North Dakota Democrat Opens Up Florida Coast To Oil Drilling
Last year, we were promised that if we brought in a stronger Democratic majority to the Senate, we would finally see strong legislation to support the transition from the fossil fuel economy of the 20th century to the sustainable energy economy we need now. So, how are things actually turning out?
A reality less green than the promises of 2008 came out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday, as Byron Dorgan introduced an amendment to open up a huge area of the Gulf of Mexico to new offshore oil drilling. Dorgan was supported by Jeff Bingaman, chair of the committee, as well as two other committee Democrats.
They voted to allow offshore oil platforms to operate less than 50 miles from some of Florida’s best beaches, natural resources essential to Florida’s tourist economy. Those beaches will turn to asphalt when hit by an oil spill.
Dorgan is from North Dakota. Bingaman is from New Mexico. They don’t have anything to fear from an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s easy for them, in their landlocked states, to say that coastal states shouldn’t worry about oil slicks resulting from drilling accidents or hurricanes surging up from the Caribbean Sea. Florida may well suffer from their easy capitulation to Big Oil.
Who would have guessed in 2008 that, in a Washington D.C. without George W. Bush, in a Democrat-controlled Congress, the fossil fuel lobbyists would continue to gamble with America’s most precious resources? What a disappointment the Democrats’ energy policies have turned out to be. They’ve turned from promises of green to slick oily brown.
[...] wasn’t just the way that four Democratic senators on the committee – from inland states – joined with Republicans to pass an energy bill amendment to expand offshore drilling in waters near Florida’s tourist [...]
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