Schwarzenegger Slams Offshore Drilling ‘Politicians’

Maybe Ahnold will call McCain and Crist Girly Men next time.

What a smackdown of McCain! Arnold is seen as a bipartisan GOP model, so McCain has really migrated right if the almighty Ahnold is telling him off. No hope in California now.
http://www.political-buzz.com/

No off shore drilling on California coast and no cars, truck, buses on California roads and highways. That seems logical and fair to me.

i suddenly like arnold!

McCain is down 28 points in California. Too bad. I had hoped he would be close enough in the polls to sink a bus load of futile cash into that state. I will write it now for the record: McCain will not win a single state Kerry won in 2004. Obama will win Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia, Ohio, and Maine.

Lifting the ban on U.S. offshore oil drilling would cause oil prices higher, the criminal well always fine a reason to drive prices higher. The only way to lower the prices is to lock up the criminal and the politicians that take kickbacks from the oil companies!

This is a clear indication that McSame is a 3rd WBush term, thanks to people like Arnold who are thinking clearly and who are not confused as McSame thing will getter better for America and Americans.

The governator is right again. McCain, you are wrong and I will NOT vote for you.

“…anyone who tells you [offshore drilling] will lower our gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke.” — Schwarzenegger
He said this in Florida at Crist’s climate summit? Crist won’t be inviting Schwarzenegger to the sunshine state anytime soon. I’m sure Crist would much rather Schwarzenegger go where the sun DON’T SHINE. :p
I love it. Go terminator.

Worldwide food shortage, liberal answer,”Need more farmers producing more food so prices will go down.” — Worldwide oil shortage, liberal answer, “More oil production will not drive prices down.” ?????? Crazy. — Folks fuel prices are rising all over the world – it is called supply & demand

The Govenator spent tons of money convincing Californians to spend money they didn’t have to hold a special election to get rid of Grey Davis and since then Arnold hasn’t done anything to help resolve California’s issues. He can’t even come up with a budget without taking more money from our kids and their educations–so I really don’t pay much mind to his opinion on the subject of off shore drilling. Personally if other countries are going to get away with drilling off our coast lines then I believe we should as well–at least then we can hold the American companies responsible instead of trying to hold communist countries who could care less about how we feel about it or not responsible for any accidents that may happen. However, with that being said, I really don’t want to see an oil rigs off the coast of California anymore than anyone else does.

Its ok though you tried.

And thats why Texas is a crappy place to vacation! Come to montana much better.

But Lex then you have to say people that drive the nice big SUV have to pay 5 bucks a gallon and the guy with the little toyota should only have to pay 2 bucks. If supply and demand rules anyway. If you use more than me your demand is higher so you should pay more.
But I thought it was if you use more you get a better price. T wanna help out?

No California coastal drilling even if it might help the nation? So be it. Let Gov. S’negger and the other Californians remember that the next time they demand a national response to one of their regular natural catastrophes — fire, earthquake, mudslide, el nino, etc.

Drilling may make the price of oil go down. According to an analysis of the effect of drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, the price of gas will drop by a whole 2 cents per gallon. The gross savings is probably less than Exxon spent in legal fees figuring out how to screw Alaskan fishermen out of the jury verdict rendered against it. Talk about judicial activism. With yesterday’s opinion the oil companies will really be detered from ruining the CA coast . . . or maybe not.
Jared, how have you liked having your wallet pried open to fund an endless war? Well, at least we got cheaper oil as a consequence. . . or maybe not.

Don’t people realize that it takes years for new old fields to come into production? What we really need are the liberals’ “new energy sources” that will produce energy immediately – once they’ve told us what, exactly, those sources are.

T: Once again, someone who doesn’t understand supply and demand. OK… here goes…
Econ 101: Certain items — referred to as ‘elastic’ — do respond to the supply & demand curves as you would expect. The price of hot dogs goes up, the quantity demanded for hot dogs goes down, even though the quantity supplied at that price goes up. In other words… if the price goes up, suppliers will be willing to provide more, but consumers are willing to buy less AT THAT PRICE.
Other items — those that are ‘inelastic’ — have a more steady demand curve. Gasoline is one of these. In general, people don’t buy significantly less gas when the price goes up… they only need a certain amount. An average American who commutes the same distance today as he did twenty years ago is buying the same amount of gas now as then, even though the price is substantially higher. Regular supply & demand would show that the consumer would be buying substantially less gas at today’s prices, but it’s just not the case.
Sure, you may be cutting back on recreational driving… and driving a more fuel-efficient car… but that has minimal effect.
If gas were ‘elastic’… and supply versus demand affected the price… then those of us who are driving less and getting more MPGs would be paying less than twenty years ago. Not the case, is it?
Will more oil production drive down the price? No. The suppliers have a current equilibrium price (which translates into our current approx. $4/gallon). If the production levels were to climb, the suppliers will hold the price. Try to force them to lower the price…. or enforce a price ceiling… then they’ll just stop supplying. For better understanding, consult an Econ textbook for the proper graphics.

angie is right though. If we as americans just quit for a day maybe two and didn’t let these speculators know about it I think you would see $60 barrel of oil.

Both things have to occur simultaneously. More fossil fuels from our own country and alternative energies being developed in parallel. You can’t do one and not the other. It is transitional. People will still be using older fuels while the new technologies are taking hold. Poorer citizens will not be able to afford the new technologies at first, until they are entrenched and produced en masse, leading to prices dropping and becoming affordable to all. This will take decades, and the need for fossil fuels will not decline for a very long time, while this process occurs. We must prepare for the future, both short-term and long-term, to have a comprehensive policy that protects us from dependency on other nations.

Maybe we should go with this state’s -rights pro-rata approach on more things. All of the blue states subsidize all of the red states with their federal tax dollars. Maybe we should stop. Why are we paying to fund people to whine about liberal spending, reject science and have more bible-thumping babies?

Actually, we ought to be charging people, at the pump, according to the gas-mileage their car gets. Gas eating SUV owners were sucker enough to get sold such junk. They have raised the price for everyone. If you look at it, non truck and SUV owners pay more of a percentage of the national price while the truck and SUV owners are paying less per gallon – because of it. Robert
But that’s America, the freedom to be fat dummies your whole lives through.

Looks like Arnold is lining up California environmental bona fides for a run at the Senate in 2010. Challenge Boxer? Replace an appointed Diane?
Those polls can be handy in helping shape electable positions. Gotta move left, break with Bush, and start the campaign now.
Maria would love to get out of obscure, hot Sacratomato and back to the power-perks of Washington. Hyannis would be only two hours away.
Also, let’s hope that Tom Brokaw explores the strategy now being crafted by Arnold’s team on MTP this weekend. Is this essentially Arnolds public kickoff, Tom?

Arnold is missing the point. The purpose of opening up additional domestic oil and gas resources is not to “lower the price of gasoline” but to lower our foreign dependence on oil and gas, and to keep the revenue paid for the oil in America, rather than going overseas to Opec, Venezula, Mexico, etc.

Joe — you seem to assume that once we say yes to offshore drilling, instant gratification. There are things that need to happen to get off-shore drilling to produce more oil. 1) get rid of off shore ban. 2) find the oil. 3) manufacture the monster rigs and organize shipping. 4) get the oil that is accessible with today’s technology. Number’s 1 and 3 are not very likely to occur in the near future, so you mind as well dream about it for a couple years.
However, I agree with the statement about foreign companies drilling off-shore, however. Some other countries are all for getting as much oil as they can — it’s what they need to develop. Anyone over there’d be crazy to propose not drilling for oil.
Honestly i think the best way to deal with the oil crisis is keep doing what we’re doing — getting hurt by it. Companies are already swaying to fuel-efficient alternatives to earn more customers or cut their expenses. Of course, there’s a long way to go…oil is in /everything/. Like plastics, asphalt …not to mention carstrucksplanesjetstanks etc. But I’m sure even those industries are seeking ways to cut their own oil costs.

Haha, sorry — misread who posted the comment… I’m directing mine at ‘T’

Gas prices will remain at this level for now on, get used to it, I am. If you think that oil drilling will bring them down, you’re fooling yourself. Arnold is right. No sense in risking our coast for a few years of oil. We need a federal energy plan focusing on alternative energy resources NOW.

Imagine where we could be in 20 years if we tapped into our own resources, used those taxes to pay for a multitude of alternatives, and then started selling our oil to China and India by underbidding OPEC. It is reality and we have more than enough oil and technology to do it …

McCain totally FLIP FLOPPED on this issue.
Just 19 days earlier from his flip flop, McCain said he was not for off shore drilling.
McCain has got to be the BIGGEST flip flopper around.

This article is horribly written. Did you hire mediocre high school sophomores as interns and put the to work writing copy?

wow all my common sense and factual statements sure have shut up the republicans in here. he he he he.

marty—- there is alot of truth in what you said kudos. we need to put money into alternatives not on more big oil profits.

Hey Lex Luthor from Texas. I take it you have never been to California. If you had been you will see offshore oil rigs all over the place. In fact, it was one of these rigs that did start environmental revolution when a new rig with sub standard equipment in 1968 outside Santa Barbara blew and released a huge spill along the coast line. First Earth Day was next year. So spare this idea that California has no idea of what offshore oil is or does not have any.
The one point lacking in this article is fact that there are millions of acres available for drilling already that oil companies are not using.
Second point, is the Enron loophole which Californians felts first hand when Enron created bogus electricity shortages to raise prices here and caused over 30 blackouts. Well, now that loophole is used on oil speculation. No one knows how much of current prices are due to this unregulated speculation of oil futures. Most economists put it at 30%. Last farm bill was defeated by McCain and Bush because it contained a provision to close this loophole. McCain has opposed any legislation to stop it. No surprise since Phil Gramm who is on McCain’s economic advisory team got the loophole put in to legislation in the first place.

If Obama is a god as most of his supporters seem to believe, then the god should be able to wave his magic wand and new green energy sources pop up everywhere and the cost would be dirt cheap. That is, if Obama was a god–he isn’t. He is a corrupt politican from Chicago who will say and do anything to get elected, even steal other candidates ideas about energy. McCains’ energy policy is much better.

james——solar panels and wind blades dont polute the environment, and those sources are infinite the sun will always shine and the wind will always blow and if they stop it wont matter what we are doing we will be died. i live by a town here in minnesota were a local factory put up a whole huge bank of wind generators to supply all the power they need and they sell a good portion to electric company. and i think those wind generators look beautifull and 90% of my fellow neighbors do also.

Hey, you guys, stop mak’in fun of me! I’m getting mad, honestly. The walking undead have right too you know. Wait a minute, what’re we talking about. “Honey, could you get me my alzheimers meds, I think forgot to take them!” Anyways you guys knock it off. I know, and you know, every good Republican, and person in my eyes, wants a drooling 88 IQ like Bush in the presidency. And I’m YouR Man! Oops, I think I poopied in my depends, gotta go.

what is funny is i see all these shows about useing fryer oil in your diesel what they dont tell you is that in most states that is illegal because the tax you pay at the pump is for road use that meens that you have to pay a special tax to use fryer oil in diesel auto. and guess what party has blocked getting rid of that law?????? the republicans of course because they have been blocking any new power source idea for decades so if you republicans want to blame anybody blame the republicans for thsi oil fuel problem.

Arnold’s right. Drilling in ANWR or off our coasts aren’t going to generate any new oil for at least what ? 5 years?
It won’t cause any drop rated to perception either because the message is ‘we still plan to use oil’.
Recent Supreme Court decision highlights how long it took the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill to be reimbursed for their financial impact and guess what – they reduced the award so those impacted would be lucky to get $15,000 a piece. 8,000 of the people have died because this is now 20 years later.
So folks, think long and hard, if your state makes a living from your beaches. For those who lost their fishing livilihood in Price Edward Sound and 20 years later the fish populations haven’t returned or are struggling? Who wants to eat clams theys till spit out oil, eat fish with lesions?
Much less Florida beaches human variable?
Don’t buy a gas guzzling vehicle, drive the speed limit or a 5 miles under.
We could save a huge chunk if people just quit speeding on a regular basis.

grapemonk: Very noble of you, but you missed the point.
You are using less gas, but the price did not go down as a result.
THAT is why the Supply/Demand argument fails in this case.

The only reason the oil companies want to drill off shore, in the National Parks including ANWAR, is because of the PRICE it’s bringing, not because the feels sorry for Joe Blow American…. Oil goes on the WORLD market not the LOCAL market where it gets the highest price. People wake up! It’s like Bush telling Americans in a speech a few years ago, that if they drilled in ANWAR all would be left would be footprints. Sounded so romantic and responsible. Yeah RIGHT! Go to west Texas and take a look at all the footprints. It’s called JUNK! And a bunch of it.

There are now 2 republicans unwilling to prostitute themselves to Bush, the oil companies and the fringe-dwellers on the extreme right: Chuck Hagel and Arnold.

Thanks ‘tim’ for being who you are… uneducated, not able to think for yourself, parroting the words of the dittoheads and Bill O’Really-Out-There. It’s straight-ticket republicans like you that make the rest of us look even smarter.

–tom– interesting reading. I invite you to check out the assorted essays on http://www.gregpalast.com.

those who insist on drilling are too short-sighted. increased domestic supply may lower our dependence on foreign oil, but it will most definitely increase consumption as well and counter the efforts of green/renewable energy promotion. you don’t tell a poor drug addict to take methadone while trying to secure a cheap dealer.

McCain ranked 5th from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and was a notable screw-up. Perhaps he should have paid more attention in class and/or partied less. Once aloft, he was quickly shot down. And while he gave an excellent accounting of himself in the Hanoi Hilton, this hardly makes him an ‘authority’ on war … or anything. Indeed, his financial acumen propelled him into the ranks of “The Keating Five”, where the collapse of the US Savings and Loan System quickly followed on another wave of rabid financial speculation very similar to the former Enron/energy crisis, or today’s oil “Energy Crisis”. Somehow, McCain remained unscathed, just slightly tarred, while others went to prison for their financial mismanagement (Keating). So basically, when McCain speaks, be it on war, economy, energy, influence peddling, or the beer industry, I really couldn’t care less. In fact, I use his “Bush ‘thoughts’ “(an oxymoron) as a negative barometer. I applaud Ahh-nold for consistently thinking and doing the right thing. Obviously, he talks to Warren Buffet and of course, Mah-ri-ah. Either has far more on the ball then McSame.

Oh, oh good heavens I do surely hate global warming.

To all the Pinheads with their
studying to be stupid mentality,
the solution is
DRILL, DRILL. DRILL!!

Arnold is a fool. Of course drilling won’t have an immediate effect on oil prices. That has nothing to do with whether we should drill or not. The world has proved drilling is safe. We need the oil. Should we wait another 10 years to get started? Arnold…shut up. Drill now.

As a Californian, I can say that the government of this state has zero plans for how to deal with the crisis. I wrote the dear Governor and got a completely nonsensical letter back from his arrogant staff. It becomes clear to me that the politicians are living in a fool’s paradise and are completely disconnected from reality.
It becomes clear to me that the political community has become the epitome of Animal Farm. They don’t have to live with the outcome of their decisions. We taxpayers do.
They seem to be the standard bearers against the economy. I really hate to see Arnold doing the bidding of the Democrats, but so it is.
Let’s give it two more months with the economy in full meltdown and see where the Dems and their ilk are when they force people to give up work, food, medicine and comforts to see their dream of us returning to 1850 come to fruition.
It will be interesting to see the layoffs begin to hit the Democratic communities and to see them waver over the desire to live the good Green life over merely getting to work for less than $100.00 and paying $50 for a sandwich.
I have a message for the stupid Democrats: Stop with the tax hikes, stop with the social experiments and for goodness sake DRILL!

Start drilling at home where we have more oil than we’ll ever need and tell the 3rd world goodbye! And all of the movie stars??? that think they are gods should move to Venezula or the Kingdom! Screw you actor society and your Bentley’s! What’s that, you can afford gas at any price so screw me??

Arnold is the coolest Republican out there.
I’m a die hard California Dem and I will vote for him.

Only problem ,Ahnold is; 1: energy prices are high, right now, right at this moment causing everything we buy to be high 2; we do not have alternative fuels available to us NOW and 3; seeing California as a state with the most foreclosures, the highest energy cost and jobs leaving the state at a rapid rate should make you understand that trying to please everyone isn’t working. Stop being a girly man and ditch the Kennedy politics.

You know when the generation 100yrs. from now looks at our situation they will laugh as they get into their all hydrogen/electric power cars. We are dinosaurs of the modern age. We will not adapt. We will stay the course of oilstagnation. And people wonder why Mars is lifeless. LOL

You yoyo” Start drilling now . The more supply you have the less it will cost.
Democrats [unions] employment would grow enormously if we started drilling even in state parks where we know oil is aplenty.Swartzkennedy should be recalled because he is a liberal democrat so cease calling him a republican.build more refineries!

Is Ahnold too stupid to realize that this is for the future. Oh yeah, I forgot that he’s a RINO, a Democrat in Republican’s clothing. Everytime he open his mouth he proves how out of touch left coast liberals are with mainstream America. Glad I left LA because California is full of selfish, ignorant, mentally ill liberals.

Good for Arnold, not touting the party line. And to those who think we should drill off-shore now, as a way to lower prices 5 years from now, think hard about the logic. What we should be doing now is sinking every spare dollar into true renewables, like solar, wind and tidal power and get our best engineers to work on more efficient ways to use energy. And we should change the mpg drastically higher for all vehicles. Look at many European countries who have been doing this for years, they have greatly reduced their dependence on foreign oil. We can’t drill our way out of this. We have to invest our way out.

Unless you’re rich, a corporation or insane–I have no idea why anyone would vote for McCain the idiot. And what the heck is on the side of cheek.

I just put in my order for the new windmill car with the solar panels on the sides. My wife got the electric car that plugs into the grid that no longer has any electricity.
I support the snap your fingers wind farms that are going up and only take a couple of days to build all the materials. Our new nuke plant is moving ahead of the long list of others planned world wide by the only manufacturer in the world.
We decided to stop eating since we are burning the food for the kids alchohol car. Good way to lose some weight. I told the boss I would not be in the next time it storms or we don’t have any wind.
Our country is going insane and we are headed for a depression, Obama socialism, mortgaging our country with debt to china and the arabs and they really love us. By the way, Obamasocialism may let you keep a few cents from your pay check.
I think I am getting a horse, but wait, they expel methane.

For those of you here who blame the increasing price of oil on the big, bad, greedy U.S. oil companies, I would remind you that the price of a barrel of oil is not set by U.S. oil companies; it is set by the countries which produce the oil and driven by factors such as supply and demand and speculators in the market.

Arnold is missing the point. The purpose of opening up additional domestic oil and gas resources is not to “lower the price of gasoline” but to lower our foreign dependence on oil and gas, and to keep the revenue paid for the oil in America, rather than going overseas to Opec, Venezula, Mexico, etc.
***************************************************
What about the Alaskan pipeline being used to
supply Japan. Is the revenue on our sheets or
Exxons.

Tell them how it is Arnold ! The politicians in this country all have hindsight. We desperately need leaders that can look to the future and not promote obsolete technology.

The problem with moving to alternative energy sources is that they do not have the capacity to replace fossil fuels at this time. There will be a significant time period for industry, fleet of vehicles, etc to move to alternative sources. This very day, almost all cars sold take gasoline. Developing the infrastructure to allow for alternative energy takes time. Just changing automaker assembly lines can take years.
If a candidate can offer a realistic timetable for transitioning the entire energy infrastructure of this country from oil to other sources, that would be a huge first step. I’d say, its about 20 years MINIMUM. So, we will have need of oil for those 20 years. You can bet that in 10 years international oil will be even more scarce than it is now. Thus, drilling now makes sense. What will we be saying in 8 years about why we didn’t act now that alarm bells are going off?
All Americans want cheap, clean energy. I will be delighted to use an alternative to fossil fuels. However, the entire industrial base of this country – generators, vehicles, machinery, down to lawn mowers – is based on fossil fuels. A 20 year time frame for transition is extremely ambitious but might be achievable. In the meantime, we need to secure domestic oil. That means drilling NOW.

Sounds like China will soon be drilling off the coast of Florida. Why should we not drill off shore. Any amount of oil we can produce is oil we don’t buy from another country. I noticed in voting that the majority of Americans are in favor of drilling