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GOP to push for domestic oil drilling
An oil pumping unit sits in a farm field near Okawville, Ill.
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TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: Price of oil, meet price of gas at the pump. Oh yeah, they've known each other for a long, long time. And with both on the rise, it's rekindling congressional efforts to boost domestic oil and gas production. From the Marketplace Sustainability Desk, Sam Eaton reports.
Sam Eaton: This morning, House Republicans plan to unveil a new energy plan they're calling the "all of the above" solution for energy independence. Expansion of renewables like wind and solar are on the table.
But the proposal also calls for more nuclear power and domestic energy production. In other words, "Drill, baby, drill." And Michigan Republican Fred Upton says the time is right. He says with gas prices on the rise Americans are going to want more than just green energy.
Fred Upton: We know that energy requirements in this country in the next 20 years are going to go up by 30 [percent] to 40 percent. We've got to be prepared.
But it's still unclear whether republicans can rally enough support for domestic drilling. Gas prices are still a long way from last summer's $4 peak. And environmentalists say today's voters have a better understanding of the issues, and that the solution is more complicated than poking a few more holes in the ground.
I'm Sam Eaton for Marketplace.
The only way America is going to pull itself out of the energy, security and financial crisis is to STOP BUYING FOREIGN oil! We need to produce cheap and effective fuel by ways of drilling and nuclear energy. If all you socialist would like to live in a society where you all live off the government, then go live in Europe.... I am so sick and tired of the left/socialist/enviroNazis making business impossible in this country. You are all VERY un-American. shove it!
This is all the republicans knows. They act like two year olds trying to get into what they are told they can't get have, the national parks and forests. Why aren't they proposing more tax credits for buying hybrid cars and other incentives for using less energy. All the right knows is drill and war. Don't tell me they aren't looking out for the interests of big oil.
More oil is the wrong way to go. It is getting harder to get to what oil remains. They have to inject water into the ground to fracture the strata to extract the oil, using up ground water and polluting ground water. They even almost used a nuclear bomb in the Canadian tar sands, and would have gone through with it but realized nobody wants to buy radioactive oil. Working class Americans have seen how changes in the global economy caused them to lose. Nobody protected the value of their honest days work. They had to change. Now it is time for oil investors to change. The age of oil is over. It's getting more expensive to get, and the environmental cost is going up. More investment in oil is a waste. In the long term investing in clean limitless energy makes more sense.
