Breaking promises: Obama opens shores to drilling

Once upon a time, around the Presidential Race of 2008, a young politician from Illinois reassured a tired nation that the time had come for change. He toured the country promoting environmental sustainability, claiming, "When I'm president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium…that prevents oil companies from drilling [America's] coasts." He would go on to say, "What I will not do is support a plan that suggests that drilling is the answer to our energy problems."

This Presidential hopeful was addressing the domestic off-shore drilling bill, which, at the time, had been approved by the House, the Senate, and the president, each of whom had endorsed the measure to bring oil and natural gas drilling operations within 100 miles of our shores.

But the dude would not abide, and during his eco-conscious bid to become our country's leader, he vehemently opposed this measure, calling it a "political posturing" gimmick, that "would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has three percent of the world's oil."

Giddy with excitement over his stance against pollution and Big Oil corruption, the people of the United States elected Barack Obama as President to defend our pristine coasts and beautiful beaches. As such, the domestic drilling bill was scrapped.

But then in April, in the true spirit of change, the man who had fought for the votes of America by promising its people pollution-free energy heroically decided "never mind," and announced his endorsement of a domestic drilling bill that sacrifices 167 million acres of oceanfront property for a little Republican reciprocation.

While Obama had once preached that offshore drilling would "only worsen our addiction to oil and put off needed investments in clean, renewable energy," he has now decided, "Yes we can!"

But fret not fellow environmentalists; this isn't anything like the drilling bill we rallied against two years ago. In fact, Obama's bill brings the oilrigs 50 miles closer to the beach than Bush's did. And thankfully Obama has restricted drilling to the 130 million acres of untouched wilderness north of Alaska, as well as the entire eastern seaboard south of New Jersey. Oh, and the rest of the Gulf of Mexico, too.

So, basically, the Pacific Coast contains the only states that won't be choking down freshly caught Pennzoil fillets. You could thank California Democrat Nancy Pelosi for that protection, except that she voted to include the west coast in the oil drilling crapshoot. Twice. (Most sources agree that her support for the bill stems largely from the fact that she wrote it.)

Furthermore, the U.S. Energy Information Administration claims that these beneficial (read: ecocidal) operations won't be fully operational until 2030, but when they are, they'll be producing an astounding 100,000 barrels of oil a day. With production like that (1/1,000 of the world's daily yield), Americans can expect fuel prices to drop by almost three pennies per gallon, which, let's face it, is totally worth wiping out the sea life of the Atlantic Ocean.

The benefits are also long term since Obama is sure to win some favor with the conservatives by passing this bill, an ancillary boon he'll need to pass his controversial climate change bill that will require a 17 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Some might even call this "political posturing."

To the growing number of irate environmentalists who question the hypocrisy of passing a bill aimed at soothing Mother Earth by passing a bill that adds countless teats to America's oil udder, Obama says, "The answer is not drilling everywhere all the time."

Thanks genius. Great deduction.

Whatever delusional reasons Obama uses to justify this ecological nightmare, all that alternative energy idealism he fed us is starting to taste a lot like locally grown, organic fertilizer. In fact, if you fell for that hybrid car hype over the last few years thinking you were part of a movement, you'd better swap that tax break for some Exxon stock, because we're not only looking for more oil, but we're looking for it in our own back yard. Have fun cruising your Prius down the carpool lane, sucker.