If The President's Serious About This, He And I Have Common Ground

While I like the president's stated desire for more (relatively) cheap, clean, non-greenhouse-emission nuclear energy, I've decided to hold off on presenting laurels until I see new plants built. I'll admit that I've been suspicious, as it would be entirely too easy to state such desires, and appeal to a certain segment of the population (like me), knowing full well that the environmental lobby and others would never all them to come to fruition.

The president, however, has seemingly gone out further on the domestically-produced energy limb, and in this I can support his stated goal:

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean. (But not off the coast of California. I wonder why?--Darren)...

The Obama administration’s plan adopts some drilling proposals floated by President George W. Bush near the end of his tenure, including opening much of the Atlantic and Arctic Coasts. Those proposals were challenged in court on environmental grounds and set aside by President Obama shortly after he took office.

The article states that he's doing this in order to bargain for support for his "climate bill", which I interpret to mean the cap-and-trade bill. I hope that part of the deal founders, but that we can finally access the resources we need that are contained within our grasp.

Update, 4/3/10: Perhaps I'm right to be suspicious:

When you’re an aspiring magician, you watch the best magicians you can find, trying to see how the trick is done. You learn not to watch what the magician wants, to look where the magician isn’t looking, to concentrate on the left hand if the trick seems to be happening in the right hand.

This skill is turning very useful watching the Obama administration. This week, for example, there was a big announcement of a change in the Obama administration’s policy toward oil drilling, dutifully announced as the administration opening up great areas offshore for oil development.

Watch the other hand.