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Should American oil companies be allowed to drill for oil 50 miles off the coast?

Posted by atlasbear • 6/11/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic

This would allow the government to experience increased revenue without raising a tax on oil companies.

That would help pay down the debt. That would strengthen the dollar.... that would drive the price of oil down. So we would have more cheaper oil.

User Comments

6/11/08

WilDip

I think so.

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6/11/08

atlasbear

same here!!

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6/11/08

csiunatc

here is the problem as i see it. The rigs and drilling would have to be largely uninsured. Drilling that close to shore is something that no insurance company wants to touch.

The caveat that any environmental disaster needs to be paid for by the company of their insurance. and enforce that insurance requirement.

If that is added, the cost of insuring the operation could be so high that it's no longer viable.

Should they be allowed to drill that close without ensuring that a disaster is cleaned up. I think not.

Is it economic to drill with the insurance cost added.. Probably not.

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1. 6/12/08
  
  Anok
  
  I hadn't even thought of that....
6/11/08

atlasbear

interesting take csiuatc

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6/11/08

RobertBarr

Offshore, Alaska, Gulf, anywhere I can get it. We use 20 million a day, we make 5 million. Simple math should win out here. Problem is, this lesson should have been learned 30 years ago!

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6/11/08

acousticguitarist

the REAL America does not exist anymore, you only think it does

It's run from Europe

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1. 6/12/08
  
  barryfromtexas
  
  And here I thought it was India
2. 6/12/08
  
  kevinatserieatalk
  
  @ barry
  
  good one Barry, just discovered my bank has a customer service department in India.
  
  Now come on people I'm trying to be funny and you've all turned serious on me
6/12/08

pobeptr

csiunatc

One of the root causes for crude oil prices today is anti-business, anti-technology groups. More concerned with an unobstructed view of nature than the over all health of America and Americans as a whole.

Everyone is concerned about rising gasoline, electricity, natural gas prices. But when a 'business' tries to build a power plant, refinery or drill an oil well, treehuggers anti-business environment groups fight business by court actions that in the end cause the business to just give up.
Moving their business of shore to China, India or other business friendly country.

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1. 6/12/08
  
  Anok
  
  At some point in the future people who willfully ignore the "tree huggers" warnings will be wading through their own filth because they have used up so much of the planet and allowed companies and consumers alike to create so much waste that there is no longer any place to put it, except right on the streets and in their homes.
  
  Nonrenewable energy sources will be tapped out, and then where will you be?
  
  Yes, we are more concerned with nature than with the greedy developments of humans who constantly destroy everything in their path.
6/12/08

kevinatserieatalk

what's with all this talk about drilling?

"I never had sexual relations with that woman"
B Clinton

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6/12/08

pointlessbanter

No.

How about creating an actual energy policy first. You know it a plan dictating our actions instead of just drilling wherever we can with no real goal in mind. (Well besides the goal of "we need more oil".)

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6/12/08

Anok

Why not take that money and invest it in an alternative, independent source of energy instead?

What better time than now?

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6/12/08

clioandme

I have no idea what the ramifications of drilling so far off the coast would be, but focusing on more drilling as a solution to our energy needs would be as short-sighted as guinea pigs seem to be. (They're sweet animals, but they can't see a whole lot.)

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6/12/08

wolfcreek

There still needs to be a short term fix while we concurrently work on long term solutions. The shortest term solution is for you, me and Heinie P. Neighbor to slow our consumption and look for ways to limit our needs for crude oil.

Drilling locally, offshore (or interstellarly, if it gets our dependence on OPEC countries lowered) and encouraging the many Green minded entrepreneurs and corporations to engineer better solutions is still good planning. We can't make the switch to "Green" or alternative sources overnite.

I'd like to think that I will have developed something to radically alter the thought processes of our population by the time oil becomes so much more scarce, but alas, if not I, then it needs to be someone!

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