Okay Folks,
This is gonna be a brief diary. I haven't written one in a while but I just sat through a 10 minute video on HuffPo about the vacuous coverage of President's announcement on oil drilling (which you can watch here). The headline for the video on the front page even says "WATCH: The Substance-Free Coverage Of Obama's Shift On Offshore Drilling " (emphasis added)
But is it really a shift?
As John Stewart would say "Roll 212"
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Here's the important parts of the transcript (just in case you don't want to listen to McCain's drivel courtesy of the LA Times:
Now, from the start of this campaign, I've identified this as one of my top priorities and here is what I think we have to do.
Number one, we do need to expand domestic production and that means, for example, telling the oil companies the 68 million acres that they currently have leased that they're not drilling, use them or lose them.
And I think that we should look at offshore drilling and implement it in a way that allows us to get some additional oil. But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil, which means that we can't drill our way out of the problem.
And also in the same debate Candidate Obama also said...
That's why I think it's important for us to get loan guarantees to the automakers, but we do have to hold them responsible as well to start producing the highly fuel-efficient cars of the future.
And Detroit had dragged its feet too long in terms of getting that done. It's going to be one of my highest priorities because transportation accounts for about 30 percent of our total energy consumption.
Why is that important? Because, a more important part of the energy announcement that has been ignored because of the punditry of "Drill Baby Drill" is this nugget also released:
Drivers will have to pay more for cars and trucks, but they'll save at the pump under tough new federal rules aimed at boosting mileage, cutting emissions and hastening the next generation of fuel-stingy hybrids and electric cars...
The regulations set a goal of achieving by 2016 the equivalent of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The figure could actually be as low as 34.1 mpg because automakers can receive credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other ways, including preventing the leaking of coolant from air conditioners...
Two things.
- I found the quotes from the debate in 2 minutes with a Google search. Can we get a LITTLE bit of research reporters?
- Could the release of the drilling be the Hot Magician's Assistant that the media looks at, while the the actual trick being played is the raising of the gas standards of automobiles so we won't need all of that gas that may or may not be discovered when the drills actually come on line... Obviously releasing the standards alone would have given the media a headline and lead in paragraph of:
The rules will cost consumers an estimated $434 extra per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016, the government said.
And they would have left off the very next sentence which is:
But the heads of the Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency said car owners would save more than $3,000 over the lives of their vehicles through better gas mileage.
Just a thought...