Fear Of Losing Congress Prompts Big Oil Allies To Act In Panic Mode

The political right is acting in a panic mode that Republicans could be in a position to lose Congress and is pushing for some last minute policies while they remain in the majority. A new push to support antienviromentalist goals of the big oil companies is just one of these goals.

One of these policies is to push for oil exploration in the environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However just this week, a possible vast new oil reserve may have been discovered in the far less environmentally sensitve Gulf Of Mexico. But even with existing oil rigs in the nearby area, it still may be up to 2020 before we see any oil from this new exploration. Conservatives will argue that because liberals in Congress would not allow oil exploration in Alaska is the reason for such high oil prices. Nonsense. It would have taken years and years of buildimg a pipeline through environementally sensitive areas and wildlife would have been greatly impacted. There are far closer and easier reserves such as the Gulf Of Mexico supply which are yet to be discovered as just possibility besides conservation and a move to more alternative energy sources.

BP oil recently found out that their massive pipeline in Alaska has a leak problem, and is now closed for repairs for months. And this also represents just some of the problems with such a project in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If conservatives were really concerned about the high cost of oil, then they should not have supported the call to war in Iraq which has taken 900,000 barrels of oil off the market a day in lost production and virtually doubled the prices from the 2003 prewar price of $1.59 a gallon.