Slaughter on domestic drilling
Louise Slaughter wrote a wonderful guest essay in today’s Democrat and Chronicle. You should read the entire piece meanwhile, here are snips from the essay:
Eighty-one percent of oil and gas resources on federal lands onshore and offshore are available for development. Congress is not stopping anyone from drilling on these lands. Oil companies are not investing in necessary equipment and research to support a domestic drilling industry.
[snip]
Oil and gas companies have already leased 68 million acres of this available federal land, 34 million of which are offshore — yet have left them unused. These acres of leased federal oil and gas lands could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. That would nearly double total U.S. oil production and increase natural gas production by 75 percent, cutting U.S. oil imports by one-third.
[snip]
Responsible domestic drilling, however, is just one component of the Democratic energy plan. Our country uses nearly one-quarter of the world’s oil, but sits atop less than 3 percent of the world’s reserves of this finite resource. Domestic drilling alone will not solve this crisis.
We need to ween ourselves and become energy independent and the time to focus our collective energy is now. The GOP is stomping its feet in Washington trying to get additional corporate welfare for the oil companies. Heck, our very own Randy Kuhl is part of that charge. Of course recall Randy’s claim that if we pass every one of the GOPs requests the oil companies will actually pay consumers to fill their tanks. Of course, this a Randy Kuhl who believes corporate Welfare trumps sound energy policy.
Personally, I oppose the opening up of new lands to drill to increase supply. We don’t’ have a supply problem. Heck, as ladkiddo points out - Natural gas production has increased and so have prices. It’s not a supply problem. It is a greed problem. Simply stated, the past performance of oil companies, corporations in general, show a tendency to be more self-serving than altruistic. In a nutshell, as this shows, I think oil we tap will go overseas and not help consumers at home.
This is the sort of Leadership that makes a difference not only in Rochester but throughout the entire country. The truth is a powerful weapon against gamesmanship and grandstanding and no one tells it like it is better than Chairwoman Slaughter. Since Randy Kuhl refuses to debate me in the light of day perhaps we should ask Kuhl to debate in Washington with Chairwoman Slaughter. It is wrong that Kuhl and others stand up and tell the American people that if they only embrace the Bush agenda of the enhanced offshore drilling program that gas prices will decline at the pumps. They know it is not true, we know it is not true and all of America know that it is not true. Congratulations to Chairwoman Slaughter for speaking truth to power and setting the record straight.
Eric Massa
Congressional Candidate
Hey Eric - thanks for talking time out of the campaign, a very busy campaign I’m sure judging by your schedule, and stopping by.
Any word on debates between you and Congressman Kuhl and when/if they would happen? The people of the 29th deserve to hear from both candidates on how their particular stances on various policies affect the 29th and our country as a whole.
What would you like to see in the form of debates between you and your opponent?
There will be no debates - Eric just said that Randy refuses to debate him (unless “in the light of day” is some secret code for something).
He’s calling for live audiences… Kuhl refuses to stand in public. Case in point - his town hall “office hours” … I’d be surprised if Kuhl agrees to stand in public
[...] Press conference today. Massa discussed Louise’s op-ed among other things. We discussed Louise’s op-ed here. From the Fighting 29th. Massa began the call by pointing to L Louise Slaughter’s op-ed in [...]
[...] companies don’t want to drill. Why should they when they’re making record profits? Stlo wrote about Louise’s Guest Essay back in August addressing this issue. Rottenchester, at the Fighting29th wrote about it [...]