Drilling for Oil in Lee’s Summit, Missouri?
Democrat Emanuel Cleaver represents Missouri’s 5th congressional district in Congress. Republican Jacob Turk would like that to change. For the third time, Turk is challenging Cleaver in the 2010 election.
One of the persisting differences between Cleaver and Turk has to do with drilling for fossil fuels. Cleaver favors maintaining the current level of oil and gas drilling in the lands of the United States and along American shores. Turk, on the other hand, would grant the wishes of Big Oil, and radically expand drilling for fossil fuels within U.s. territory.
How radical expansion does Jacob Turk support? How about drilling from his own campaign headquarters? That’s what Turk calls for, after all. His campaign writes from its headquarters in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City: “Our oil must be used to bring down our sky high gas prices. Drill here. Drill now.”
It’s a strange demand, given that there already is drilling in Jackson County, where Lee’s Summit is located. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources records that there are 8 leases for oil or gas drilling in Jackson County. Most of those leases were actually involved in fossil fuel production this year.
That drilling is taking place in the here and now, under the status quo, which Representative Emanuel Cleaver supports. Yet, Jacob Turk accuses Cleaver of being “against drilling for U.S. oil in U.S. soil. Playing a political game with our energy resources”. It seems more accurate to observe that it’s Jacob Turk who is playing a political game when it comes to the issue of drilling for fossil fuels.
Mr. Turk I assume is referring to Mr. Cleaver’s position of being against more drilling in the US, and Cleaver’s ridiculous speeches about protecting polar bears. Seriously, you are not making fun of Cleaver for waxing poetic about polar bears when he represents Kansas City, Missouri – the middle of the US???
KC has one of the highest murder rates in the US and Cleaver is lamenting the endangerment of polar bears. Time for some perspective and honest dialogue about real problems.
Your claim of being “politically independent” is laughable.