McCain: 'Let's drill'; Obama: 'Let's tax'
According to the Press-Register:
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN's stance on offshore drilling gives Americans a clearer understanding of the differences between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his opponent in the general election, Sen. Barack Obama.
With gas prices rising to previously undreamed of heights, Sen. McCain has taken the side of hard-pressed motorists, arguing that Congress should finally end the ban on drilling in the nation's offshore waters.
Sen. McCain said adding offshore drilling to the nation's response to the current energy crisis is "a matter of fairness to the American people."
The United States is the only industrial nation that has placed most of its domestic oil and natural gas reserves off-limits to drilling.
Sen. Obama, however, remains squarely in the camp of environmental activists who oppose all new drilling. For more than a quarter-century, this key Democratic Party constituency has blocked every attempt to open new areas to oil and natural gas exploration.
The damaging economic impact of $4-per-gallon gasoline hasn't changed the minds of these zealous opponents of drilling. It hasn't changed Sen. Obama's mind, either. He says he feels the pain of average Americans, but apparently he prefers that motorists tighten their belts and do their part for the "green" movement.
In a recent interview, he said the country has been too slow in changing its "energy usage." Asked if high gas prices would help move the country in that direction, he replied, "I think I would have preferred a gradual adjustment."
The Illinois senator would be wise to acknowledge that the oil market doesn't follow the preferences of environmentalists and Washington politicians. It's gov erned by the law of supply and demand.
The main reason prices are rising is that global oil supplies aren't keeping pace with the growing demand in developing nations such as China.
Sen. Obama's principal response to this crisis is to call for a "windfall profits tax" on the oil companies. This blast from the past — the hapless Jimmy Carter imposed such a tax in the 1970s — would have the same effect now as it had then: The tax would discourage new drilling and drive fuel prices even higher.... click to continue.
