Gulf oil spill: Palin still wants to ‘drill here, drill now’

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The Alaskan who made ‘Drill, baby, drill’ a standard term in the modern American political lexicon says the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, potentially the worst ever off-shore from American coastlines, is no cause for giving up on off-shore drilling.

Sarah Palin, whose home state suffered the worst spill before this, the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989, has reached out to the 1.5 million followers of her Facebook page with an expression of sympathy for the working people along the gulf facing loss of livelihood.

On April 20, the BP-leased rig exploded in water a mile deep and sank two days later 130 miles southeast of New Orleans in an accident that has put an oil slick the size of Puerto Rico on the Gulf of Mexico, with shorelines and fisheries in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida now threatened.

‘We’ve all been shocked and saddened by the tragic events in the Gulf of Mexico,’ wrote the former governor and 2008 Republican nominee for vice president. ‘My heart breaks for coastal residents who are facing fears of the unknown impacts of the oil spill.

‘Government can and must play an appropriate role here,’ she adds. ‘If a company was lax in its prevention practices, it must be held accountable. It is inexcusable for any oil company to not invest in preventative measures. They must be held accountable or the public will forever distrust the industry....’

Yet, Palin contends, ‘even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk -- whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization.

‘I repeat the slogan ‘drill here, drill now’ not out of naivete or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills.... I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.’

Read the full story over at the Swamp.

-- Mark Silva