Jul

19

There’s been a lot of talk about offshore drilling lately to help ease the rising oil prices.  But even John McCain,  President Bush and others who advocate this admit that it would be several years before the oil would come to market and even then, it would be put on the open market to be bid upon.

But that hasn’t stopped them from making arguments for drilling.  An argument in particular that has been getting a lot of air time has to do with the claim that during Hurricane Katrina and Rita not one drop of oil was spilled in the Gulf.

This claim has been repeated by Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi on MSNBC and by former Gov. Mike Huckabee on Fox News back in June.  This claim has also been repeated by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and also a McCain energy lobbyist and senior energy advisor.

There’s only one problem with this claim.  It’s not true!!

A report issued by Minerals Managements Service in May, 2006 stated that “Six spills of 1,000 barrels or greater were reported; the largest of these was 3,625 barrels of condensate reported by the Gulf South Pipeline Company in the Eugene Island Block 51 area.”  For the complete report you can go here. 

I would suspect that an energy lobbyist and senior energy advisor should know something like this.  In fairness to the senators and former Gov. Huckabee, they probably got their information from an aide.  But regardless how or from whom they got the information, did they honestly think that someone wouldn’t call them on this?  This is the information age and with Google, Yahoo and even MSN Search (does anybody even use this one) public information is at your fingertips. Hollah!!  

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