Markey Hits Bush on Drilling for Invoking ‘WMD’ — Wells of Mass Deception

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) pushed back against President Bush’s call on Congress to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, suggesting that Bush is just as wrong on drilling as he was on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

“Today President Bush is invoking the specter of another WMD: wells of mass deception,” Markey said at a press conference Monday. “The president’s own press spokeswoman said earlier today that today’s announcement by the president will change nothing, since all of the legislative moratoria on offshore drilling remain in place. The Bush oil policy is an attempt at mass deception by a White House that has, for the last seven and a half years, pursued Big Oil’s agenda of drill, drill, drill.”

Markey said that drilling has failed to make the country independent from foreign energy sources and hasn’t prevented rising gas prices.

He echoed Democratic calls for more drilling in areas where it’s allowed, instead of in areas offshore that where exploration is prohibited under federal law.

“The Democrats are saying, no, instead of drilling off the beaches of our country, drill into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Markey said. “Drill where we have the oil right now, 700 million barrels. Begin to deploy upwards of 500,000 barrels a day into the marketplace, directed at the speculators, at the manipulators, at OPEC, at the oil industry.”