Democrats to allow ban on offshore drilling to expire

September 24, 2008

Caving in to popular opinion and the threat of a presidential veto, House Democrats have decided to allow the offshore drilling ban to expire next week.  Apparently the pressure put on them during this election year by Republicans and the short-sighted passion behind the “drill, baby, drill” mantra proved too much for Democrats to resist.  

However, it wasn’t just the pro-drilling movement that the Democrats couldn’t resist.  It was also the risk of missing an opportunity to grant domestic automakers $25 billion in sweet, low interest corporate welfare loans as a part of the greater bill.  If the Democrats had continued to resist lifting the offshore ban in the proposed bill, this giant subsidy for automakers would have been put at risk.  Good thing for petro-states, oil companies, and poorly managed domestic car companies, Congress had more foresight than to allow that to happen. 

[Note: the $25 billion load is intended to go, in part, to encouraging the automakers to pursue cleaner vehicles.  The utter irony of this is overwhelming since the domestic automakers have gotten themselves into this mess by resisting all governmental efficiency legislation and have manipulated loopholes, such as that for “flex-fuel” cars (even though drivers can’t find biofuel to even put in those “green” cars).]

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