Cassandra posted a wonderful live blog of the debate last night between the three Democrats vying to replace Mike Castle in Congress. Indeed, debate host Alan Loudell did use some of our questions that the DL community offered in the debate and attributed us as the source of those questions.
One of my questions was whether they would support drilling or exploring for oil off the Delaware coast as part of a comprenhensive plan to solve the energy crisis.
Now, let me reveal my bias. I am against drilling off our coast. To me, it is just another boondoggle giveaway to Big Oil, and they have received enough of our hard earned money over the last eight years. Further, oil companies already possess leases to explore and drill for oil over millions of acres across the United States. Yet they aren’t using them, but they want to drill off the coast.
If drilling is the answer, and the only answer, as the GOP says, then why aren’t the oil companies drilling on the land they already have?
I do recognize, like Barack Obama has recognized, that allowing some limited offshore drilling maybe necessary in order to get some GOP senators to go along with a windfall profits tax, higher CAFE standards, requirements that all cars be hybrids or electric in 10 years, and for providing money to transition to wind and solar energy as our main sources of fuel. Now, that would be a true compromise, rather than a compromise we have gotten used to in the last eight years, where the GOP gets every they want and the Dems just capitulate.
If I get what I want in terms of an energy solution, then I will compromise on limited offshore drilling. Not before.
But even then, I plead that I will be a NIMBY. I don’t want any rigs off the Mid-Atlantic coast.
Thus, now that you know my bias, I was less than thrilled at the responses of two of our three Democratic congressional candidates last night:
The three diverged, however, on new offshore drilling, with Northington strongly opposing it both off Delaware’s coast or almost anywhere else. He said the nation’s energy efforts should be focused on renewable sources like wind and solar power.
Miller, meanwhile, strongly supported new offshore drilling, calling it a priority even if it was off the coast of Delaware, as a way to ease rising energy costs.
Hartley-Nagle, meanwhile, stressed alternative energy like the proposed wind farm off Delaware’s coast, while not completely ruling out drilling, close to the same position Castle took last week.
I agree with Jerry here. And I do give some leniency to Karen, since she recognizes a compromise may be necessary as I do. But Mike Miller is trying to win a Democratic primary by running to the right of Castle?