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No state royalties in Dem offshore plan
An offshore oil plaform
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Scott Jagow: Let's move on to oil. The price of oil fell again today to $98 a barrel. It looks like the Gulf oil complex is OK after Hurricane Ike. This week, Congress looks at the drilling issue. Should we open the coastline to more oil exploration? The House will vote on a new energy bill later this week. Here's Steve Henn.
Steve Henn: The Democrat's energy bill repeals tax subsidies for Big Oil, expands tax incentives for renewable energy and opens the door to offshore oil drilling 50 miles from the U.S. coast. But before oil companies drill, each coastal state has to give its OK. And Republican Congressman John Peterson says the current bill makes that unlikely.
John Peterson: They took away the royalty sharing for the states.
Right now, in the Gulf of Mexico, the states and the feds each take a slice of those royalties. But under this plan, the feds would get all the money from new wells in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Peterson: Why would a state legislature fight the environmental community to open up drilling when their state doesn't get rewarded?
Peterson co-authored a competing bi-partisan bill that would have shared those offshore revenues with states allowed for drilling closer to shore and used the federal money to fund alternative energy investments.
In Washington, I'm Steve Henn for Marketplace.
Sadly, oil prices would have to stay at current high prices so that economic conditions are there for greener alternatives. The global economic slowdown that is right now taking place as a result in part to oil high prices will take a told on high oil prices again as it happened in the 80's. If the US doesn't put a plan in place for energy independence and greener alternatives, we will be in this situation again 20 years from now.
That's OK if states don't approve drilling 50 miles off their shores unless they can get their hands in the till. The age of carbon fuels is over. The only reason to stay with this dirty old obsolete source of energy is that lots of wealthy powerful influence buying people are invested in it, and a lot of congressmen benefit from the lobby money.
Opening coastal areas and the rest of Alaska will not get us off of imported oil. It will not give us short sighted consumers, cheaper gas prices for 5 years. And by then, the rising demand will negate the affect of new sources of oil and gas prices will still be high.
It is time to develope new energies, clean, abundant, domestic, and renewable. We are the United States of America. We can do this. We have the technological ability to do it. We just don't have the POLITICAL will to do it. Our politicians won't say no to influence money and yes to America.
