Certainly, the push for offshore drilling by conservatives and republicans isn’t prudent energy policy. Offshore drilling is also shortsighted policy that doesn’t result in energy independence, so these offshore nonrenewable energy reserves should be preserved.
Furthermore, offshore drilling has seemingly insignificant but cumulative negative ecological impacts in addition to major negative ecological impacts. More from Dan DeWitt via Tampabay.com:
We would be able to see those rigs, of course, but not the releases of mercury and other toxins in the “mud” used to lubricate drill bits. There could be devastating spills such as the one coming from a wellhead (a modern, high-tech one, by the way) that is currently spewing thousands of barrels per day off the coast of Australia, or smaller ones that in the United States account for a total of 3,898 barrels, on average, every year, according to an industry group.
Drilling so close to shore means these spills would go directly into estuaries and seagrass beds off Hernando and Citrus that are vital to the gulf’s fishery.
BREAK
Newt Gingrich exhibits a lack of prudence by dishonestly blaming our energy crisis on “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians”:
Who are the “influential people” who “helped create the energy crisis in the first place” Gingrich and Haley blame? Is it Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich himself, or others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and prevented change while American families suffered?
Nope! The villians in Newtland are “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians.”
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