Republican Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann recently claimed she could get gas prices below $2 per gallon. Aside from an attempt to cause a severe economic recession and thus a dramatic drop in global oil demand, most experts agree that goal is a completely unrealistic goal.
But we now have more clarity on the Bachmann plan: Drill for oil in the Everglades.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Bachmann said she would be willing to drill for oil in the Everglades, a 4,000 square mile series of sensitive wetlands off the coast of Florida that acts as a major watershed for the state.
“The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent on American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades or whether that is in the Eastern Gulf region or whether that is in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is.”
She also conceded in the interview that “if we can’t responsibly access energy in the Everglades, then we shouldn’t do it.”
Bachmann has been critical of the Obama Administration for supposedly limiting oil and gas production. But the Wall Street Journal reported today that production is up 60% from last year. The U.S. oil industry is doing more drilling than it has since 1987.
According to a 2009 report from the Energy Information Administration, the most aggressive offshore drilling scenario in the U.S. would lower gas prices by three cents by 2030. But that apparently wouldn’t stop Bachmann from opening up the most sensitive environmental regions in the U.S. to drilling — threatening massive ecosystems and watersheds to attain a hollow campaign promise to lower gas prices below $2 a gallon.
So under a Bachmann Administration, would the Florida Everglades look like this?
JR: Of course, if we keep burning fossil fuels at the rate Bachmann wants, the Everglades will be underwater, so then wells there will just be more offshore drilling.
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“… we need to go where the energy is.” Guess what Bachmann, all fossil energy is from the sun originally. I recall reading that it took ~1,000,000 years for nature to lay down the energy that the world uses in a year. Today with modern technology, i.e. science, we can power the our Nation with the energy striking a 100 mile square chunk of dessert. Without giving all that cash to foreign dictators and greedy corporations. Free fuel from the SUN we just have to restructure capitalism to take advantage of it. Renewable Power to the People. NOW! Cut out the middlemen. They are rich enough. They will make out just fine.
Hear hear!
For once I completely agree. We need to go where the energy is.
It just happens that it’s the big yellow thing in the sky that rains down a kW or so per square meter on us and which we can harvest in multiple different ways. Maybe somebody should look into it.
Crazy people everywhere….All eyes are on the US to see how this is all going to end….
Bachmann: Hurricane Irene was a punishment from God
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/star-spangled-staggers/2011/08/bachmann-god-politicians
Hey Bachmann, Perry… God knows all about GW. Maybe he’s trying to tell YOU sometihing….
Yes Paul, USA watching, particularly watching those with the minds of mangoes, seems to becoming like China watching used to be, way back when intellectuals clustered around their beers in smoke-filled rooms to swap interpretations of the latest raised eyebrow or strangely placed comma.
The difference is that today the watched go for maximum visibility and maximum decibels. But it produces the same macabre mesmerization as watching some poor unfortunate do something insane in public, everybody holding their breath as they wonder what the next act of madness will be and how it will all end, ME
I guess that’s not too surprising from someone who said she wants to close the EPA.
Perry and Bachmann, just complete cooks…Perry is smashing Bachmann in the poling at this point – they both mine that same don’t believe in evolution, don’t believe in climate change, homeschool your kids to isolate-er-protect them group of voters and Perry is winning that group at this point.
Pardon me
The only drilling here is for a frontal end lobotomy.
Merrelyn Emery #4, your comparison is, in my opinion, deeply offensive to mangoes, of which I am inordinately fond.
I didn’t understand this statement:
Bachmann has been critical of the Obama Administration for supposedly limiting oil and gas production. But the Wall Street Journal reported today that production is up 60% from last year.
According to US DOE/EIA data, through May 2011 U.S. oil and condensate production was up 2.46% and dry natural gas production was up 6.05% relative to 2010 through May.
A few points that are of interest from my perspective is that Gulf of Mexico oil production was off ~130,000 b/d for the first 3 months of 2011 relative to the first 3 months of 2010. That is largely due to declining deepwater GOM production. I’ve been making the case that deepwater GOM oil production would peak in 2010.
North Dakota’s oil production declined ~0.6% in the first 3 months of 2011 relative to the last 3 months of 2010. That is after 2009 and 2010 had production increases of over 30%. Could it be that the Bakken Shale region has reached its limit. Time will tell.
Roger Blanchard
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
Someone should tip off Bachmann that they found a mother lode of oil in hell.
Mulga #7, I’m really pleased you enjoy their company, ME
Yes, Merrelyn, we fruit must stick together.