Bush hammers Congress on drilling, again

With Congress rushing toward its summer recess -- and his own departure from Washington looming -- President Bush challenged House and Senate leaders (meaning, in this case, Democrats) once again to do what he knows they aren't about to do: open up the open waters for offshore oil and gas exploration.

He trooped his Cabinet into the sweltering Rose Garden this morning to reinforce his message that "the only thing now standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is the United States Congress."

Bush's target is a congressional ban on drilling -- which remains in effect apart from his lifting of an executive ban on such operations in the deep waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.

"The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get this oil from the ocean floor to your gas tank," he said -- making clear that his real audience was not the Congress, but Americans at the height of the summer vacation season contemplating the cost of car travel at $4 a gallon.

Working against the calendar, the president has made energy supplies and high prices a singular focus. Along with Congress, he is about to head out of town.

First, there is a long weekend at his family summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine -- where Walker's Point sits right on the Gulf of Maine and offers a fine vantage for watching the work of an oil rig, were one placed on the horizon. Then, after a visit to Asia built around the opening of the Beijing Olympics, he is planning to spend a few weeks at his own home in Crawford, Texas.

But longer range, of course, he is about to head out of town permanently. The energy situation is one of the few pressing matters that remain on his plate with even a remote chance of resolution.

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Comments

[Frank]

Wait a minute! You aren't telling the rest of the story. In defense of Congress, the oil companies haven't used anywhere near all of the leases they already have. Why on earth would we give those crooks access to this resource when they haven't come close to using the resources already at their disposal?

You neocons want to point fingers, point them at yourselves. Point them at your status symbol SUV, your oversized house, and your gluttonous appetite. Don't act like the American people are all as retarded as you. Not every American blindly follows the baboon you elected.

Get a life, freaks.

[Jeremy Friesner]

Naomi Klein was right -- this is a classic example of "the shock doctrine". It's a simple strategy: wait until a crisis emerges (or better yet, help create a crisis) and then use the resulting fear and uncertainty to intimidate people into giving you whatever you demand from them.

Bush is an extortionist and a con man. Having done everything in his power to ensure high gas prices, he is now promising to "fix" the problem for us, as long as we are willing to give his buddies in the oil industry what they want. Screw that. As with any extortion scheme, giving the extortionists what they want now will only guarantee that they'll come back later for more.

-Jeremy

[Dave]

I think most of you are drinking way too much Koolade. I would serve this country right if Obama gets elected. Then when he can not provide their free lunch. What then? Since Congress does not ever do what a President wants, then we will hear real bitching.

[Christine]

Okay now, keep the trash talk about Texans out of it; while being born and raised here, I certainly didn't vote for him, AND I feel confident that most who live in DFW and who knew him personally and/or indirectly had contact with him likely did not either (first and foremost those that went to school with him) I know I wouldn't vote for the town drunk to be my local Sherif much less the P or VP of the US!

[Ron]

The best way to get rid of the oil czars and their friends in Saudi Arabia who have ruined us with the help of this puppet pseudo-president is to push for energy conservation and alternative energies: hybrid, electric cars, wind and photovoltaic energy. But of course, first we need the GOP OUT of the White House or will have 4 more years of misery for us and wealth for them.

[Barry]

Oil is priced on a global market. There are a number of reasons for high oil prices such as the depressed U.S. dollar, but the main problem is that world demand is rising faster than supply. Today there are enough supplies to meet world demand but this is not sustainable, so prices are rising to slow demand growth. The U.S. does not have the ability on its own to change this equation. If we deplete all our oil reserves for short term relief, what will we do in the long run?

Bush is just fanning current-day hysteria for political gain. What we really need is a plan for decoupling our economy from the volatile world oil market. We need a leader, not a political hack and oil industry spokesman like Bush.

[Ron]

It's too bad that oil prices sunk so low in the '80's to derail President Carter's attempt to wean us off of foreign oil. If President Reagan hadn't acted in the way he did by cutting off federal support for developing alternative energy sources, we might not be in the present predicament. If memory serves me correctly, Mr. Reagan was the one to approve the move to take down the solar hot water system off of the roof of the White House. I am disappointed that President Bush can go before the American public and advocate that opening up drilling along our continental shelves and in the Arctic will have an appreciable impact on the cost of oil when even the data from his own Department of Energy suggests otherwise.

[Richjazz]

Let's see... The FOXES guarding OUR hen house say that the $10 per egg charge is because they have to purchase the $5.00 eggs they get from Abdul's hen house but if we would take the padlock off so they could sell us eggs from our own hens it would all be better!!! Foxes are really, really smart aren't they!! Let's just trust the foxes and drill drill drill!! -

signed, Haliburton executive making million$ in annual bonuses.

[Lauer]

We've had a 4% decrease in gas prices, since the executive ban was lifted. If the threat of drilling, alone, can do that, I'd like to see what the actual oil would do to the price.

[Dan]

The oil companies are currently leasing approximately 2 milliion acres of public land from the US for drilling rights that they are not drilling.

The Democrats challenged the unused oil leases and submitted legislation that would force the oil companies leasing the land to either begin drilling the land or give the leasing rights to an oil company that would. "Use it or lose it".

The Republicans blocked the measure.

Why do you suppose they blocked it?

[Devon Read]

Sherri

Opening up offshore drilling won't lower prices, for a number of reasons.

1) it is EXTREMELY expensive to explore, build an oil rig and then drill in water that deep. they would ONLY turn a profit with those expenses by keeping oil prices at or above the level they are currently

2) rampant, deregulated oil futures spending has almost doubled the cost of oil, independent of the actual cost of pulling it out of the ground - having more offshore US oil isn't going to check this

3) when you have a small group of huge companies who have a complete monopoly on a resource that the world NEEDS, giving them access to more of it isn't going to compel them to lower prices, it just guarantees them more reserves of it later and lets them control prices even more; right now they only USE 30% of the leases they already own off-shore, thus demonstrating that they do not necessarily have a vested interest in drilling and exploiting their leases, just holding them to control the market more.

congress isn't the problem here, it's the prez, his cronies, the rampant deregulation that has been happening in the past 7 years and the fact that the oil companies are not held accountable for pulling record profits EVERY f***ing quarter even while the American people suffer due to the exorbant cost of filling up their tanks.

[David White]

Why did you (LA Times) only pick liberals to respond to this article? Hmmm?
Listen up idiots. If supply is low you get more supplies. You get them if they
are available. In this case, the supplies are there for the getting. To espouse this crap about "alternative" energies is really dumb. A wind mill generator if paid for by the 20000 homes it could supply energy for 2 days a week on average would cost the homeowner $875.00 a month for 150 years to pay for it. It cost one gallon of gasoline to make 1 1/2 gallons of of ethanol. Boy, that's smart? Wake up fools. We need the oil now, to fuel our economy toward a level for developing alternative fuels. We can't go broke wishing we had the money to develop the alternative energies. It's like a farmer with available land to feed his family but refusing to till it because it kills the grass and the bugs need the grass while the farmers family starves feeling good about the bugs.
I say screw the bugs.

[RichYan33]

The Republicans...solving tomorrows problems with 40 year old answers. It'll be years until we get any oil out of off shore drilling. Our own government says if we open up ANWR in Alaska it will impact the price of a barrel of oil by less than two dollars by 2024. Meanwhile the Chinese are building like 10 million cars a year. By the time we get anything out of the Gulf, China will have more cars than us. It's bailing water with a bottomless bucket.

[Larry]

Since we can't talk about victory in Iraq or Afgan wars, a peaceful Mideast, good news on the economy, financial / housing meltdown, or anything remotely deemed successful, we get a "news" conference about offshore oil drilling and why we need it NOW. Don't be fooled by this liar and his criminal cabinet - he's pulling a Ted Stevens for his oil industry bosses

[Chris]

So, it's people like Daniel there who says "gas prices will not go down EVER" ... yet they have dropped in a huge way over the past week alone. This is why we have problems in this country ... uneducated assumptions and statements as if they were actually factual.

Danny ... go outside once in a while .. look at the price of gas on the big signs in front of your local gas station ... SURPRISE!!!!

[Tagoff]

Talk about short sighted. With the US using far more than its world share of natural resources, how can anyone in America with any principles play this kind of game? Are we selfishly concerned about today, or the world we leave our children? Oh yes, let us drill in unstable areas on accident prone ocean rigs in a greedy attempt to use everything we can as soon as possible. Let us certainly not put human energy and effort into more earth friendly energy forms. Let today's Americans continue to abuse resources with gas guzzling vehicles. After all, that is our birthright! Oh, and of course, let us continue to subsidize oil companies, who are already making the biggest profits in history. And then we can blame congress, the Middle East, and everyone but ourselves and big business' oil companies when gas prices go up. This administration specializes in casting blame everywhere but where it belongs, while at the same time giving tax breaks to the ultra wealthy as well as involving Americans in a military exercise in futility in a country in which American lives should not be wasted, which, together, have brought us to this horrible economic situation driving the defiiciite to its highest level in history. Is this a Republican government? The party which prides itself on fiscal responsibility? Why, then, do we have a deficit, when this Republican government took control in the black? The George Bush nearly 500 billion dollar deficit what is ruining our economy and driving oil prices. When we have a government which is fiscally responsible again, the economy will improve.

Drill more and conserve more... it's a simple formula.

[Joseph Loverde]

We need to start using clean alternative energy sources. We should allow off shore drilling for a set time e.g. 10 years to give us time to switch to clean energy sources. If we don't use off shore drilling now, we will be slaves to the Middle East for the rest of our lives. In addition, what we spend on oil will be returned to our own economy instead of filtering to the economies of hostile nations. In closing we need our money returned to our country, we need to strengthen our national security and we need to stop global warming.

[Yosef Mughrabi]

President Bush is definitely in Lala land. Sadly, he continues to play games with the American people in order to take care of the oil companies. Everyone knows that W. is solely responsible for the mess that was created from the war in Iraq and the deterioration of our economy. Most people are finally accepting the fact that Mr. Bush is the worst President we ever had in the history of this great nation. It’s time to look beyond this pathetic human being. Go Obama!!!

[Robert Friedrich]

I can't believe some of the comments above! Forget your hatred for Pres. Bush and open you eyes! 70% of our oil money is going overseas to our enemies. We need to be able to supply our own oil and keep our money at home. At the same time, we need a MAJOR push from the government to help our scientists get us off oil altogether. If we can put a man on the moon in ten years, we certainly can get off oil too. It just takes less talk and more action!

[Scott]

We are in a gasoline addiction stage right now. If we let demand rule the gas price, the current U.S. way of life will die. Ya, off shore drilling isn't a long term answer, but it is a sort of band aid that will help us all feel better for a while. Kind of like hybrid cars... The immediate problem is with the SUV's, trucks, and overly large cars on the road, not the goverment. The long term answer is to quit being idiots and start USING alternative energy. NOT plan to have 20% by 2025 or whatever, build it now! Cold turkey sucks, but the patch is (going to be) expensive.
WE have to change and not expect them to lead us by the hand. Govern your own lives a little and see what happens! They are just politicians after all.

[katavar]

My congressman says that there is coastal oil that is open to drilling and the oil companies are not drilling on this available land. They are asking for more areas to be opened. I don't get it. It seems to me that we are being pressured to open land that is not even prime oil deposit land, when the oil companies could now drill on better sites. Why would they do that? What is the advantage of holding back and lying to us and saying we need to allow drilling on unopened sites when they are not using the sites already open?

[Glen]

Gas prices went up 70% under a Democratic control congress even though Nancy Pelosi and her clowns promised to reduce energy prices and bring about new alternatives for energy....We're still waiting.......

[John]

Bush is a morron in many ways, but just because that may be true doesn't mean everything he does or says is wrong. Drilling oil in this country creates jobs, money, tax revenues, and is therefore, desirable. The environmental movement has gone too far. Most environmentalist in power now cut their teeth back in the 60s and 70s back when industry was out of control. Technology exists now that reduce environmental impact by magnitudes over what used to be done. If drilling happens at least 10 miles off shore, you won't even see it. Drilling in ANWR will have negligable impact and produce BILLIONS in revenues for our country. And yes, the price of gas will fall...not the sky...

[ToolMan]

I’ve sit here and read the comments on this, and am very humored by the un-informed, uneducated, and uselessness of these comments. It is very obvious that these people , obviously democrats from the tone of these post, are only interest in bashing Bush, without ever considering the truths. For example, Daniel, but be a real scholar. He makes the statement “Gas prices are high because demand is high. Its not going to go down *ever*.” … Well no kidding… ya think??? Supply and demand is what the free enterprise system is all about. Until we stop purchasing the gas because either we get fed up, or because we can’t afford it, then the prices are going to stay high. However, If it was “ALL” about supply & demand, then the oil companies would not be posting record profits. They are selling the same amount of fuel, yet their profits are 20 times what they have ever been before. Yep… I bet Daniel has a 5th grade edumication… Then you have Chris Troy who can write an entire paragraph without saying anything with any substance. All in all, most of these comments are a waste of nurons. But then most of them are posted up by morons