Why won't Nancy Pelosi call the big oil companies bluff and vote to drill off-shore?

Question

Nancy won't bring a vote for off-shore drilling because the oil companies already have large amounts of acres to drill despite the fact they will only drill if they know there is oil there. So politically, doesn't it make more sense to say to the oil companies: "Here, we gave you authorization to drill and now you're not doing it." Put the blame on the oil companies and off of the Dems.

Answer 1

The problem with your suggestion is that, for the apparently large number of "low-information voters," as they are euphemistically called, this would be perceived as caving in to the Bush administration.  Anyone who has been paying attention, even to the Bush adminstration's own analysts, knows that opening up the offshore areas to drilling will have no affect in the short term, and even in the long term will only possibly make a difference of a few cents at the pump.  But the problem is that a lot of people haven't been paying attention.

The one good thing to come out of this skyrocketing of oil and gas prices is that it provides an even greater economic incentive for people to develop alternative energy sources.  MIT just announced that some of its scientists have apparently come up with a simple yet efficient way to store energy from solar cells.  One of the problems with solar energy in the past has been the inability to efficiently, i.e., cheaply, store that energy for when the sun isn't shining.  If the reports are true, solar energy could become much more viable on a large-scale basis.

The point is that it will be economics that will make the difference in developing alternatives to fossil fuels.  Remember, today's oil business only began about 150 years ago as a reaction to the steep rise in the price of whale oil as whales became scarcer.  It was economics that drove technological innovation back then, and it will be economics that will drive it now.

Answer 2

Drilling for oil isn't the way to go to improve our situations. We need to get off oil and force them to release and use renewable energy sources that they already have the technology to use. Do you honestly believe they don't already have the technology to make renewable energy a reality? Of course they do, they've had it near prefect for a least a decade they're just trying to eek as much money they can from us before they actually use it. The damage that drilling for oil and using oil is paramount in comparison to benefits. If Bush wouldn't be part of the problem having put BANS on "Green" technologies we wouldn't be in this rut.

GM had built a smaller car capable of seating 4 people and with a medium/small trunk. Hybrid diesel capable of 80mpg highway, and then told everyone they won't be making the vehicle. If that doesn't tell you the entire story right there, nothing will ever take of the blinders.

Answer 3

LOL. Who do you think will be drilling for the oil off-shore? I'm sure it will be the oil companies not the PTA.

Answer 4

Because Nancy Pelosi is first and foremost a radical environmentalist... the needs of the nation be dammed. And secondly, she actually said she didn't want to give the Republicans any ammunition in the polls by giving in to their demands to drill... again, political partisanship over the needs of the nation.