Quote:
You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.
The Bush Administration's five-year plan (2007-2012) to open the outer continental shelf to oil exploration included new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2007 environmentalists went to court to block drilling in Alaska and in April a federal court ruled in their favor. In May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was unsure whether that ruling applied only to Alaska or all offshore drilling. So it asked an appeals court for clarification. Late last month the court said the earlier decision applied only to Alaska, opening the way for the sale of leases in the Gulf. Mr. Salazar now says the sales will go forward on August 19.
This is progress, however slow. But it still doesn't allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home.
J03Y wrote:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html
Quote:
You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.
The Bush Administration's five-year plan (2007-2012) to open the outer continental shelf to oil exploration included new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2007 environmentalists went to court to block drilling in Alaska and in April a federal court ruled in their favor. In May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was unsure whether that ruling applied only to Alaska or all offshore drilling. So it asked an appeals court for clarification. Late last month the court said the earlier decision applied only to Alaska, opening the way for the sale of leases in the Gulf. Mr. Salazar now says the sales will go forward on August 19.
This is progress, however slow. But it still doesn't allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home.
Well, it's not like drilling here would bring any benefit to the country in jobs or oil. It's much better to invest our billions helping some other county become an oil exporter, while selling it back to us at market price.
/sarcasm
And even better, Obamas buddy George Soros has a huge stake in the Brazillian company Petrobras that Obama is funding. He magically sold much of it off just a few days ago.
Taetsch Z-24 wrote:
His middle name is hussein!
Wake up people!
Chris
sndsgood wrote:god i want to be the goverment, it would be so nice to spend money i dont have.
JO3Y wrote:And even better, Obamas buddy George Soros has a huge stake in the Brazillian company Petrobras that Obama is funding. He magically sold much of it off just a few days ago.
ThatGuy85 wrote:sndsgood wrote:god i want to be the goverment, it would be so nice to spend money i dont have.
You can, it's called a credit card.
JO3Y wrote:And even better, Obamas buddy George Soros has a huge stake in the Brazillian company Petrobras that Obama is funding. He magically sold much of it off just a few days ago.
Reminds me of defense contracts with companies Cheney had interests in, seems to me the same bull@!#$ is being pulled.
Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:Difference is the previous administration used our military and US tax payer's money to accommodate Cheney's former employer [Haliburton] with no-bid contracts and carry out their mischievous deeds with their "friends." And the ones that will benefit from this are the oil tycoons. All with your money.
(tabs) wrote:Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:Difference is the previous administration used our military and US tax payer's money to accommodate Cheney's former employer [Haliburton] with no-bid contracts and carry out their mischievous deeds with their "friends." And the ones that will benefit from this are the oil tycoons. All with your money.
....and why exactly arent you mad as hell about this? no rant? no barely decipherable tirade? youre just going to let this roll off your shoulder because...?
oh wait.......its not a republican doing it. so i guess that means its acceptable. gotcha.
sndsgood wrote:then id say a good 50-60% of the construction industry is immoral lolWell I'll tell you from previous experience that enough of the construction industry consists of alcoholics and/or drug addicts. Something about a decent paying job that has no drug test which tends to attract that crowd.
bk3k wrote:sndsgood wrote:then id say a good 50-60% of the construction industry is immoral lolWell I'll tell you from previous experience that enough of the construction industry consists of alcoholics and/or drug addicts. Something about a decent paying job that has no drug test which tends to attract that crowd.
bk3k wrote:sndsgood wrote:then id say a good 50-60% of the construction industry is immoral lolWell I'll tell you from previous experience that enough of the construction industry consists of alcoholics and/or drug addicts. Something about a decent paying job that has no drug test which tends to attract that crowd.
sndsgood wrote:what state are you working in? in indiana and ohio drug tests are a big thing, most companies do it annually not to mention random tests every couple months, not to mention most large faciliites are doing random drug testing on jobsites as well. i usually end up taking about 4-5 drug tests a year from my company and just other companies and im on the engineer side. our field guys usually end up taking more then that. saftey in the last 5-10 years has gotten huge in the construction industry.
as far as the alcoholic part. thats more likely because i dont really know of any construciton workers that dont drink.
mitdr774 wrote:IL
bk3k wrote:Drug addicts?? Be hard pressed to find any of those on the job sites I have worked on. One strike and you are out. Very few would be willing to risk that, especially with a 2000 man lay off list for the journeyman. Alcoholic I can sort of see but if you show up on a job drunk you can expect to be sent home right away or even back to the local hall.
I'm not talking as much about skilled union work - but general labor(roofing/siding/drywall/etc). My only experience had been working for general contractors. I don't do that anymore, the whole experience is enough that I'm no longer interested. Too many co-workers who once getting a paycheck, don't want to show up til they run out of that money. Between that and the idiot people I worked for... no thanks.
Greedy Capitalist Pig wrote:Off topic, bk3k, could you have failed any harder with the quotes there?I think I failed hard enough. Any more is just showing off.