Obama Misses the Point, Caves to Drill, Baby, Drill

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

President Obama in his Saturday address to the nation, announced another cave to the right

. . the administration would begin to hold annual auctions for oil and gas leases in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract on the North Slope of Alaska.

. . accelerate a review of the potential environmental impact of drilling off the southern and central Atlantic coast and will consider making some areas available for exploration. The move is a change from current policy, which puts the entire Atlantic Seaboard off limits to drilling until at least 2018.

. . provide incentives for oil companies to more quickly exploit leases they already hold. Tens of millions of acres onshore and offshore are under lease but have not been developed.

Not one of these actions will lower the price of gas at the pump or create jobs or cure our dependency on foreign oil, most of which comes from our northern neighbor, Canada. The cost of gas at the pumps is under direct control of the oil companies that are still being subsidized by tax payers even as they rake in billions in profits and use tax loop holes to pay no US taxes, instead they are receiving refunds. Crude oil prices are manipulated by speculation on the open market with little regulatory control by the government or the SEC. That so-called “revolutionary” Financial Regulation Bill is a sham. Just look at rising banking fees and your credit card bill, look at your shrinking pay check and the rise in cost of food, clothing and health care. I suggest you have a bucket handy.

Yes, tax payers are angry about the price of gas but we are also opposed to more drilling for limited resources that will not solve the immediate problem. Long term, we need to be investing in green energy, renewable solutions not investing in the oil companies. Short term, rein in the oil companies and speculators.

Americans are angry at the President for not regulating the speculators and oil companies. Americans are angry at for gouging at the pump.

Asked who is to blame, most Americans point to speculators and oil companies for the recent increase in gas prices, and three-quarters say that oil companies profits are too high.

Sixty-one percent of respondents say oil companies deserve a great deal of blame for prices, while 27% say they deserve some blame. Oil speculators also figure prominently in the blame game, with 59% saying they deserve a great deal of blame, while 31% say they deserve some blame.

Americans are angry with President Obama because again caves to the right and corporatists while ignoring what the American people are telling him and congress. Ignore us at your peril.

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