It’s a funny thing how Republicans deal with the idea of states’ rights. On issues like abortion, they’ll say that they favor states’ rights. But on other issues, they actually work against the right of state governments to determine how to run their own affairs.
Today, all but one of the Republicans of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, joined by four Democrats on the committee, including Chairman Jeff Bingaman, voted to add an amendment to an energy bill that legalizes offshore drilling within 45 miles of the Gulf Coast of Florida. The Florida State legislature has already passed a law that outlaws drilling for oil in Gulf of Mexico closer than 125 miles from shore.
Florida’s economy gets a huge amount of income from activities related to its beaches, and doesn’t want them ruined by oil slicks turning white sands into asphalt. Yet, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate think they know what’s better for Florida than Floridians do. Their states’ rights political philosophy got thrown out the window today, in favor of oil corporations’ drilling rights.
Sad, but true. Hypocrites in the federal government aren’t hard to come by these days.
States rights, of course, is a terribly wrong term on top of it all. States don’t have rights – people do.
And if the republicans in DC truly believed in the 10th amendment, we wouldn’t see them trying to force FL to change their rules, we wouldn’t have illegal wars, we wouldn’t be locking up hundreds of thousands for marijuana, we wouldn’t see free speech zones or federal marriage laws or any of this nonsense.
Thanks for posting this.
Both sides favor states rights selectively.
That’s why we need to get rid of the Federal Government entirely.
qs: What, just have anarchy reign?
Well we could restore the articles of the Confederation. That would be a good start.
didn’t expect that from Bingaman