>>In everything they say they can do safely, there have been enormous spills that have permanently polluted our lands and water.

Seriously? You're going to argue the semantics of permanently? Are you drinking the oil man's kool-aid?

>Even if it is "significantly harder" that does not mean impossible nor unmanageable.
>I'll acknowledge that the Exxon Valdez spill is taking significantly longer to clean itself up than originally expected, but that is a far cry from "permanent". In contrast the gulf spill is cleaning itself significantly faster than expected.

You're buying this bullshit that the gulf is cleaning itself up? They spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf. On top of that they dumped millions of gallons of carcinogenic Corexit to hide the problems. The problem didn't clear itself up. It's hiding underwater because of the Corexit. Pollution (oil and corexit) will be washing up on shore and entering our food chain for decades to come.

I'm going to repeat my statement because it still holds true:

These are the same companies that claim to be able to drill in the ocean without incident (gulf oil spill and many others), to be able to ship oil without incident (Valdez and others), and to be able to pipe oil without incident (Alaska pipeline spills and others). In everything they say they can do safely, there have been enormous spills that have gravely polluted our lands and water.

I don't trust these companies to screw up our groundwater with oil shale mining. I don't care if there is supposedly a "safe" way to do it. They lie about everything else they can do "safely". I'll not having them polluting my drinking water too.

Make no doubt about it, these companies will rape the earth and sicken its occupants for a buck.