The Truth about Leasing Federal Lands for Drilling:

In a recent ABC News national Poll, nearly 2/3 of those who responded (63%) want to lift the ban on drilling Federal Lnads. EVEN A MAJORITY OF DEMOCRATS FAVOR LIFTING THE BAN.

The recent obsession of Democrats parroting the “Use it or Lose it” mantra – in not only absurd, it is deceptive. The Mineral Leasing Act requires that a company must have a producing well within 10 years or forfeit the lease.

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act stipulates that a company must produce within 5-10 years or lose the lease.

Pelosi and her protege Brown are boxed in. Their arguments are specious and deliberately misleading a public they hope is uninformed.

The 68 million acres have been called “untouched” by the OBM machine – but that statement is almost a blatant lie. According to factcheck.org in 2006:

There are 77,000+ productive holes onshore in the U.S.

There are 6,738 applications for new drilling permits

4,708 holes where drilling has commenced

3,693 holes that ran dry

That is a total of 15,000 holes that don’t count as productive for purposes of U.S.C. 226(e) (MLA)

The law referenced for offshore drilling is 43 U.S.C. 1337(b) – (the 5-10 year period to get productive is at the discretion of the government or the lease could be forcably surrendered.)

Brown was parroting talking deceptive talking points when he wrote – “nearly 80% of the land that is currently being leased by oil companies for drilling in the U.S. are not being used for this purpose.” in his editorial published in the Auburn Journal.

You can not stockpile leases, you can not sit on leases to drive prices up because the leases expire if there is no Oil produced from them. USC 226 and 43 USC 1337 are quite clear.

If Brown was not aware of this, he is incompetent.

If he is aware of this, then he lacks the integrity to lead because he is willing to misrepresent the truth to cater to his environmentalist supporters. (who are dead-set against any form of drilling)

Sorry Charlie – you just got drilled again.

P.S. taking a look at Charlie’s website – you can read the following: “That’s why Charlie will lead the fight to end America’s dependence on the world’s most unstable regions for Oil by investing in Domestic Energy production”

The above statement is made even more absurd by the notion that Charlie is either ignorant of the law or is misrepresenting it to say we can’t or don’t need to do anything about Oil production.

Considering that Charlie’s supporters like to file lawsuits to stop any sort of energy production and Charlie has taken money and endorsements from them – aren’t the misleading editorials and the pie-in-the-sky comments on his website fitting?