Don't Baby Don't

December 1, 2010 11:06 AM

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as part of the next five-year drilling plan, reversing two key policy changes President Obama announced in late March. Drilling will continue in other parts of the Gulf of Mexico under new safeguards. Previously.
posted by gerryblog (28 comments total)

So, is this where I'm supposed to complain about Obama being indistinguishable from a Republican? I'm confused.
posted by The World Famous at 11:08 AM on December 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

As someone who unsubscribed from the OFA mailing list over this nonsense just yesterday, I must say I'm very happy about this. It was a mistake to ever lift the ban at all: not only very bad policy, it kept national Democrats from invoking Deepwater Horizon as the ultimate "I told you so" against drill-baby-drill-style demagoguery. This is a very good flip-flop, and maybe next time we can think twice before triangulating.

So, is this where I'm supposed to complain about Obama being indistinguishable from a Republican? I'm confused.

It's true; a Republican president would never admit he'd made a mistake.
posted by gerryblog at 11:13 AM on December 1, 2010

Here's a little more on this from the Miami Herald's "Naked Politics" blog that puts this in a little more of a local perspective.

Since Florida elected Republican billionaire Rick Scott governor and gave the Republicans even larger majorities in the Florida legislature than they already enjoyed (and have enjoyed essentially uninterrupted for the last two decades as the state's slipped deeper into economic decline), the expectation is that Scott and the legislature are going to be pretty eager to open up drilling off the Florida coast soon (they were already poised to do this right before the Gulf spill, which really wasn't much more than a speed bump from their perspective).

This move is kind of an end run around that problem, and it's a welcome one from where I sit.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:15 AM on December 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's true; a Republican president would never admit he'd made a mistake.

I missed the part of the article where the Democratic president did this.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:15 AM on December 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

He reversed himself, XQUZYPHYR, in a very public way that we will hear about 10,000,000 times in next year's GOP primaries; what would you call it?
posted by gerryblog at 11:19 AM on December 1, 2010

...[T]he Obama administration will proceed with scoping for possible drilling in the central and western Gulf of Mexico and in the Arctic as part of the upcoming 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf program, while keeping the other areas off limits.

The administration is likely to conduct a new environmental assessment of Shell's plan to conduct drilling in the Arctic, the sources added.

These are the areas that really matter for new oil (and gas) production. The Gulf of Mexico and California sources aren't likely to yield large new sources of oil, as I understand it.

It will be interesting to see how they handle shale oil. New expansions of oil and gas reserves were announced yesterday based on shale reservoirs. The effects of fraking are very controvercial. It will be interesting to see what the politics of "drill, baby, drill" turns into when the human, agricultural and environmental costs of oil and gas extraction are happening in peoples' backyards, primarily in the mid-west.
posted by bonehead at 11:21 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

He reversed himself, XQUZYPHYR, in a very public way that we will hear about 10,000,000 times in next year's GOP primaries; what would you call it?

Insufficiently laden with magical ponies?
posted by joe lisboa at 11:23 AM on December 1, 2010

He reversed himself, XQUZYPHYR, in a very public way that we will hear about 10,000,000 times in next year's GOP primaries; what would you call it?

If reversing one's own policies constitutes "admiting he made a mistake," then Republicans admit their mistakes all the time.
posted by The World Famous at 11:23 AM on December 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

It was a one-liner, not a book project. gerryblog regrets the error.
posted by gerryblog at 11:25 AM on December 1, 2010

One-term President.
posted by hamida2242 at 11:26 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

If reversing one's own policies constitutes "admiting he made a mistake," then Republicans admit their mistakes all the time.

Like that whole pesky 14th Amendment blunder the Republicans now admit they made after the Civil War...
posted by saulgoodman at 11:27 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Whatever points Obama might score with (whatever is left of) his base are going to evaporate once he starts implementing the 'deficit commission' austerity measures.
posted by hamida2242 at 11:30 AM on December 1, 2010

Whatever points Obama might score with (whatever is left of) his base are going to evaporate once he starts implementing the 'deficit commission' austerity measures.

As if he needed another reason not to do those things...
posted by gerryblog at 11:31 AM on December 1, 2010

He reversed himself, XQUZYPHYR, in a very public way that we will hear about 10,000,000 times in next year's GOP primaries; what would you call it?

For fucks sake dude it wasn't a trick question. Where was a mistake admitted? It wasn't.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:39 AM on December 1, 2010

Even when the Republicans are right now actively proposing legislation that includes what amounts to a return to the Articles of Confederation, rescinding birth-right citizenship, and giving millionaires twice as many tax breaks as the rest of us, we can't get over our obsession with criticizing the Democrats especially when they do something we claim is the kind of thing they should do more of. Beautiful.

(America: I hope you can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can.)
posted by saulgoodman at 11:44 AM on December 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

I missed the part of the article where the Democratic president did this.

Uh, yes? Obama announced new offshore drilling like 3 weeks before the deepwater horizon blowout. Are you seriously not aware of that?
posted by delmoi at 11:48 AM on December 1, 2010

What an asshole, can't the dems do anything right?
posted by Ad hominem at 11:49 AM on December 1, 2010

By the way, if Obama announced plan had gone through, we would have had oil wells like Deepwater Horizon up and down the east coast, near NY, New Jersey, North Carolina and the east cost of Florida. This was something Obama announced he was going to unilaterally, without congress (it was something the administrative branch has authority over) before even beginning negotiation on the energy bill (which went nowhere)

Obviously his advisers were full of shit about safe it was, but actually he said he was going to stick by this policy even after the spill.

This is the right thing now, but it wouldn't be news if he hadn't been planning to do the wrong thing in the first place.
posted by delmoi at 11:54 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

can't the dems do anything right?

Yes. They can, actually. Sometimes. But then they lose because their "base" are a bunch of idiots who would rather put Ronald Reagan in the White House than see Jimmy Carter be less than perfect for another minute.
posted by The World Famous at 11:55 AM on December 1, 2010 [8 favorites]

This is a very good flip-flop

I approve of Obama using his flip-flopping powers for Good.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:57 AM on December 1, 2010

The old policy wasn't wrong. It was just right in the exact opposite way that its antithesis is. There are no mistakes in politics.
posted by vbfg at 12:00 PM on December 1, 2010

Uh, yes? Obama announced new offshore drilling like 3 weeks before the deepwater horizon blowout. Are you seriously not aware of that?

....wh... what? What are you claiming I'm not aware of?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 12:09 PM on December 1, 2010

Wow, we can fight about anything.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:27 PM on December 1, 2010

Wow, we can fight about anything.

No we can't. Screw you.
posted by gerryblog at 12:30 PM on December 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Oh Viv.
posted by clavdivs at 12:30 PM on December 1, 2010

So guys, Kucinich 2012?
posted by Ad hominem at 12:32 PM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

So guys, Kucinich 2012?

You're kidding right? I started out as a Kucinich supporter until it became obvious most people who claim to share his basic political views were already too busy making moon-bat jokes about him to be bothered to throw any support toward either him or his platform.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:39 PM on December 1, 2010

[few comments removed - stop having the same argument, stop being That Guy, consider reading the article, or go bake cookies or something. Thank you.]
posted by jessamyn at 2:12 PM on December 1, 2010 [2 favorites]