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House votes to end offshore drilling moratorium
Drill ships and response vessels work in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast line while attempting to drill relief wells at the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill wellhead July 27, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Sean Gardner
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday voted to end the federal moratorium on deepwater drilling for oil companies that meet new federal safety requirements.
The proposal to end the moratorium was an amendment to a pending energy bill the House was poised to vote on.
The moratorium will not end unless the Senate also votes to terminate it and President Barack Obama signs the legislation into law. The fate of the proposal in the Senate is uncertain.
The Obama administration imposed the six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in waters more than 500 feet deep in response to the BP oil spill. The moratorium runs through the end of November.
"An indiscriminate blanket moratorium punishes the innocent along with the guilty for the actions of the poor judgment of one reckless company," said Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana Democrat who co-sponsored the amendment.
"If a rig meets all the tough new safety requirements issued by the Department of Interior, if it has been fully inspected and deemed safe, why should it sit idle? And the workers of that rig, why should they go jobless until the arbitrary six-month period is over?" he said.
(Reporting by Tom Doggett and Richard Cowa; Editing by David Gregorio)
Yes let’s get going but just don’t mention no one will be checking whether they meet the standards any more than they did before…
@wildthang – exactly. Let’s get back to business as usual as soon as possible. That is–the business of allowing business to do whatever the hell it wants. Why should 1.5 million gallons of oil in one of our nation’s most important fisheries change that?
In 1995, the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act was passed, giving oil companies US$37B in funding to develop technology and reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. There was not one single mention of safety, leaks, spills, etc., in that act.
So for those of you who think that giving something to the government somehow means that they’ll anticipate problems, think again.
Don’t count on this getting Mr Wonderful’s signature. The ultra left is the only block of voters he has left….
All right thinking Americans(this excludes the far Left) should be happy with this vote. There never should have been a moratorium in the first place. The so called “damage” to the beaches and ecosystem was minimal, at best. Here on the West coast, we get tar balls all the time from natural seepage. The ocean floor has leaked oil for untold millions of years. It’s normal. The oceans and the bacteria therein abosrb and recycle oil to various beneficial forms. Were this were not the case, the oceans would be mostly oil by now!
The reaction to the well blowout that we have seen from this administration is no different from the blame-game alarmism we have seen with the global warming hoax. While real problems are ignored, concocted ones keep making headlines. Pitiful.
What was the vote for and against.
Tom Doggett and Richard Cowa disapproved that the bill pasted by a wide margin so they would not put the vote count in the story, had it failed I sure they would have.
Translation – this has nothing to do with oil drilling – Obama wants to create huge new regulatory powers for the Federal Government and extend government control over the energy business and he is holding drilling in the gulf hostage.
Just like he refuses to enforce federal law against armed drug smugglers and other illegal aliens crossing the border until he gets amnesty for all illegal aliens.
But, but, but… (sputter…. fume…. blubber) this is such a crisis! We cant waste it! The environmental toll has been devastating. Why the oil is a foot and a half deep all over the gulf and it has washed ashore all the way up to Tennessee and Arkansas and it’s all over the chickens and chihuahuas. Someone has to pay a lot of money for this damage and Bush and his evil puppeteer Cheney should be impeached. Gas prices dropped instead of skyrocketing… .boo hoo… snivel ….. sob ….this can’t be happening. Mullah Obama didn’t even get to nationalize BP wahhhhhhhh!!!!
