Congress rejects Obama's restrictive energy plan

Fuel Fix:

The House of Representatives today rejected an Obama administration plan for selling offshore drilling leases over the next five years and instead voted to replace it with a more aggressive GOP alternative. 

Although a bipartisan coalition of Senators today introduced a similar proposal, neither pro-drilling measure is expected to clear Congress, much less with the support needed to override President Barack Obama’s threatened veto. 

Still, Republicans were able to muster a strong showing of support for their plan, which passed 253-170 and would schedule 29 offshore oil and gas lease sales over the next five years, nearly double the 15 that would be allowed under the administration’s existing schedule. In a separate 164-261 vote, the House rejected the administration’s five-year plan, which was formalized in late June. 

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said that in “a clear choice between President Obama’s failed energy policies . . . and a bipartisan energy plan to create American jobs,” the White House initiative failed. 

“The bipartisan plan that passed today is what a real vision for America’s energy future should look like — more American jobs, more American energy and less dependence on unfriendly foreign countries,” Hastings added. 

Hastings’ bill would schedule 29 lease sales and give oil companies several opportunities to bid on drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska. The measure also would schedule a sale of North Aleutian Basin drilling rights in 2016 and give energy companies two cracks at leases off the south California coast in 2014 and 2017. 

The GOP bill also would force a sale of offshore drilling leases in an area off the coast of Virginia, which was originally scheduled for 2011 but indefinitely postponed amid opposition from leaders in neighboring northern states and concerns raised by the Defense Department, which conducts exercises in the region.

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The dispute appears to be over offshore tracts only.  Either the House of the Senate plan makes more sense than what Obama has proposed.  The administration has not been able to mount a rational argument for such a restrictive policy.  I think it goes back to their anti energy bias.  I would like to see the market determine what sites should be explored.  I would also like to see us open up drilling in ANWR and western states sites that are now being held back.  What Obama and the Democrats are doing is outsourcing our energy security to mad men like Chavez while restricting our own production.  They finance drilling off the coast of Brazil and block it off of 87 percent of the US coasts.  That is nonsensical.

BTW, I do not work for any oil company, nor have I ever.  I make these arguments because I think they are what will make this country less dependent on outside sources.  The one thing Obama has demonstrated is that the alternative energy fantasy of the anti energy left will not solve the problem.