ANWR - what is the big deal about drilling there? _____________________________________________ Friday, June 20, 2008 Critical Thinking on Energy By Charles Krauthammer WASHINGTON -- Gas is $4 a gallon. Oil is $135 a barrel and rising. We import two-thirds of our oil, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the likes of Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. And yet we voluntarily prohibit ourselves from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas. At a time when U.S. crude oil production has fallen 40 percent in the last 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years. That's nearly a quarter-century of energy independence. The situation is absurd. To which John McCain is responding with a partial fix: Lift the federal ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling, where a fifth of the off-limits stuff lies. This is a change for McCain, but circumstances have changed. When the moratorium was imposed in 1982, gasoline was $1.20 and oil was $30 a barrel. Since the moratorium was instituted, we've had two wars in the Middle East, and in between a decade of garrisoning troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE to preserve the peace and keep untold oil riches out of the hands of the most malevolent of our enemies. Technological conditions have changed as well. We now are able to drill with far more precision and environmental care than a quarter-century ago. We have thousands of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, yet not even hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in spills of any significance. McCain's problem is that he's only able to go halfway on energy production because he has locked himself into opposition to the other obvious source of domestic oil -- the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. His fastidiousness on this is inexplicable. "I believe that ANWR is a pristine area," he explains. Is it more pristine than the ocean, where he now wants to drill? More pristine than the Arabian Desert from which we daily beg the Saudi princes to pump more oil? The entire Arctic refuge is one-third the size of the United Kingdom (which includes Scotland and Wales). The drilling site would be one-seventh the size of Manhattan Island. The footprint is tiny. Moreover, forbidding drilling there does not prevent despoliation. It merely exports it. The crude oil we're not getting from the Arctic we import instead from places like the Niger Delta, where millions live and where the resulting pollution and oil spillages poison the lives of many of the world's most wretchedly poor. Our environmental imperialism does not just redistribute pollution to people who can least afford it. It generally increases the total overall damage because oil extraction in the wealthier and more technologically advanced U.S. is far more environmentally sensitive. McCain's unwillingness to include ANWR lacks even political logic. His policy on offshore drilling is a flip-flop from his past positions. Perfectly justified, but a reconsideration nonetheless. If you are going to take the hit for flip-flopping and for offending environmentalists, why go halfway? The oil crisis handed McCain an unexpected and singularly effective campaign issue. A majority of Americans now favor drilling in the Arctic and offshore. Democrats stand in the way of increased production just as they did 13 years ago when President Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWR. Domestic oil production would be about 20 percent higher today if the Republican Congress had been allowed to prevail. As expected and right on cue, Barack Obama reflexively attacked McCain. "His decision to completely change his position" to one that would please the oil industry is "the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades." One can only marvel at Obama's audacity in characterizing McCain's proposal to change our policy as "old politics," while the candidate of "change" adheres rigidly to the no-drilling status quo. McCain is a lot of things, but the man who opposed ethanol in Iowa -- as Obama shamelessly endorsed the most abysmally stupid of our energy policies -- is no patsy of the energy producers. Americans know that increased production is needed to complement reduced consumption as the only way to get us out from oil shocks, high prices and national security blackmail. Alas, McCain's proposed reform is only partial. Still better than Obama, however, who refuses to deviate from liberal orthodoxy. But that is the story of his campaign, is it not?
Something tells me that those oil platforms might suffer some unforseen structural support problems, call it intuition I guess.
Interesting post. Didn't know all that about McCain. And I agree with the author: why send all that cash to Venezuela, Russia and so on?!?
Why so much focus on oil, and not alternative energy? Imagine if the shared goal wasn't more smelly dirty crude oil, but clean green renewable environmentally friendly energy? Wait...then the oil business would be out of business... Follow the money, and the lobbyists, and the campaign supporters, and the politicians...
Pretty simple. We have much oil. We know we can get it if the nuts let loose of the land. Alt energy is somewhere between hope and a pipe dream. Hope this helps. btw, THE CUBS ARE KICKING ARSE
Thursday, June 19, 2008 Obama and The Don't Drill Democrats To America: Don't Drive. Just Shut Up and Sweat In Your Dark House. By Hugh Hewitt When Barack Obama told a Pennsylvania audience this past weekend that "We can't drill our way out of this," he was repeating the same line that Nancy Pelosi used days earlier and that Harry Reid used on Wednesday. The Big Three Democrats are thus all agreed that their party has given up on bringing down the cost of oil and thus the cost of gas at the pump. Because demand for oil isn't going to drop due to growth around the globe, the only way to bring the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump down is to increase the supply of oil. The only way to increase the supply of oil for the present is to explore for more oil and then bring it to market. That means drilling. In the U.S. that means drilling on the outer continental shelf, more than 50 miles from the nearest coastline. John McCain favors allowing states to do just that. Obama, Pelosi and Reid oppose it. To get the exploration underway a federal ban on such off shore drilling must be lifted, but House Democrats have blocked that move, most recently this very month. They and their presidential candidate would rather see your wallet bleed and American growth deteriorate than cross their political allies and contributors in the environmental movement. House Republicans should offer a new amendment lifting the ban on outer continental shelf drilling if the price of gas hit $6.00 a gallon. Democrats would still oppose it. Follow it with an amendment at $8.00 a galklon and then $10.00. Get the point across that the Democrats just don't care how high the price goes. They do not care about the impact on the average American family. (The environmental activists, by the way, are seeking to use the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species to further impede oil exploration even where it is legal. Their agenda is to drive the cost of oil and thus gas to the sky to force you out of your car and America out of the economic growth business.) The DDDs have three talking points: Exploration won't bring down the cost of gas very much. There isn't that much oil to find. And oil companies aren't using their existing leases anyway. Both arguments reveal the DDDs as either ignorant or dishonest. First, the announcement by the U.S. of an immediate move to begin outer continental shelf drilling would send oil prices downward and probably significantly as the speculators' premium vanished quickly. No one wants to get caught holding the contract for high priced oil when new reserves are discovered. Make no mistake, the refusal of Obama et al to push for outer continental shelf exploration is costing you a great deal at the pump this very day and every day the ban remains in effect. As for the argument that the reserves are not that great, this ignores the entire history of oil exploration, where new discoveries and new fields often bring huge new reserves into view. That's why it is called exploration. The huge reserves in the North Sea weren't discovered until the 1960s. Huge new discoveries off the coast of Brazil were reported in 2007. Combined with new (and very environmentally safe) extraction technologies, the canard that reserves can't possibly be enough to help is exposed as just another thin facade over the DDDs' extremist agenda. The worst argument put forward by the DDDs though is the one that says oil companies aren't using all of their existing leases to begin with. First, a lease isn't an entitlement to drill. It is the first step. Every single environmental rule must be complied with after the lease is awarded, from land use permissions to permits to work near endangered species. (This is why the polar bear listing was so crucial to opponents of exploration --they got another club to beat would be producers of energy with.) Second, the award of a lease doesn't guarantee an oil field is beneath the land leased or that the cost of extraction makes sense. Lots of leases are prospected and most are found wanting. But we know there are huge deposits of oil on the outer continental shelf. Scientists have confirmed it. Obama and the Triple Ds are singing from the old statist hymn book, and they increase the volume every time another American looks up and uses common sense to conclude that he and they are standing by while the standard of living of most Americans slip on the altar of extreme environmentalist ideology. We can drill our way out of this problem. The problem is the Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid won't let us. The choice in November is clear. A vote for any Democrat from Obama on down the ticket is a vote for $10 a gallon gas. Obama and his allies don't care now and they won't care next year even if Obama wins. The change you will get if the Democrats get the presidency plus the Congress will be prices at the pump skyrocketing.
Cubs will choke, they always do. Any good reason we are not fully implementing solar and wind energy? Didn't think so...
WACKO article...blaming the media ad nauseaum...when will these right wingers ever point the finger at the guy who set our energy policy in the first place...blablabla....illiterate morons...we need to get off oil...when a person has a drug problem do you help them by finding cheaper drugs?Duh???????