Bush’s gas games

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The president once again entered the fray yesterday, offering an ineffectual but wholly political response to the gas-price crisis, ending a nearly two-decade ban on off-shore oil and natural gas exploration.

The president, who just last month joined with the leaders of other industrialized nations in pledging to curb greenhouse gases, said the move would expand domestic oil production and help drive down prices.

The problem, the president says, is that the Democrats in Congress have stymied every effort he has made.

Those efforts, of course, have focused solely on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas combined with the most modest of nods toward energy conservation or alternative fuels.

Which brings us to yesterday’s announcement, which when assessed honestly can only be viewed as the president using his office to alter political conditions as the presidential election — an election that will choose his successor — moves through the summer. It is no accident that the president’s proposal matches John McCain’s call for a lifting of the moratorium — a policy position at odds with previous McCain positions.

Anyone who doubts this needs to read this quotation from the president:

To reduce pressure on prices we must continue to implement good conservation policies, and we need to increase the supply of oil, especially here at home. For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production. Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal — and now Americans are paying at the pump. When members of Congress were home over the Fourth of July recess, they heard a clear message from their constituents: We need to take action now to expand domestic oil production.

One of the most important steps we can take to expand American oil production is to increase access to offshore exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf, or what’s called the OCS. But Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s. Experts believe that these restricted areas of the OCS could eventually produce nearly 10 years’ worth of America’s current annual oil production. And advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills.

He was much more brief and direct, later in his brief announcement:

With this action, the executive branch’s restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress.

The reality, of course, is that off-shore oil exploration offers no guarantees. And even if it was a given that it would produce the volume of oil the administration and McCain believe — which wouldn’t happen for at least a decade — there are no guarantees that it would have the desired effect on prices.

Consider this (received via e-mail) from U.S. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

Republicans claim the Bush/McCain coastline oil drilling plan will reduce gas prices. It will not:

811,000 barrels per day is how much Americans have reduced its consumption of oil because of high gas prices — despite this, gas prices are still at record levels.[1]

500,000 barrels per day is how much Saudi Arabia has upped production in recent weeks – despite this, gas prices are still at record levels.[2]

200,000 barrels per day, according to President Bush’s Energy Information Agency, is how much oil the Republican plan to drill along the West, East, and Gulf Coasts will result in once full production is reached in 2030.[3]

If a more than 800,000 barrel per day reduction in demand coupled with a 500,000 barrel per day production increase does not reduce gas prices today, then how would adding 200,000 barrels per day to the market in 2030 reduce gas prices now or ever?

Even that is a “best-case” scenario for the Bush/McCain coastline drilling plan. In reality, it will likely not result even in 200,000 barrels per day in production. More likely, it would result in production of less than 50,000 barrels per day:

The plan requires consent by the Governor of the state in whose waters drilling will commence. It is doubtful that California, Oregon, or Washington will ever allow approval new drilling along the West Coast.

The Bush/McCain drilling plan will not open up the Eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling (even though this area has considerable oil resources and is the only offshore location with the infrastructure in place to begin oil production within a decade).

The remaining 20% of OCS oil on the Atlantic Coast amounts to less than 50,000 barrels per day in 2030 – this is less oil than the United States consumes in 4 minutes or the world consumes in one minute – a truly miniscule amount.

I understand that this argument comes from a Democrat, but I think it offers a line of reasoning that has to be acknowledged. Why sacrifice the coastline and the Arctic refuge in an effort to maintain the status quo, or to return to last year’s status quo — one we knew was untenable in the first place?

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is correct in his response:

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,” the Obama campaign’s spokesman, Bill Burton, said in a statement. “But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years.”

The New York Times adds this, in today’s editorial:

Offshore drilling will not bring short-term relief from $4-a-gallon gasoline, nor can it play much more than a marginal role in any long-term strategy for energy independence. The oil companies already have access to substantial unexplored resources.

The reality, as well, is that we have done little to move away from oil as a primary energy source, thanks to the heavy lobbying by the oil industry.

That has to change. Opening the coast to drilling won’t help.

It is time to kick the oil companies and speculators out of the driver’s seat on energy policy. They’ve been behind the wheel too long and are ready to drive us all off a cliff.