Offshore Drilling Ban Opens Discussion for Other Domestic Oil Options
This was a big week for our Presidential candidates and energy policy, specifically domestic oil drilling. With the recent decision by a House Sub-committee to continue the ban on more offshore drilling, spirited discussion regarding domestic oil has sprung up everywhere. This week John McCain extended his support for offshore drilling, stating that he thinks the ban should be lifted however he also made the statement that he opposes any drilling of ANWR. Barack Obama opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and ANWR drilling.
As Americans, we have a lot to think about. The fact is we do have domestic oil that we are not extracting. Geologists report we have billions of barrels in both the Bakkan Shale and ANWR. Why is John McCain in favor of lifting the offshore drilling ban while at the same time opposed to ANWR drilling? Is it politically convenient? Is it a possible attempt to satisfy both sides of a debate? Why is Barack Obama opposed to all new domestic drilling? Despite the fact that offshore drilling is technologically at its best, we have other options in other areas.
There is very strong opposition to opening any new domestic areas for drilling oil. However to what extent are we, as a nation, willing to go? We continue to import oil and there is no indication that this will cease. In the Anchorage Daily News online, Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post Columnist, states:
“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.”
Strong environmental policies coupled with technological advances for extraction can give us access to the massive amounts of resources at our fingertips. This does not mean we have to deplete our resources, however, with good stewardship we can use what is ours. Acquiring our own oil is something that should be realistically explored from all fronts instead of continually shut down. Energy Independence will benefit all Americans and it will take the use of our own traditional resources such as oil, in addition to a passionate pursuit of alternative energy sources to accomplish this goal.
Related Posts:
- McCain Calls for More Offshore Drilling: What Else Would He Say in Houston? by Tim Hurst
- US Will Export $440 Billion For Oil in 2008 by Clayton B. Cornell
- Help Set the Environmental Agenda for the 44th President by Tim Hurst
Photo Credit: Victor Geere via Flickr under a Creative Commons Liscence
[...] Offshore Drilling Ban Opens Discussion for Other Domestic Oil Options US Will Export $440 Billion For Oil In 2008 The Growing Need for Fuel Substitution, Efficiency, and Conservation [...]
“Acquiring our own oil”: Look, you might think about this: we used up our oil (in the US). It’s gone. Period. A place like ANWR will give us half a year’s supply, at best. The rate of oil discoveries peaked in the US in the 1930s. Think about that. US *Production* peaked in 1971. Saudi Arabia produces their oil from 1500 wells, the US produces half as much from 500,000 wells. This is what depletion looks like. For the 80% of you who live in suburbs: start packing. We need 1000 to 3000 nuclear power plants by 2020 — which should give an indication of the scale of the problem. Grasping scale is, in this case, key. This is a solvable problem, but such a solution requires an informed discourse.
Well. Alrighty then. I suppose the spectacle of conservatives scampering after the green, algae slimed coattails of high-minded (or just high) liberals has proven too odious or comical to attract any attention at all to this here blog. The vacuum is a little disappointing; I was rarin’ for a flame or two.
Ok, I did want to clarify a few things about my spittle flecked remarks above: 1. We’re not literally running out of oil. To wit, as our intrepid columnist has pointed out, Bakken shale (though I doubt very much the Bakken formation qualifies as a new discovery, as seems to be implied above); or, the Green River shales, which may contain upwards of a trillion barrels of oil, theoretically at least.
You see, there’s the rub, that ‘theoretically.’ Because, tho’ we’ll not likely run out of oil before it runs out of us, the superabundance of oil left in the ground is serving, in the mouth of Ms. Suydam, to obfuscate our dilemma, which is: energy. The easy cheap stuff, which does mostly come in the form of oil — just not the stuff in the Bakken or around Green River — is what we’re at the end of. And that’s really, really big news for a species that has sprung from 1 billion to 6 billion by suckling black sunlight. All of the oil in all of the tar sands and all of the oil shales in world cannot save us from this dilemma.
Anon e mous: Thank you for your comments and interest in this topic.
“This does not mean we have to deplete our resources, however, with good stewardship we can use what is ours. Acquiring our own oil is something that should be realistically explored from all fronts instead of continually shut down. Energy Independence will benefit all Americans and it will take the use of our own traditional resources such as oil, in addition to a passionate pursuit of alternative energy sources to accomplish this goal.”
A balanced approach is necessary in order to decrease our oil consumption and transition to using alternative energy sources as a nation.
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[...] Offshore Drilling Ban Opens Discussion for Other Domestic Oil Options [...]
[...] for oil off the Florida coast. Environmental campaigners say the move could drastically alter the politics of oil exploration by putting a 27 year-old congressional moratorium on drilling in federal waters in “grave [...]
[...] recently had the opportunity to speak out about off shore drilling as President Bush called for lifting the ban currently in place. As a result we learned Barack Obama does not want to consider any domestic [...]
President Bush must use his Constitutonal powers
and as of Monday AM call a special session to force an up or down vote on a drilling/energy bill.
The last I heard we are still a democracy, and with 70% of Americans urging us to drill now it is imperitive the Our President take perhaps his last inititive and follow through for the hurting American
people.
@Gerald:
We ARE a democracy. But we are not a direct democracy. As a populace we do not exactly get to participate in daily policymaking - although it would be neat, wouldn’t it?