Quote of the Day: John McCain on Offshore Drilling

Does anybody else remember the photos of Senator Kennedy In flagrante delicto in the papers a few years ago under the title: Senator Changes his Position on Offshore Drilling.
That was more interesting than some confused old bloke who wants to be a president.

He's totally pandering to the audience there, and he lied at the end. "It can work in the...short term...(and the long term)". I KNOW this is going to come up again, and he'll have to back his statements, and what he's going to say is something along the lines of "well...I didn't MEAN the long, long term. By long term, I meant for a few years, to help us get off oil". But it is INFINITELY clear that is not what he is saying here. He is clearly defining drilling as a resolution for solving gas prices. Making people believe that drilling will bring gas prices back to normal despite the fact they aren't ever going to go back. He knows this, but he's playing the drilling card as a "I'm better than Obama" card.

Thanks for thinking "long term" there Mr. McCain. I'm sure my kids will appreciate it.

@Cybercat: Well, to McCain's credit, long term IS only a few years. The guy doesn't have many left.

In a few years we can be TOTALLY independent of foreign oil with investments of renewable, alternative forms of energy production TODAY.

McCain can put a sock in the offshore drilling argument.

Does anyone have any better, short term, ideas? No, the only answer is a long term answer.

He is not a real leader in the least.
Instead of a gas tax holiday, we need a new gas tax that goes to fund a statewide or nationwide mass transportation system.
Instead of drilling more oil, he needs to encourage Americans to conserve and drive less.
When we finally see that oil from offshore drilling, if they decide to drill offshore, we'll be much more indepdenent from that oil that it won't even matter.

I agree with the posts above, especially stradic. Drilling for more oil in new places is not the long term solution to our energy problems. Rising oil prices are creating the ideal economic setting for us to search for alternative fuel. We need to capture the opportunity rather than wasting it on a harmful resource. Aside, I think it is important for the individual to take more responsibility of our environment, creating a new "pro-environment culture" in the world, if you will. Individuals need opportunities that benefit the environment and the consumer. For example, I came across a neat website that stops your postal junk mail and benefits the environment. Cheers

A) We don't need more oil

B) We don't need more oil

C) Realtors say it's a great time to buy a house. Truck manufacturers say it's a great time to buy a truck. Oil exec say it's a great time to drill for oil. Go figure.

I'd love to hear more about his definition of "short term". The very nature of exploration, seismic studies, research, permitting, construction and finally delivery of the potential oil is probably 8 years at best. And exactly how much oil is there to tap? With the US consuming over 20 million barrels a day that better be some serious deposits to make it even slightly worthwhile.

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

@Anonymous

Yes, actually I do. So do many other people. We've been screaming it for the past few years, and nobody has been listening, all they hear is "La, la, la, I need to drive my car and it needs to run on gas, la, la, la".

WE'VE been saying, put the money into mass transportation. BOOM, city transportation solved. It's CRAZY easy, as buses and trains already exist! You just build a few more, or put down some new tracks! It took less than 2 years to expand the metro station in my area more than 10 miles in either direction! For city living, that means a HUGE amount of reduced traffic. I walk a half a mile to work.

I think it comes down to, people are too LAZY to walk a mile or two to work. Ride a bike. These are all solutions that are already in play. You just choose not to use them. If you shift money out of oil subsidies and into making these transportation methods more obtainable, then you can easily put that "man on the moon" so to speak, like Gore suggested.

The only alternative to this is putting the problem off for 10, maybe 20 years, while it gets progressively worse, and then when the wells start dropping in supply, people have NO backup plan. That's what oil drilling means, it means all that money that could have gone into wind farms, mass transit, solar, geothermal (and even nuclear) gets sucked dry by the oil machine that is America and we end up SHAFTED, just like the wells we dig.

I would love to take the bus but I live 20 miles away, I would love to walk but I live 40 miles away from work and I am not Lance Armstrong and cannot bike. I would love to have an electric car but it will be a very long time until the average American can purchase an electric with the capabilities of a regular one. It took a long time for our whole nation to switch from horses to cars, it will take a long time to switch to alternative fuels. This is a long term problem!

WHAT A FLOCK OF SHEEP!!
Same ones who voted for gunslinging, woodchoppin, reformed beer guzzlin, axis of arrogance, oil addicted malaprop who would accomplish more in an outhouse than a whitehouse!!!

anyone who cares about the envirement should think twice before casting a vote for him...we need to stop drilling in the ground for an energy source we truely no longer need !!! they also want to drill in alaska too but thank god for now its atleast been stalled , but unfortunatley everyone knows that they will not stop at a chance of making them selves wealthier...the commercial makes it seem that drilling off shore will make our country wealthier,, but again that is not the case it would make a hand full of people wealthier including MR.Mc Cain im sure there will be an earmark on any bill he passes...and his statement of blaming obama for the gas prices..... i say HaHA HA Mr Mc Cain the very thing your oil buddies thought wouldnt happen DID!!!! They thought the american public would keep buying there fuel at the same rate or more than what we currently consume.... But we didnt and stop and ttake a serious look at what this did to them they dropped the price of gas atleast 10 cents a gallon in the last two weeks in my area of the country... now what we need to do is cut it back even futher , the more we dont us the fuel the cheaper it will get oil companys dont like not making money !!! if we could get even half of our countrys population to not buy fuel for just 1 weekend it would cause them so much grief it would benifit us like you wouldnt believe..... But either way im voting for Ron Paul because our government needs a complete over haul .... so check out Ron Paul and dont believe the rumors that he is no longer in the race that is false he is in it until the end !!!!

Um... yeah... let's listen to the Oil Executives! They really know what they're talking about!

It's like, here's your chance folks: Cast your vote with the old ways that obviously don't have great results, or with clean tech, future minded ideas to take us into the next era.

Fifth Dimension, Here I Come!