After years of an ongoing controversy, the EPA has allowed Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. to begin drilling this summer in Alaska. The New York Times posts on January 8, 2010, that Shell is still awaiting final approval from the EPA before they begin drilling. The agreement follows that as long as Shell does their operations under The Clean Air Act standards, they will receive full permission to proceed.
“"The EPA's decision to approve an air-quality permit for Shell's Chukchi Sea exploration have been a long time coming," Murkowski said in a statement. "Today's decision represents progress. While several additional hurdles remain, the agency's action offers some reassurance that exploration for oil and gas resources off Alaska's coast will be allowed to proceed."”
However, questions begin to rise as the decisions are being made. Should we drill in other places of the world where the environment won’t be as effected or should we keep the costs of oil and drilling operations in our own country? In my opinion, I’m for the environment and keeping it clean. We though deal enough with other countries for other trades as it is. We should keep the drilling for oil in our own country. We don’t necessarily have to drill in Alaska. The cost of gas in our country has been an on going issue for years. It’s an important issue to the American people and should be recognized help gas prices and this economy.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/01/08/08greenwire-epa-issues-draft-permit-for-exploratory-wells-26752.html?scp=1&sq=EPA%20Issues%20Draft%20Permit%20for%20Exploratory%20Wells%20Off%20Alaska&st=cse
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Drilling in Alaska is a bad idea all around. We rely on petroleum too much as it is already and having the ability to drill as we please in a delicate place like Alaska is not going to help tame our oil addiction. As for the prices; I'm sure the prices would decrease a little bit but OPEC would not be happy if we simply stopped trading with them. Also, this country is in so much debt right now we couldn't afford to sell petroleum based products for much less then we do already.
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