Word comes that President Obama will announce the opening of major offshore expanses of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to oil and gas drilling for the first time. While the West Coast is exempt, Obama would lift a longstanding moratorium on drilling on the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to the central coast of Florida, parts of the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska's entire northern coast.
Environmentalists are pointing out that the President campaigned against such offshore drilling, since the U.S.'s oil reserves account for only 3% of the world's proven reserves, and our usage counts for nearly 30% of the world's consumption. Many young voters who went for Obama in 2008, in part because of his environmental positions, will find this "change" hard to swallow. And just when he had his base energized.
