Posted by
Tom L. on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 12:04:31 AM
BP and associated companies responsible? Yes. Clean air? Yes. Energy independence? Yes. Stop drilling, reduce domestic oil production, increase oil imports, increase dependence on foreign oil, increase trade deficit, increase cost of gas? I don’t think so.
The answer is rather simple.
Make companies meet standards to try to prevent similar disasters to BP’s.
Oil spills (accidents) are easier to clean up on land than on water and have less of an ecological impact. Allow and promote domestic drilling including in the Arctic national wildlife refuge.
Fast-track new smaller nuclear power plants. (Re-authorize the Yacca Flats nuclear storage facility, which the Obama administration is closing.)
Stop bashing coal and promote technology to make coal more ecologically compatible.
Promote government-private corporation partnerships to develop alternative fuels.
Lift the ban on deep-sea drilling.
From Reuters: “Brazil could benefit from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill as a U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling boosts available rigs for the country's deep water oil exploration program. Even as an ecological catastrophe makes the future of U.S. offshore drilling less certain, Brazil is plowing ahead with a $220 billion five-year plan to tap oil fields even deeper than BP's ill-fated Gulf well, which is still leaking crude. With an estimated 35 rigs idled in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil is already receiving inquiries from companies looking to move their rigs here, where vast discoveries in recent years may soon turn the country into a major crude exporter.”