oil drilling

Christie’s Error

Mark Noonan31 Comments

From Politicker NJ:

Issuing a one-year moratorium on “fracking,” Gov. Chris Christie today issued a conditional veto of S-2576, recommending changes to the legislation that balances protecting New Jersey’s environment and drinking water and encouraging cleaner energy alongside the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

As currently written, S-2576 would permanently prohibit fracking in New Jersey, a drilling technique used for the exploration or production of natural gas, even as concurrent studies on the practice are underway by the federal government and no known natural gas deposits necessitating use of the fracking process have been proposed for development in New Jersey.

“I share many of the concerns expressed by the legislators that sponsored this bill and the environmental advocates seeking a permanent moratorium on fracking. We must ensure that our environment is protected and our drinking water is safe,” said Christie. “I am placing a one-year moratorium on fracking so that the DEP can further evaluate the potential environmental impacts of this practice in New Jersey as well as evaluate the findings of still outstanding and ongoing federal studies.”

No, Governor, the complaints about “fracking” are mythical in nature…no event has happened which indicates even the slightest risk from the process, so all complaints about it are based upon guesses…and if they are guesses which in any way, shape or form stem from environmentalist groups, they can likely be considered nonsense.  Unless and until someone demonstrates  a risk, no governmental action should be taken.

The environmentalists want to shut down”fracking” because they are deathly afraid that the United States will use it and become more energy independent.  That is not an environmentalist goal – they want us paying an ever higher price for energy so they can shut down industry and force Americans on to public transportation.  To the full-blown environmentalist, the death of American prosperity is a victory for the Earth, and Earth is more important, to them, than the people of the United States.

Christie has been an excellent governor and would still get my enthusiastic support for President…but this is just caving in to environmental insanity.

Drill, Baby, Drill: For 190,000 Jobs

Mark Noonan5 Comments

From the Daily Caller:

Almost 190,000 jobs could be created by 2013 if offshore drilling returns to pre-spill levels, according to a study sponsored by two oil trade groups, the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

The study, conducted by Quest Offshore Inc., found that if permits for exploration and drilling returned to historic levels, and if backlogged requests were granted, 400,000 jobs could be supported across the United States with a GDP increase of $45 billion by 2013…

Because Obama flies from one screw up to another we tend to forget the older ones – in this case, the absurd “permatorium” he put in place in response to the Gulf oil spill.  The chances of a repeat of that particular accident, even if no action was taken, are exceptionally small…and  nearly non-existent if a few, common-sense precautions are taken in that sort of drilling (ie, deep water).  But Obama, true blue liberal that he is, couldn’t pass up the chance to gut America’s offshore oil industry – and so he imposed his permatorium and simply will not lift it (by hook or by crook, he keeps it in place – just by going slow on new permits he puts a hammer lock on it).

While we are all gleeful at the prospect of using Obama’s speech in Brazil (where he stated he hopes America will become Brazil’s best customer), we really do need to break this log jam.  Some means must be found to force Obama to allow us to drill for oil – even if this report is wildly over-optimistic, it would still mean tens of thousands of new, high paying jobs…and jobs which produce actual wealth and which are within reach of regular, blue collar Americans (the American economy can never be a place where we merely write computer programs and shuffle fake money around Wall Street, you know?  Someone has to do some actual work).  Continual pressure must be applied – and ever legislative effort (including the debt deal) should include a legislative end to Obama’s drilling “permatorium”.

It is time for us to start working in the interests of the American people – and I can’t think of a better “step one” than to start drilling for oil.