In case you were wondering, not even the House of Representatives cares about energy policy. We can’t even open up more natural gas wells, just because some of our wonderful representatives from California and Florida are more interested in the appearance of a few beaches. Mind you, this is blocking the expansion of drilling in prettymuch ANY US coastal waters, not just off of the shores of places with tourism-based economies.
Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida considers the move to allow more oil drilling to be “a grievous assault on Florida and other (coastal) states.” Perhaps someone should point out to Mr. Putnam that if nobody can afford gas, nobody can VISIT his (coastal) state. Perhaps we should also introduce the flip side of the coin — isn’t it unfairly benefitting coastal states for them to be the only ones to get the coveted economic boost of government-funded major ports and naval bases? Perhaps we should build a naval base in Nebraska, just to be sure that we treat coastal and interior states EXACTLY the same.
This sort of politics really infuriates me. Most likely every single member of Congress has advocated energy independence for the United States, but when the opportunity comes up to take a step towards that, they’re more interested in playing politics than they are in solving an actual problem.
In any event, here is the roll call vote for the proposal to allow coastal drilling for oil, and here is the vote for KEEPING the present prohibitions on natural gas drilling.
Feel free to use the information against the relevant members of Congress.