Blue Mass Group

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Memo to Barack: April Fool’s Day is TOMORROW

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So I saw this hilarious April Fool’s gag in the paper – check this out.

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

HAHAHAHA!!  OMG – Barack, you are such a card.  You’re killing me.  Imagine – a Democratic president basically adopting Sarah Palin’s “drill baby drill” mantra!  Totes had me going there for a sec, but then I realized, oh yeah, it’s April Fool’s.

Oh, what’s that?  April Fool’s Day is tomorrow?  An oversight by the White House press office, no doubt – they got their clocks screwed up or something.

Right?

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Comments

  1. Drilling perhaps for stuff that’s not there.  That way one can say drill baby drill and be a “hero” to people who may think you are a tyrant.
    See, drill baby drill, implies the essence of future, ie, gas comes to the gas station and food to the supermarket, social breakdowns aside.

  2. is that the GOP is already signaling that they won’t play ball, since it doesn’t go far enough.

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    p>Via TheHill, via DailyKos, sourced here…

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    p>

    House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed the president’s plan as not going far enough in opening up U.S. waters for exploration.

    Obama’s decision “continues to defy the will of the American people,” Boehner said in a statement, pointing to the president’s decision to open Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico waters, while leaving Pacific and many Alaskan waters largely closed to exploration.

    <

    p>

    <

    p>So look, I hate the drilling.  It’s just shortsighted.  We may drill there some day, but let’s do it when oil is $250/barrel, not $82.  In the mean time, if Obama can say he floated it and the GOP wasn’t interested, so be it.  Obama’s also floated nuclear and clean coal, and I’m not convinced the expansion of either is a long term good either.  All I can do is hope that he can figure out how to continue pushing on renewables and energy efficiency, through CAFE, national building codes, national RPS, railway improvements, and so forth.

  3. The cynic in me notes that the newly opened drilling areas all abut red states. Waters next to blue states (New England, the West Coast) remain closed. Hard not to see this as a ploy to try to turn some votes in those red states…

      1.  If you’re going to do it anywhere, why not do it in a place which is more popular?
        2.  I looked around and found little information on east coast offshore oil and gas maps.  I do know that none of the 100 largest proven reserves are on the East Coast, from Maine down to Florida.  Of course, it would seem unlikely that anyone would prove reserves in a location where drilling isn’t allowed anyway, for what that’s worth.

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      p>The federal gas tax has been 18.4 cents since August 1993.  As far as I can tell, all but 1 cent goes to the Highway Trust Fund — the penny per gallon goes to the Mass Transit Account instead.  Just indexing the dang tax to inflation would sure as heck help — as would getting more then a penny into the Mass Trans Acct, to help reduce the vehicle miles traveled in the first place.

    • wasn’t sure what to make of it, if anything.  Obama won VA, NC, and FL, though not by much.  So … not sure how that cuts.

      • at least according to the map om this CNN article.  There simply aren’t much is he way of undeveloped resources on either coast of the 48, with the exception of VA down to central FL.

    • Ever since clean energy reform legislation faded far, far into the background during the last months’ health care reform brouhaha, all we’ve had to go on have been the occasional reminder that Senators Kerry (D-MA), Graham (R-SC) and Lieberman (I-CT) were still indeed working on crafting a bipartisan effort to spur clean energy growth and create green jobs. Now, at long last, some concrete details of their bill has leaked.

  4. There are about 10 Dem senators who said they will not vote for expanded drilling, period.  They tend to be in states which border an ocean — NJ, MD, etc.

    • You really believe them?

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      p>Senators change their position as the vote looms near. Am I telling you something you don’t already know?

      • who’s states have beaches on the East Coast.  These states have almost no upside but tremendous risk to tourism dollars.  Why would Democratic senators from NJ or MD be in favor of this proposal?  The downside is far too severe, and the upside is minimal at best (some would argue that there is no real upside).

  5. …that our own Senator Kerry is putting aside his previous objections to this as well.

    • http://theplumline.whorunsgov….

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      p>Note that the title and the author’s words go beyond what Kerry’s spokesperson actually said. Senator Kerry himself is in the Middle East.

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      p>This other article, goes less far saying he may be open to considering it:

      <

      p>http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wi…

      <

      p>Note that both are completely based on the same response from the Kerry spokesperson.  (The comment from the office simply said the same thing that has been said for about 6 months – as soon as it was clear that Kerry/Boxer could not pass the Senate. (For that blame people like the 14 Democratic Senators from coal states, who wanted to insure coal power plants did not have to pay.)

      <

      p>This could be a real dilemma if he believes it is most import to put a cost on coal. (In 2008, when Obama moved to favoring opening Off shore areas for drilling, Kerry remained against it.)

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