The Audacity of D’oh!
Once again, Barack Obama decides to cock-punch the base, and he announces a massive expansion of offshore drilling that largely echos those of George W. Bush, with the protection of Bristol Bay being the only major change.
He did this with nuclear power a 1½ months ago, so I guess that this is not a surprise, particularly given his lip service to the fraud that is “clean coal.”
It appears that part of his goal is to get some Republican support for his climate change bill, but, as was shown in healthcare reform, the Republicans are not good faith actors.
Better to use the recent EPA declaration about C02 emissions as a harmful emissions as a club, and keep this in your back pocket, because giving away the store upfront results in really bad policy.