Biden On Bush Oil Plan - Just Another Last-Minute Giveaway In The Last Months Of An Expiring Admin.

[hatrack]

Hours earlier, the White House had announced it would lift a presidential block on offshore drilling, saying it would eventually produce billions of barrels of oil and take pressure off oil prices. "I think this is a last-ditch effort to go out and rape the offshore continental shelf, so that they own it and are able to use it as leverage in the future, because they know if they don't get it in the last couple of months of this administration, they're not going to get it," Biden said.

Biden spoke to a small, overwhelmingly supportive crowd of local officials, park visitors and environmental group members atop the Great Dune Overlook at Cape Henlopen, not far from the environmental center that bears his name. The dune rises over a huge tract of fragile coast that Biden helped shepherd from Defense Department ownership to state control.

Several of Biden's comments, especially those touching on Bluewater's recent success in winning an agreement to supply Delmarva Power, drew cheers from onlookers. The wind company recently signed a contract to provide Delmarva with up to 200 megawatts of electricity, and hopes to sign up other customers for a potential 600-megawatt, 150-turbine offshore complex.

There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by the first President Bush in 1990. The current president, trying to ease market tensions and boost supply, called last month for Congress to lift its prohibition before he did so himself.

EDIT

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080715/NEWS02/807150355

[kristopher]

1. I'd like to see Biden as VP. nt