Maybe we ought to paint the White House black; a nice oily petroleum black like the oil George Bush wants to drill for on both coasts of Florida. Using the jump in gasoline prices of the last few weeks as a lure, the Bush administration has used every trick in its carpet bag to sell the idea to a state that seems adamantly opposed to this last increment of pollution peddling.
Back in March, Interior Secretary Gale Norton sold the idea to our new Senator Mel Martinez, the fellow who won election after a sleaze campaign rivaling the Swift-Boating of John Kerry. He’s been accused by some conservative commentators as being not only unqualified but insane. Blind he isn’t, however and he swiftly dropped his support when he saw the size of the opposition. Hardly anyone here wants to compound the destruction of our inland waters by the Three Sugar Families who run Tallahassee the way Al Capone ran Cicero, Illinois. Last week, a representative of the Florida Water Board (read Big Sugar) told us that to suggest that they make any accommodation just because people want to swim and fish was “irresponsible.”
Next they tried to sneak it into the Federal Energy Bill. When that failed, the work to include the proposition in the House budget bill that would make the White House-Norton plan a certainty. Since it would be part of a budget bill, House rules allow no debate. It's the same underhanded technique oil companies used to win Senate approval for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
There isn’t enough oil by anyone’s projections to affect fuel prices, the only benefit would be to the already engorged coffers of the oil companies – Bush’s base.
This is once again George W. Bush’s ‘Christmas Every Day for the Oil Men’ policy at work. To hell with the Marine Sanctuaries, to hell with the 8000+ miles of coastline, beaches, resorts and fisheries – to hell with what the citizens want, to hell with State’s rights, to hell with everyone and everything that doesn’t make the oily oligarchs richer and more powerful. Bend over America – Bush wants to hear you squeal.
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3 comments:
Martinez mentioned in both our sites. Scary.
Speak of the Devil. . . .
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I recall how George Bush promised to restore America's presumably lost moral compass. No, he won't rent out the Lincoln bedroom to his friends, but he'll give away America's irreplaceable treasures to his buddies.
I read somewhere that the ANWAR oil reserves in their entirety equal four months of current U.S. consumption. So, drilling in Alaska was also not about oil prices or supply. It's nauseating. Five years ago there wasn't a chance in hell we'd drill in that preserve - now the privilege of drilling there is enshrined in law. It's absolutely disgusting and sick.
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