Rep. Brown-Waite: Offshore drilling is a ‘life-or-death decision.’
By on Jun 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am
Rep. Brown-Waite: Offshore drilling is a ‘life-or-death decision.’
Delivering the House Republicans’ weekly radio address, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) called the issue of offshore drilling “a life-or-death decision,” citing potential rising costs of air conditioning this summer:
Senior citizens living on fixed incomes won’t be able to afford their air conditioning bills, putting their lives at risk from heat stroke and dehydration. To these people, whether or not we expand domestic energy supplies could very well mean a life-or-death decision.
Brown-Waite is right about one thing: Expanding oil drilling is a life-or-death decision, since feeding our addiction to oil will only hasten the catastrophic effects of global warming.
View Most Popular
Advertisement
What We're About
What We're Fighting For
What We're Fighting Against
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Bachmann
Beck
Boehner
Bush
Cheney
Civil Rights
Congress
Corporate Ethics
Dobbs
Economy
Education
Election
Energy
Environment
Ethics
Fox News
Gingrich
Glenn Beck
Global Warming
Health Care
Immigration
International Relations
Iraq
Kristol
LGBT
Lieberman
Limbaugh
Maddow
McCain
Media
Military
Obama
Palin
Pelosi
Public Plan
Race
Radical Right
Religion
Sports
Steele
Stimulus
Tea Parties
Technology
Women's Rights
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Reports
In-depth studies on select topics
Got a hot tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
ArchivesBlog Roll
What absolute Republican crap! Absolutely no oil from this would be available to help those people this summer! The whole push for lifting restrictions is only to benefit the oil companies. That’s all there is to it.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:22 amThis idiot really thinks that if we started drilling tomorrow we would have more oil in time to help people this summer. Boy, she proves there is no cure for stupid.
When people say things like this in Congress, why doesn’t some Democratic Congressperson stand up and say “Ms. Brown-Waite, you are aware that the US oil companies hold leases on 83 million acres of land in the US that they are not drilling, don’t you?” If she knows that, she will be proved to be disingenuous. If she doesn’t know that, she will be proved to be woefully uneducated in what’s going on in our country.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:24 amAny party which permits one of its members to issue a statement such as this, illogical and untrue on its face, something a third-grader can see, has nothing but contempt for its constituencies.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:24 amIf this person REALLY cared about the senior citizens, then they would encourage everyone to SAVE on gas. Conservation is the ONLY immediate solution to this short and long term problem.
But no, they throw out the red herring in a time of crisis to help their oil buddies out and the average American thinks these crooks actually give a damn. What a bunch of hot air this all is.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:34 amWell it is a life or death issue alright, just not in the way this crazy want’s people to believe…The life or death issue is for the public and all wildlife should we get more pipeline leak’s that aren’t taken care of for year’s or more Exxon Valdese disaster’s.
It appear’s to me that bull shit bush and his bunch want all the land grab leases in place before he leave’s…The oil companies already have million’s of acre’s tied up that they haven’t developed but they want it all..Add to that nightmare they want the park’s and timber land’s as well…Enough already…Blessings
June 21st, 2008 at 11:34 amRep Brown-Waite is the type of Republican who will vote against funding public cooling centers, while moaning about “life or death” decisions that affect Big Oil’s bottom line.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:35 amDAMN!! She may just wrest the title of the “Dingiest female Repug” from the two current holders; Mean Jean Schmidt and ‘Minnesota Vicodin’ Bachmann.
And that takes a lot of dingbat-itis to accomplish!
June 21st, 2008 at 11:35 amI am sick of crap (he says she says) being touted as “news.” I’m sick of it on the cable channels and on our regular “news” channels. I want real news…in depth investigational journalism. I don’t want to go to 1984.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:37 amShe’s undoubtedly someone who screeched the loudest when Hugo Chavez was offering cheap heating oil to the poor.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:38 amAnd this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Republicans win elections – by lying their asses off. The truth is nothing but a major inconvenience to Republicans. So much so that in Bush v. Gore, the Supremes ruled that if the recounts were allowed to continue, the results could hamper the petitioner’s (Bush) ability to claim victory. Put in plain English, if the recounts had been allowed to continue and the results showed that Gore actually won (which a statewide recount did show), then that would hamper Bush’s ability to claim victory. Notice that at no point in that decision did the truth matter. What was given the greatest legal weight was perception, not reality.
Republicans have no respect for the truth. And if you’re listening, O’Reilly, I said “truth”, not “troops”. (They have no respect for the troops, either, but that’s another story.)
June 21st, 2008 at 11:44 amThis agrees with a lot of what a wide array of marine species have been saying
June 21st, 2008 at 11:51 amI certainly don’t want to see elderly people suffer needlessly, but exploiting their plight for political gain is slimey. Drilling today will not help people today.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:04 pmCommunities do provide cool (free) senior centers today.
Conservation is certainly part of the solution, but that’s not the repugnican way.
Marie Says:
I certainly don’t want to see elderly people suffer needlessly, but exploiting their plight for political gain is slimey. Drilling today will not help people today.
Communities do provide cool (free) senior centers today.
Conservation is certainly part of the solution, but that’s not the repugnican way.
Marie, EXACTLY!
Remember how many elderly people died in Europe during their record high temperatures over the past several years. Climate Change will have a far worse effect on them and all the rest of us then many people will believe …….. til it is too late.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pmIf Ginny is concerned about needless deaths, over 18,000 occur each year due to lack of health insurance coverage.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:12 pmLast time I checked, my AC was running on electricity, not oil.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pmWould those be the air conditioning bills from the electricity supplied by the coal-fired power plants in her district?
June 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pmDo the people north of Tampa realize they are being represented by a complete moron?
June 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pmWho uses oil to run their air conditioners?
June 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pmThe old people she talks about would all be dead by the time any oil is pumped.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pmThere is a chance that senior citizens that Congressman is worried about will probably not make it see the fruits of offshore oil drilling which might take 10-12 years to help them in their air conditioning bills this summer.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pmBrown-Waite has been so busy licking Bush’s butt, that she has forgotten why she is in Washington.
She should know that most senior citizens are at risk now because they cannot afford to pay their electric bills.
Remember folks, this is the great legislator that wanted to bring our dead soldiers buried in France back to the US because France did not support our decision to go to war.
She is up for re-election in November….Legislators like her MUST be run out of office.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pmThis guy is obviously a MD with a PhD. She knows life and death.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pmAnd was it a life-or-death decision to sell our existing North-Slope oil to the Chines on the open market?
June 21st, 2008 at 1:41 pmwhoops. ChinesE.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:41 pmThis is pure BS. There are plenty of places that have been approved for drilling and the oil industry is just sitting on it. What’s that all about? And the real problem is unregulated commodities trading in the oil industry. Don’t let these republics win with their constants lies. Speak the truth to these lies.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:25 pmYou hit the nail on the head… if we want to bring down the cost of gasoline, then consume less. This will force selling off the oil that is currently being horded due to the unregulated oil commodity. Anyone remember ENRON? Same thing. Bush and Cheney, oil men, have no benefit to lowering the cost of oil.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pmPerhaps we could spend some (GASP!) tax dollars to offer seniors shelter and transport to said shelter during the heat wave. Wouldn’t that be a solution? Or, we could drill oil wells in their living rooms.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pmAnd we mustn’t forget all the “sulfur rich” oil in “capped” wells that the oil companies don’t want to refine because it hurts the bottom line. Meanwhile, those who assault reason win another throw by refusing to debate the real issue which is energy waste.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pmI was directed to this blog this afernoon by one of my friends.
Not surprising to see Ginny “plugging” away on behalf of the petroleum industry. While I cannot find a comment on this blog with which I disagree, I cannot leave without adding my “2cents.”
Remebering of course that Ginny is famous for referring to herself as a “hooker” someone to whom people give money and in return ask her for political favors once she is in office…
The “congresswoman” is bereft of knowledge on most issues, among them energy in even the broadest sense. Ginny as a couple of posters have noted, completely misses the boat on the fact that the lowest hanging fruit short term in the energy dilemma we currently face is increased conservation.
Given the considerable backlog of un-worked lease areas already on the books, these folks aided by “paid” mouthpieces like Ginny, are just trying to twist the arms of the American people until they capitulate on this sensitive issue.
In seeking to defeat Ginny this Fall I am standing astride a position whereby alternative energy is accorded the priority that it deserves. Ginny clearly has not heard of nor would she comprehend the far reaching consequences of “Peak Oil.”
I do! The heat being what it is does anyone here think that Ginny is up to speed on Global Warming?
Thank you. John Russell
John Russell originally from Buffalo, New York is 52 years old and has been a resident of Dade City, Florida since 1995. John is engaged to Chyrisse Tabone a resident of Tampa and an environmental scientist by profession. John is a 2001 graduate of the University of South Florida with a Masters in Nursing and is a Nationally Certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. John also has his MBA in Health Systems Management from Niagara University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has worked in the critical care arena for over 15 years and also provides care to patients in their homes throughout the Tampa Bay area who are afflicted with chronic non-healing wounds.
INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICS:
2002—was active in restoring the civil rights of ex felons in St. Petersburg as well as being actively engaged in opposing the war in Iraq
2003—campaigned on behalf of Karen Thurman and Bill McBride 2004—finished second in District 5’s Congressional primary in a field of four candidates and served as Pasco County coordinator for Betty Castor with Betty winning Pasco County in losing to Mel Martinez for U.S. Senate.
2005—selected to attend AFSCME/NewHouse PAC Congressional Boot Camp with notables such as Colleen Rowley, Patricia Madrid, and Christine Jennings.
2006—Democratic nominee in District 5’s General Election and garnered nearly 109,000 votes against a 20:1 financial advantage to the incumbent, Brown-Waite.
ISSUE BRIEFS:
John’s background in health care makes him the obvious choice in Congressional District 5. A summary of John’s issues is presented as follows:
® Bringing a swift end to U.S. occupation in Iraq and preventing conflict in Iran;
® Ensuring our Veterans are respected for their sacrifice by providing healthcare and educational opportunities during and after service;
® Restoring economic fairness by enacting progressive tax policies that will resurrect America’s middle class… i.e., Roll back the Bush tax cuts for those earning in excess of $200,000.
® Implementing plans towards a National Single Payer Universal Healthcare System;
® Providing a National Catastrophic Homeowners Insurance Plan that dramatically lowers the cost of homeowners insurance;
® Developing immigration and labor policies to protect U.S. workers and penalizing companies which employ illegal workers;
® Supporting election reform, Social Security, and Medicare
® Strengthening policy on alternative energy to stimulate the economy and avoid a lingering Recession;
Please visit http://www.johnrussellforcongress.com for further details. Thank you.
John Russell originally from Buffalo, New York is 52 years old and has been a resident of Dade City, Florida since 1995. John is engaged to Chyrisse Tabone a resident of Tampa and an environmental scientist by profession.
John is a 2001 graduate of the University of South Florida with a Masters in Nursing and is a Nationally Certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. John also has his MBA in Health Systems Management from Niagara University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has worked in the critical care arena for over 15 years and also provides care to patients in their homes throughout the Tampa Bay area who are afflicted with chronic non-healing wounds.
INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICS:
2002—was active in restoring the civil rights of ex felons in St. Petersburg as well as being actively engaged in opposing the war in Iraq
2003—campaigned on behalf of Karen Thurman and Bill McBride 2004—finished second in District 5’s Congressional primary in a field of four candidates and served as Pasco County coordinator for Betty Castor with Betty winning Pasco County in losing to Mel Martinez for U.S. Senate.
2005—selected to attend AFSCME/NewHouse PAC Congressional Boot Camp with notables such as Colleen Rowley, Patricia Madrid, and Christine Jennings.
2006—Democratic nominee in District 5’s General Election and garnered nearly 109,000 votes against a 20:1 financial advantage to the incumbent, Brown-Waite.
ISSUE BRIEFS:
Please visit http://www.johnrussellforcongress.com for further details. Thank you.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:29 pmFunny how that Capitalistic thing works huh?
Oil compnaies want back into Iraq, and into more U.S. Lands to drill, but what would happen to the oil from said fields, both abroad and in U.S. Are the oil companies nationalized? Are they REQUIRED to send the oil to the U.S.? OR are they FREE to perform the function the WHORPORATION was formed to do, namely make as much FCUKING money for its shareholders as possible IRRESPECITVE OF THE SHAREHOLDERS’ country of origin AND IRRESPECITVE of even the country of origin of the WHORPORATION. THey are free to use that oil to make themselves as much fcuking money as possible, PERIOD! No selling it to U.S. as shitty U.S. dollar rates, when they coud be getting much more on overseas markets. Go figure this bullshit out for yourselves. The OIL WHORPOATIONS are the problem.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:02 pmCouple them with eh Telecom Whorporations, and you can see why I say to undermine EVERY CORPORATION. PERIOD. KILL THE COPRPORATE MENTAILITY, even if it means killing the Corporations and their bigwigs.
Uhhh…did a RePugniScum say something????
How annoying!!!
June 21st, 2008 at 5:05 pmAlso, can Ginny or anyone else tell us exaclty WHEN will the oil companies be drilling on the 68million acres of land already approved for drilling along with the 10’s of thousands of permits for drilling alread HELD by the oil companies. Tbe only thing that will be happening by allowing oil companies to drill in areas currently being annexed to this HUGE repositiory of drillable acres, is that we would be siging over our childrens fortunes to these corporations who have NO obligation to send, sell, give or ship ANY of the oil to the U.S. They are free to market it, in the crappy capitalisitic system the fascists love, to any country or company that will MAKE THEM THE MOST MONEY.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM. THESE OIL COMPANIES ARE NOT NATIONALIZED….NOW THERE IS A CONCEPT.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:08 pmThe Gas & Oil Party obviously never heard the old folk tale about the boy who cried wolf too often…
The following news article should prove to everyone what a blatant partisan liar Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) is…
source
You may want to use my original animated GIF to spell it out to your family and friends:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r12/onecitizen/GOProfiteering.gif
June 21st, 2008 at 5:22 pmfirst it was “Why do you hate caribou?” gee, now it’s “Why do you hate senior citizens?”
What next? Why do you hate poor downtrodden Big Oil CEOs?
June 21st, 2008 at 5:37 pmWhat a vicious cycle.
Drill more oil to run air conditioners
Burning fossil fuels to run your AC increases global warming
Need to drill more oil to run your AC longer.
Sounds like the people who believe the ‘end of the world’ is a good thing are in charge.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:58 pmI find the GOP’s sudden concern for senior citizens to be laughable at best…Only when drilling is involved do they suddenly become the spokespeople for cute and fuzzy caribou and senior citizens?
June 21st, 2008 at 5:59 pmRight, because totally…electricity comes from oil, man.
*slaps my forwhead*
Totaaaally duuuuude.
[/sarcasm]
For the record, I believe in CLIMATE CHANGE, not global warming. It pretty much equals the same results, we do have to change our behavior and get to planning for the future, it’s just I don’t have the arrogance to say that human beings can affect the weather. ‘Cause if that was the case, then DARPA’s aim to someday be able to control the weather would be grounded in reality.
>_> Life or death? Meh. Maybe. I really don’t see how it’d feed our oil addiction ’cause it’s a waste of time — because it would, in fact take insanely long time compared to the effects its having NOW.
Just more B.S. from the white house trying to sell an idea.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:01 pmI hope to God, it doesn’t work…because it’s exactly what the oil companies waaaaant. And what Bush wants, and McCain for that matter…which speaks voloumes.
.
“POTENTIALLY” there “MIGHT BE” high gas prices…
I can play that game too…
“POTENTIALLY”, the US Government “MIGHT BE” a threat to the sovereignty of the Republic.
Hit or miss?
.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pmMyFreedomWings Says:
For the record, I believe in CLIMATE CHANGE, not global warming. It pretty much equals the same results, we do have to change our behavior and get to planning for the future, it’s just I don’t have the arrogance to say that human beings can affect the weather. ‘Cause if that was the case, then DARPA’s aim to someday be able to control the weather would be grounded in reality.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I agree, to a point. “Global Warming” was an unfortunate choice of slogan. To the average layperson every cold day is “proof” that it’s not getting warmer. Then, it’s a short leap to the assumption that “change” isn’t occurring. Obviously we can’t be causing a change which is not happening.
It would have been far better if climatologists had stuck with the, more cumbersome, “Emission induced instability” cited in some of the earlier work on greenhouse effect. They should have left the warming specific predictions to technical papers and focused on change/instability and its role in historical mass extinctions.
Warmer? Colder? Both? Not much difference. Rapid changes, even small ones, in weather patterns are devastating. Historically, species at the top of the food chain, like humans, fare poorly in mass extinctions. And most data suggests we are in a mass extinction event with no end in sight. If there is any chance we can mitigate the harm to the planet, and ourselves, we dang well better do so.
Finally, for any trolls who happen by, there are several facts which are not in dispute.
1. According to the best data available, atmospheric CO2 and global temperature interact in direct proportion. More CO2=higher temps.
2. Atmospheric CO2 is at an, at least, 800,000 year high and it’s increasing in direct proportion to measured human emissions.
3. Atmospheric CO2 has risen in direct proportion with measured human emissions since data has been collected.
4. Average global temp is at it’s highest point in the history of accurate data. And it’s rising at an increasing rate.
5. Many climate predictions, based on models of an increase in the greenhouse effect, have since been observed and many of them are progressing more rapidly than feared.
Please reach your own conclusions.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:51 pmIf any U.S. citizens die this summer because they couldn’t pay their high (and rising) utility bills, leading to their air conditioners shutting off, then we all know who will be to blame: Republicans.
Eight years ago, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), at the behest of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay (R-TX), snuck a provision into a bill that deregulated on-line energy trading, leading to Enron energy speculators gaming West Coast utilities in 2001 to the tune of tens of billions of household dollars, causing monthly utility bills to triple, and probably contributing to some deaths as poorer, older Californians weren’t able to pay and their air conditioning was shut off.
So, now a delustional and disingenuous Republican, Rep. Brown-Waite (R-FL) is trying to scare people with something that we’ve already seen Republicans do in 2001, artificially-inflated energy prices, caused by what is called the “Enron loophole,” that led to the deaths of Californians in 2001.
If anyone dies this summer in an overheated house, Rep. Brown-Waite, it will be on your head and the head of all Republicans who’ve been blocking Democrats the past six years from rescinding the “Enron loophole” and reverting regulations back to what they had been for 70 years before Sen. Gramm’s stunt in 2000. So, if anyone dies, all the Republicans responsible will be viewed as accessories to murder, or at least voluntary manslaughter, with malice aforethought.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:21 pmOnly a few of us are saying the obvious—-air conditioners do not run on oil! The other day it was Repub senator from Texas Kay Bailey Hutchinson saying that nuclear power plants gave us gasoline!
June 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pmPetroleum, coal and uranium were always junk, alternative energy sources we never needed. A fully developed, easily deployed, virtually free energy technology exists; yet, we can’t have it because it’s highly classified. Petition Washington to declassify zero point energy technology.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:13 amCNN said Saturday that there are now 7,457 leases issued for offshore drilling. Of those, 1877 are producing oil. There is exploration and testing at the others.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 amExploration and drilling and getting oil out of the ground and refining it will take an average of 8 to 10 years and non-petroleum products will take less than 8 to 10 years and will leave a smaller carbon footprint, gee Wally what do I do???
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 pmThe re-pukes are pandering to the American public and the BIG OIL companies and their phucking $$$$$$$$$.As far as I am concerned oil is on the out`s while non-food based ethanol is on the in`s.