When you and I look at today’s gas prices, we see empty checking accounts and impending financial ruin. When Big Oil looks at them, it sees a golden opportunity.
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Oil companies have been trying for decades, without success, to get Congress to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for exploration and possible development and lift the federal ban on further offshore drilling. Now, with prices at the pump well above $4 a gallon and headed north, the industry believes it has the political lever it needs to pry all that oil and gas loose.
A group with the catchy name of American Solutions for Winning the Future, fronted by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is pushing a catchy slogan: “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.” Its website is collecting signatures on a petition calling on Congress “to act immediately to lower gasoline prices … by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.” It’s collected more than 1.3 million signatures already.
It’s been said that for every complex problem there is a solution that is clear, simple – and wrong. “Drill here, drill now, pay less” is that kind of bogus solution.
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In the first place, the “pay less” part of it is just a lie. It would take a minimum of three years for any new wells offshore or in ANWR to bring any oil to market and as much as 10 years to reach peak production. And even then, the impact at the gas pump would be negligible. Economists have estimated it might drop the price of a gallon of gas from around $4 to around $3.92 a gallon. In case math isn’t your strong suit, that’s eight cents per gallon – or $1.60 for a 20-gallon tank.
In the second place, the oil companies already have the ability to “drill here, drill now” – but they’re not doing it. They’re holding oil and gas leases on 68 million acres of federal land that sits un-drilled. Bottom line: The “drill here, drill now” campaign isn’t about bringing more oil to market now and giving consumers relief; it’s about oil companies getting their hands on the last remaining offshore and ANWR leases for potentially lucrative future development.
George W. Bush announced Monday that he was lifting the longstanding presidential ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling. Except as political theater the action was meaningless, because a congressional ban is still in place. Congressional leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to their credit, are standing firm so far. Also to their credit, none of Oregon’s seven members of Congress have signed Gingrich’s petition.
Long term, the solution to America’s energy problem lies with conservation and alternative energy sources. For short-term relief, the government should look at releasing some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and taking action to rein in speculators – and give the delusional “drill now” idea THE BOOT.
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.
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So listen to me you whiny Americans….this is your president Bush speaking…..we are about to lose to the democrats and have raised the oil prices thru our oil brokers, all ex Enron employees that sold power to you all at inflated prices. We all are winning the war in Iraq and unbeknownst to you average morons listening to Hannity and Rush, the goddamn liberals have figured out that we are manipulating the oil prices thru brokers and commodities trading future contracts to put the ol’ squeeze on all your god fearing good ol boys to allow us to kill all wildlife up in Alaska and invade the eskimos and chase em and all their deer off the land so we can bring in oil pipelines to cross that damn state like a spiderweb. Dammit folks I am from Texas and although I snorted a lot of youthful discretionary cocaine in my time and drank a lot, I am stilll the damn president and by golly if you snort that same cocaine I will make sure you rot in some privatized prison owned by my friends where you will be slave labor for the next fifty years. I am fully capable of running the good ol U S of A into the ground as I also filed bankruptcy three times before rigging the elections to become the great president of this country and give all my old cocaine buddies the chance for me to repay them for all the money I lost them. You all liked that ploy to take out old Saddam…..he was not a bad guy..as my daddy trained him…but then he got all uppity on him and then tried to kill my daddy….goddamn Sad dam….you should have been kissing my pimply ass or my daddies.
So now we are going to devalue the dollar to the peso as we are shoveling our profits to Du Bai…yeah…them Saudis we have been in bed with for years are loving the fact that we are moving Halliburton to their country and all of the other large oil companies there to avoid em damn liberals from asking for records of all the money we have been ripping you all off for.. And we do not need taxes to pay it all back as we will leave that to the liberals to do after we have put America in the hole for the next six decades.
Oil prices have come down substantially since this was written and gasoline prices are starting to follow suit; the price of regular at my local Chevron station dropped by 10 cents a gallon in one day this week. Why? Not because of more drilling offshore or in ANWR, but because consumption has dropped. This shows that conservation, not “drill here, drill now, drill everywhere” is the most effective way to bring gas prices down rapidly.
The drillheads always talk about supply and demand, but they leave out the “demand” part of the equation.
BTW one reason prices haven’t come down further is that Mexico and other countries are subsidizing the price of gas to their citizens, keeping demand artificially high. There was a news story a while back about American motorists in Southern California driving to Tijuana to fill up with gas at about $2 a gallon.