July 2, 2008 - 4:12pm

Allen calls on oil companies to get drilling

U.S. Rep. Tom AllenU.S. Rep. Tom AllenU.S. Rep. Tom Allen (D-Portland) proposed a new energy plan on Wednesday, calling on oil companies to start drilling on the untapped land they hold under lease.

Allen, who is seeking the U.S. Senate seat of Susan Collins (R-Bangor), outlined his plan at a press conference at a private residence in Bangor.

Allen blamed high gasoline and heating oil costs for stiffling the American economy and afflicting working families. He urged oil companies to make better use of their resources to help remedy the problem:

"The oil industry currently holds leases on more than 90 million acres of land, yet they are drilling on less than a third of this acreage. We need a sensible drilling strategy that forces Big Oil to start drilling on the other 68 million acres under lease to increase the supply of American oil in the marketplace," Allen said.

"If we harness American ingenuity for energy independence, we can achieve our goals while making sure we don't increase global warming or create other environmental problems. We can do far better than we're doing now and have to be bold in our actions so that future generations aren't held hostage by foreign oil."

Comments

Whose Residence?


I'm going to assume it was Stephen King's.

07/03/08 7:31 am

So Allen....


.....holds a press conference at a private residence and yet Politicker is unwilling or unable to report whose home it is? That's sloppy reporting. The public deserves to know. Was it another campaign staffer, like his other press conference?

07/03/08 7:33 am

As usual, when it comes to


As usual, when it comes to private enterprise, and particularly the oil business, Tom Allen is CLUELESS!

Some land under lease is adjacent to producing properties, but would yield too little petroleum to be viable (even at $140 a barrel).

Some land under lease cannot be drilled because of over-reaching environmental rules (that weasels like Tom Allen love!)

Some land under lease is not close enough to pipelines... long delayed because of the environmental rules that liberals like Tom Allen love!

If TOM ALLEN thinks he knows how to run an oil company better than those who do... here's a proposition:

Since he'll be OUT OF A JOB SOON, maybe he can go run one!

Tom Allen, Senior VP of Domestic Production at ExxonMobil - let's see if he could handle a REAL JOB like that!!

07/03/08 8:01 am

Singing the Right Tune on the Wrong Bandwagon


Rep. Allen has it right, we do need to have the oil companies drill more, but everyone knows that most of the leases are just "options." on drilling. If they were viable, and permits could be expedited; they would drill.

Rep. Allen's latest statement just shows why he should not be elected. He is guilty of "reverse representation." Allen comes home from D.C. and spouts the party line instead of listening to us and carrying that back to Washington.

07/03/08 9:31 am

Total Bullcrap


This is Allen trying to give himself some cover when a majority now wants to start drilling. He knows damn well that many of these leases are worthless...what a weasel

Wan't my vote Tom? Introduce legislation to start drilling ANWR and off the coasts. If he did that I'd gladly put the x next to his name.

07/03/08 8:26 pm

Tommy-Cut the Crap-We need Patriots


I am a Republican.I love what the majority(except the wackos-their are some on BOTH sides-fair and balanced)of the party stands for.I am calling on the Democratic leaders of our Country to step up and think REAL hard what it is to be a regular working Amaerican.One who is damn tired of YOUR political crap and double talk and is daring you to become Patriots.Where is Corporate Patriotism,also?Congress(1st 100 days,hah)your on your way to freezing and starving people to death.Get the work DONE!Whatever it takes until we can get off oil and let the Saudis' eat it.China and India are using more fuel.How are there economies?What is happening to ours?Mostly because of the price of fuel.We rely on it so much it could cripple us.Quite bickering and DO the job for the regular Joes out there.I approve this message.

07/11/08 7:36 pm

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