THEY WARNED ME

that if I voted for Palin, we would get an administration that gives billions to giant oil corporations to exploit the oil deposits near our precious, fragile coastlines…and they were right!

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount.

How’s your memory? It seems like ages now, but it was really only one short year ago…

This election could be the most important of our lifetime. When it comes to…the very future of our planet, the choices we make in November will shape the next decade, if not the century. And central to all of these major challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil.

Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced – from the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet.

It’s also a threat that goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation, and who we will be. Will we be the generation that leaves our children a planet in decline, or a world that is clean, and safe, and thriving?

We’ve heard talk about curbing the use of fossil fuels in State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973.

Back then, we imported about a third of our oil. Now, we import more than half. Back then, global warming was the theory of a few scientists. Now, it is a fact that is melting our glaciers and setting off dangerous weather patterns as we speak.

George Bush’s own Energy Department has said that if we opened up new areas to drilling today, we wouldn’t see a single drop of oil for seven years. Seven years. And Senator McCain knows that if we opened up and drilled on every single square inch of our land and our shores, we would still find only three percent of the world’s oil reserves. Three percent for a country that uses 25% of the world’s oil. Even Texas oilman Boone Pickens, who’s calling for major new investments in alternative energy, has said, “this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of.”

For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time.

In ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela. To do this, we will invest $150 billion over the next ten years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates five million new American jobs.

So we will direct… billions in loans and capital to entrepreneurs who are willing to create clean energy businesses and clean energy jobs right here in America.

Senator McCain sees more drilling as the answer to all of our energy problems, and he’s found a receptive audience in the very same oil companies that have blocked our progress for so long. In fact, he raised more than one million dollars from big oil just last month, most of which came after he announced his plan for offshore drilling in a room full of cheering oil executives.

We can watch helplessly as the price of gas rises and falls because of some foreign crisis we have no control over, and uncover every single barrel of oil buried beneath this country only to realize that we don’t have enough for a few years, let alone a century. We can watch other countries create the industries and the jobs that will fuel our future, and leave our children a planet that grows more dangerous and unlivable by the day. Or we can choose another future.

We can watch as millions of new jobs with good pay and good benefits are created for American workers, and we can take pride as the technologies, and discoveries, and industries of the future flourish in the United States of America. We can lead the world, secure our nation, and meet our moral obligations to future generations.

I ask you to join me, in November and in the years to come, to ensure that we will not only control our own energy, but once again control our own destiny, and forge a new and better future for the country that we love.

And evidently, that country is Brazil.

Where did our “the fragile wilderness” go? Were we cured of our “oil addiction”? What happened to “We can’t drill our way out of this!”? What about “the rising sea levels”? The “dangerous and unlivable planet”? “Creating 5 million jobs in America!”? “Cheering oil executives”?

As they say in Brazil “Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!”

Gilda Radner as “Emily Latella” sums up Obama’s Energy Policy well:

“Nevermind.”

Or as they say, “Every one of this guy’s promises comes with an expiration date.”

And a can of 30 weight.

UPDATE: Ah–now it all makes $en$e: “Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations?”