is speaking the will of the people for green energy?
from Environment Forum:
Oil-soaked sand along Gulf Coast raises memories of Exxon Valdez
A handful of oily sand grabbed from a Louisiana wetland brought back some strong memories for Earl Kingik. As a traditional hunter and whaler in Alaska's Arctic, it reminded him of the Exxon Valdez spill. As he and other tribal leaders toured the U.S. Gulf Coast for signs of the BP oil spill, they worried that what's happening now in Louisiana could happen if offshore drilling proceeds off the Alaskan coast.
"There's no way to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic," said Kingik, an Inupiat tribal member from Point Hope, Alaska. Compared to Louisiana, where the waters are relatively calm and cleanup equipment and experts are nearby, the Arctic Ocean is a hostile place for oil and gas exploration. The Arctic leaders made their pilgrimage to the Gulf Coast as part of a campaign to block planned exploratory drilling by Shell Oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
"What I saw was devastating out there," Martha Falk, the tribal council treasurer of the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope in Alaska, said after the Gulf Coast tour by seaplane, boat and on foot. If the same thing occurred off Alaska, she said, "We would have to wait days and days and days for (cleanup) equipment to reach our area."
The planned start of Alaska offshore drilling in July coincides with the spring hunt of the bowhead whale, a central event in the Inupiat culture, Falk said.
"The natural smell of the ocean was non-existent" along the Gulf Coast, said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, an Inupiat from Nuiqsut, a tiny Alaskan village near the Beaufort Sea. She was brought close to tears as she recalled the faces of the Gulf residents she saw on the tour. "It is a strong burden that I'll carry with me the rest of my life."
The Arctic native people headed for Washington DC after their Gulf Coast tour to plead their case with members of Congress and Obama administration officials. The three members of the Alaskan congressional delegation generally favor offshore drilling as a way to ensure jobs and the continued operation of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. As a former mayor of her village, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak admits it's a tough balancing act to juggle the oil industry's potential impact on tribal culture with the creation of jobs for tribe members.
Environmental activists and members of Congress wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging him to suspend Shell's drilling plans in the Arctic Ocean, which includes the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Salazar and others have said no new drilling will be approved until May 28, when a report on the BP spill is due.
from Environment Forum:
Washington math: oil spill + climate bill = new environmental polls
With BP's spilled oil shimmering off the U.S. Gulf Coast, and a re-tooled bill to curb climate change expected to be unveiled this week in the U.S. Senate, what could be more appropriate than a bouquet of new environmental polls? Conducted on behalf of groups that want less fossil fuel use, the polls show hefty majorities favoring legislation to limit emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide.
In the kind of harmonic convergence that sometimes happens inside the Capital Beltway, a new poll released on Monday by the Clean Energy Works campaign showed "overwhelming public support for comprehensive clean energy legislation," with 61 percent of 2010 voters saying they want to limit pollution, invest in clean energy and make energy companies pay for emitting the carbon that contributes to climate change. A healthy majority -- 54 percent -- of respondents said they'd be more likely to re-elect a senator who votes for the bill.
Last Friday, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been pushing for climate change legislation for years, released its own poll numbers. NRDC's pollsters found seven in 10 Americans want to see fast-tracked clean energy legislation in the wake of the BP oil spill, and two-thirds say they want to postpone new offshore drilling until the Gulf oil spill is investigated and new safeguards are put in place.
Going back one more day, Rasmussen Reports found that even after the Gulf oil spill began dominating the Web, TV newscasts and newspaper front pages, 58 percent of respondents still favor offshore drilling. That's a big majority but a 14-point drop from the 72 percent who favored offshore drilling after President Barack Obama announced at the end of March that he was opening new areas to exploratory offshore drilling for the first time in more than two decades.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed reporters to a poll by Republicans for Environmental Preservation -- a quote on their website reads "Nothing is more conservative than conservation" -- that showed 52 percent of Republicans and a similar number people who consider themselves conservatives support a U.S. energy policy to boost domestic energy production and cap carbon emissions.Even among Tea Party respondents, who are generally hostile to what they call big government, the poll found more favored the policy -- 47 percent -- than the 42 percent who opposed it.
Remember: the oil hasn't really reached the Gulf Coast yet. And the bill, long delayed, isn't set for launch until Wednesday. Let's start counting now to see how many polls on these contentious issues arrive before a) the spill is cleaned up and b) the bill either becomes law or fails to gain congressional approval.
Photo credits: REUTERS/Navy (Oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in an aerial view of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Mobile, Alabama, in this photograph taken from a U.S. Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft on May 6, 2010 and obtained on May 9, 2010)
from Environment Forum:
Calling Dr. Strangelove!
Perhaps you've heard about the Russian submarines patrolling international waters off the U.S. East Coast (if you haven't, take a look at a Reuters story about it) in what feels like an echo of the old Cold War. The Pentagon's not worried about this particular venture, but there are concerns from the U.S. energy industry about another Russian foray -- this one in concert with Cuba. In rhetoric that may ring a bell with anyone who saw the 1964 satirical nuclear-fear movie "Dr. Strangelove," the Washington-based Institute for Energy Research is sounding the alarm about a Russian-Cuban deal to drill for offshore oil near Florida.
"Russia, Communist Cuba Advance Offshore Energy Production Miles Off Florida's Coast," is the title on the institute's news release. Below that is the prescription for action: "Efforts Should Send Strong Message to Interior Dept. to Open OCS in Five-Year Plan." OCS stands for outer continental shelf, an area that was closed to oil drilling until the Bush administration opened it last year in a largely symbolic move aimed at driving down the sky-high gasoline prices of the Summer of 2008.
Environmentalists hate the idea. So does Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has made opposition to offshore drilling one of his signature issues. But as it turns out, it's unlikely that anybody -- from Russia, Cuba, the United States or anywhere else -- is going to get petroleum out of the OCS in the immediate future.
For a start, it takes time to set up a deep-water offshore drilling rig. And any Cuban effort would be further hampered by the need to use equipment with less than 10 percent American technology, to comply with the long standing U.S. embargo against Cuba. As my Reuters colleague Russell Blinch reported in June, there may be scope for possible U.S.-Cuban cooperation here but no Cuban drilling platform is likely to be in the area this year.
Reports of a Russian-Cuban deal to explore for oil in the Gulf of Mexico prompted a quick response from the Institute for Energy Research, self-described as a free-market energy think-tank.
"This agreement between Russia and Cuba should serve as a wake-up call to Congress and this administration, especially (Interior) Secretary (Ken) Salazar, who is slow-walking a new offshore energy blueprint for the nation," the institute's president, Thomas Pyle, said in a statement. "If we are to remain competitive in the global market, our government must take its foot off the brake, and expand domestic energy production of all forms, onshore and off.”
What's your take? Should the United States drill baby drill off Florida's coast, reasoning that if U.S. companies don't, Russia and Cuba will? Keep a congressional ban in place? Or wait and see?
