Drill here, drill now, you're dumb

As you know if you've been reading Blast Off! for a while, I do a lot of driving around Florida. And in doing so, I see a lot of bumperstickers. Now, while the morons who still display Bush-Cheney '04 stickers barely outpace those who have removed Huggy Bear's name from their McCain-Palin '08 stickers for sheer stupidity (Palin? You really think that uninformed, batshit crazy woman is qualified to lead anything, let alone the United States?), the stickers that really piss me off are the ignorant "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" ones that advocate drilling for oil just a few miles off Florida's Gulf coast. It's just another example of wingnuts believing what they hear on Fox News.

Look, the simple fact is this: even if we permitted offshore drilling immediately, there isn't a shred of credible evidence to support the notion that prices would drop quickly. In fact, according to the federal government's own Energy Information Administration -- back in 2008, under a Republican president (so don't give me that "socialist/Marxist/evil Obama" crap) -- recognized that there would be no significant impact on crude oil (and thus gasoline) prices until 2030 -- more than two decades from now. So "Pay Less" is just another pipe dream of the Right ...

But isn't it still a good idea to go ahead and drill to save the country money in 20 years? Well, sure, if you want Florida to endure the kind of messes that they've had to deal with in Australia and the Pacific Northwest. And while it wasn't from the failure of an offshore oil rig, the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska reminds us that even 20 years later (PDF), the environmental impact of an oil spill still cannot be calculated fully.

The people who have those annoyingly ignorant stickers on their cars are being sold a bill of goods by Republicans -- as usual. GOP leaders who are beholden to Big Oil and the industries that rely on it -- auto makers in particular -- will do anything to promote America's continuing dependence on oil -- foreign or domestic, it makes no difference, for it's all destructive to the environment. After all, if we don't need oil and gasoline, then Big Oil and their cronies suffer financially ... and Republicans can't stand the thought of that happening. So the sticker-bearers driving around in their monstrous SUVs are merely pawns in a game where the real players -- Republican leaders -- don't care about them or their homes. They just want the flow of dollars to keep coming.

A responsible energy policy would lower our dependence on all oil -- not just foreign oil, which is the mantra of drilling advocates -- by encouraging research and development of alternate fuel sources. Why we in the "Sunshine State" don't have a viable plan for solar energy, I have no idea -- unless maybe, just maybe, it's because Republicans have controlled the state for over a decade now.

I strongly urge you to join me in supporting Progress Florida's campaign to share with state Senate president Jeff Atwater (R-North Palm Beach) the importance of keeping the rigs off of Florida's coastline. He needs to be reminded that it's a simple risk-benefit analysis -- and any realistic potential benefit of offshore drilling is far too small to justify the risk of permanently damaging Florida's fragile coastal ecosystem.