Earth Equity News

Oil Discovery in Cuba Prompts Republicans in Congress to Propose Exempting Big Oil from Embargo. By Tim Padgett, Time, October 26, 2008."For decades, the only promise most Cubans saw in the ocean north of their island was the current that carries homemade rafts to Florida. That all changed a few years ago when geologists estimated that between 5 billion bbl. and 10 billion bbl. of oil lie beneath the waters off Cuba's northwest coast. Suddenly it seemed as though the hemisphere's sole communist nation might finally end its desperate dependence on oil-rich allies like the former Soviet Union and Venezuela -- and perhaps even escape its impoverished economic time warp altogether. The oil discovery has renewed debate over whether a crude-thirsty U.S. should loosen its 46-year-old trade embargo against Cuba and let yanqui firms join the drilling, which is taking place fewer than 100 miles off U.S. shores. Despite the Bush Administration's hard line on Cuba, Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to exempt Big Oil from the embargo."