McCain: Drill Offshore, Build Nuclear Reactors
by Judd WileyJune 17th, 2008, 11:00 am
Senator John McCain today will announce that conservation is no longer a “moral luxury” or a “personal virtue,” and argue that the next president must lift the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, and build new refineries and nuclear reactors.
It’s about time.
85 percent of America’s offshore territory is currently off-limits to drilling, largely for environmental reasons. But there hasn’t been a significant spill from an offshore U.S. well since 1969. Plus, 60 miles off the coast of Florida, China is hard at work sucking crude oil out of the ground with the cooperation of Cuba. Plus, Cuba has been leasing its offshore drilling rights in recent years, most notably to China, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, and Norway. How about that: The Chinese are will soon be drilling closer to South Florida than we are! This completely voids our stupid drilling ban.
We also haven’t built a single new nuclear reactor for more than three decades, largely due to our wussification over the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters. But as McCain will point out, China, Russia, and India are hard at work building dozens of reactors that will provide cheap, clean, and efficient energy. Our refusal to go nuclear isn’t stopping this global trend, or making the world any safer. Unless we act now, our international competitors will be decades ahead of us when the world eventually runs out of oil.
McCain might not have a coherent transportation policy, but he’s starting to say the right things on energy.
That said, the pre-released snippets of McCain’s speech make no mention of opening up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. That should also happen. Millions of barrels of oil are sitting underneath ANWR, which is the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware, although drilling would be confined to a space “one-sixth the size of Washington’s Dulles airport.” John McCain has voted against drilling in ANWR in the past. Will he sack up now and do the right thing?
We eagerly await McCain’s speech, and Barack Obama’s response.
UPDATE: June 18, 2008, 9:15 AM
George Will’s column was incorrect. China is apparently not drilling in Cuban waters. But they soon will be. Our larger point stands. Thanks to our reader gDubs for the clarification.
Related Posts
Posted in Congress, Environmentalism, Gas Prices, Oil, Politics |
I eagerly await hearing Obama’s response to this. Unfortunately I think the Senator from Illinois (aka the Messiah) has painted himself into a corner on energy. Don’t drill, don’t build nuclear reactors, but invest money in ‘alternative’ fuels that a) don’t provide enough alternative energy yet and b) does nothing to expand the supply or effect demand for energy.
But let’s be honest, neither candidate is very good on energy. Both support the moronic ‘cap and trade system’ to limit carbon emissions (a boondoggle if I’ve ever heard of one). Both oppose drilling in ANWR and McCain is just NOW finally finding religion on drilling offshore (which he opposed until yesterday).
It’s a sad year if you’re waiting on relief, ’straight talk’, or ‘change we can believe in’ with regard to energy.
Judd, haven’t you learned by now that just because Dick Cheney blurts something out in a press release, the information isn’t necessarily true? In fact, it most likely is a bunch of deceptive BLEEP?
China, it turns out, is NOT drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba…although there is apparently a ton of oil there, i’d be interested in the nationalities of the companies getting those Cuban contracts…
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hwl7MBs14OAtZbu1YJe8l-X7O8vAD91906B80