John McCain: Lift Ban On Offshore Drilling

The AP reports taht John McCain said Monday the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling should be lifted, and individual states given the right to pursue energy exploration in waters near their own coasts. With gasoline prices rising and the United States chronically dependent on foreign oil, the Republican presidential contender said his proposal would "be very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis." McCain also suggested giving the states incentives, including a greater share of royalties paid by companies that drill for oil, as an incentive to permit exploration.

McCain is half way there. This is a good start. He still makes little sense when he says we should not allow any new on-land drilling. For example, he is strongly against drilling in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve). He is wrong on that and I have no reason not to let you know that. But he seems to have a better approach than the Democrats. "You can't drill your way out of this problem" declared Nancy Pelosi recently. This came after House Dems were unwilling to lift the ban on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf. The outer continental shelf, by the way is at the very least 50 miles away from American shores.

We need to drill here and drill now to start the process in the short term of getting America off our foreign oil addiction. The Saudi oil we buy funds our enemy in the war on terror. Not just Saudia Arabia itself but the money which Saudi Arabia uses to export its brand of Islam called Wahabism. We're funding both sides of this war and in the long run that is going to come back to bite us in the behind if we don't get some common sense now and stop funding radical Islam. We need to start drilling at home. This is the first step in what should be a concerted effort to wean us off foreign oil.

Newt Gingrich also proposes that we immediately release one third of the strategic petroleum reserves to stick it to those speculators driving up our prices. Sounds good to me. And we need to invest in future alternative energies that are affordable. I'm not talking about solar, wind, or even ethanol. We need research and we need it now for cost effective alternatives. Finally we need to start building nuclear power plants so we are not completely dependent on fossil fuels.

The environmentalists don't mind the high gas prices because they see it as reducing demand which means less use of fossil fuels. The super-rich don't care about reducing the cost of gasoline either because they don't feel the pinch. This needs to be done for the average American more than anyone else. Reduce the demand for oil by weaning ourselves off of it with alternative sources, and in the meantime increase the supply here at home.

In short, we need politicians with the guts to do what it takes to get us off our foreign oil addiction and reduce gas prices now!


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