A majority of Americans still support offshore drilling, but the recent spill in the Gulf has given many of them pause about it.
55% say they support drilling to 30% opposed and 15% without an opinion. Republicans continue to overwhelmingly favor it (76/11), as do independents (61/25). Democrats are opposed by a 34/48 margin.
43% now say the spill made them less inclined to support drilling while 36% say it didn't make a difference to them one way or the other. Perhaps most surprisingly 21% of voters said the spill made them more likely to support offshore drilling. That includes an even split among GOP voters, 28% of whom said the spill made them more likely to support drilling and 28% of whom said the spill made them less likely to support drilling.
Few voters buy into Rush Limbaugh's conspiracy theory that environmentalists may have been responsible for the spill in an effort to build support for their agenda. Just 9% of voters say they think environmentalists caused the spill while 22% are unsure and 69% don't believe they had anything to do with it. Even among GOP voters only 13% are buying into the 'the environmentalists' did it frame of mind.
It's good to know that even if some Republicans think oil spills are a good thing, they at least don't think environmentalists intentionally cause them.
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Some of the Republicans' increased support for offshore drilling is probably just a reaction to the perceived gloating by the environmentalists in the wake of the oil rig disaster.
Indeed, environmental extremists have done far too much gloating... and far too little leveling with the American people about how vital hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels are for reliable energy supplies, and how inefficient and negligible alternative sources of energy really are.
Oil spill makes no case for big government
"Government is a big and blunt instrument, while markets are smaller and flexible tools. Government acts for the whole, and gives things one direction; markets react to and serve individuals, respond to a great many small discrete interests, and facilitate the pursuit of happiness by creating demands for a great many diverse and various skills.
The best government programs open the way for market forces and personal choices to come into play... Government does well when it opens doors and lets people go through them; less well when it tries to micromanage or fix destinations."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Oil-spill-makes-no-case-for-big-government-93443829.html
The best thing for government to do (once it cleans up the oil spill) is to expedite more drilling to secure the energy sources we still need.
And despite the environmentalist rhetoric and anti-business rhetoric coming from Democrats, the administration appears to actually be doing the right thing for once. After the BP spill, Salazar's Interior Department's Mineral Management Service approved 27 additional offshore drilling projects, including one by BP. Despite all the attacks on oil companies, administration policy seems to recognize that oil drilling is essential to national prosperity.
After Spill, More Gulf Drilling Plans Got Environmental Exemptions
http://www.heralddeparis.com/after-spill-more-gulf-drilling-plans-got-environmental-exemptions/87871
Up till now I have been lukewarm to the idea of drilling offshore. Proponents seemed to make sense when they claimed that we have not had an accident in years and that modern drilling technology was the reason
That has all changed
Now, Put me down in the column against further offshore drilling.
There's a couple of things I’ve learned from this accident.
One is that oil companies are not prepared for accidents. In fact everything that BP is doing now should have been tried and tested years ago. Instead, everything is being done “for the first time”
While BP and other oil drillers have spent millions of dollars into techniques for drilling a greater depths, they have spent almost nothing in contingency plans in case of equipment failure or human error.
No wonder oil is still spewing from the blowout that occurred almost 3 weeks ago.
The second is that no matter how advanced technology is, there is no technology that can save us from:
1. human error
2. flawed decision making
3. equipment failure
All three seemed to play a part in the failure of the BOP and the subsequent "plugging" of the drill hole.
I can't believe that any American thinks it's a good idea to drill for oil offshore. Our dependency on oil is ruining our economy and the environment. In my opinion this boils down to stupidity (doing something you know isn't a good idea to do) and greed'
Dana De Fazio
florida
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