it will do no good to lift the ban on drilling, the environmentalists will just file lawsuit after lawsuit to delay the drilling. I have stock in a wildcat drilling company that had leases to drill offshore in state of Fla. controlled areas, the environmentalists with the help of the state tied up the leases for over 25 years with law suits. They would lose a suit and just file another one, a state official said "we will keep them ( the oil company) in court until they run out of money."
Exactly.. so why not put the resources into something that has been proven to work and is "real" renewable energy.. IE Solar Power and wind farms..
All bush did was create another media spectacle for nothing more than an attempt for some sort of political gain and hopes for better public approval. Essentially all he did was tossed a flat ball into the hands of congress.
Lets just say Congress approved it with no questions asked. Next step each state's governors and local governments have to approve the drilling. Drilling for oil is a dead issue and it will do little to nothing for the price of gas or making us energy independent. Oil in short is a diying form of energy and we need to be working on the future not the past.
Meanwhile those very resource could be put into solar power and wind farms for cheap renewable power sources that would actually bring this country into the future rather than continuing on the path of a dead future. Have you ever heard of anyone who was against wind power or solar power? Assuming of course they aren't next to some one's house making them an annoyance.
edit..
The simple point I'm making here is we know there will be resistance to oil drilling even if it's passed by congress. Think of it like this Florida for instance relies heavily on tourism. Florida's beaches are major parts for that tourism. Drilling offshore puts the entire state's tourism industry at risk with very little to gain for that risk.
The state doesn't see much of that oil money, so why should people of this state not fight against a possible loss of tourism to something they get no benifit from? So of course people will fight it.
Nuclear power is fine by me as I said before we have 6 or 7 nuclear power plants in this state with zero issues. However there are many people that don't like them so again it's another issue that wastes time with little to gain.
On the flip side we have Solar and Wind power that can be used and there is very few people who fight against it yet we don't do it. Water takes the path of least resistance when flowing down hill because it has a simple job to do.. That's get to the bottom of the hill.
The bottom of the hill for us is cheap renewable energy. So we can choose to argue about something that will never happen.. (drilling offshore or adding more nuclear plants) or we can start working on proven systems that get very little resistance..
Too me the choice seems simple, but seem too many want to toss around the flat political ball and re spew what the talking heads on TV yap about, while claiming they are better than the other guys.. Rather than just getting the job done with the tools available.