Offshore Drilling, Why It May Not Happen, Even if Approved by Congress
Ah, the wonders of federalism. Even though Bush is pushing Congress hard for it, the Interior Secretary is prepping “just in case”, and John McCain is a fairly supportive fellow, they all seem to agree that it should be up to states to actually allow the drilling to begin. For offshore drilling to actually happen, the states that are implicated are going to have to get on board, and that’s not necessarily a given.
While a recent Gallup poll has demonstrated that 57 percent of Americans would support drilling in the nation’s coastal and wilderness areas that are currently closed to exploration—if it helped reduce gasoline prices and if the drilling were conducted under strict environmental safeguards.
Those are two pretty big ifs, and one that other, state-level politicians are going to pay attention to. That means that 43% of Americans are not in favour of offshore drilling even if it were to lower gas prices, and the other 57% want strict environmental controls (anyone else remember Paris Hilton’s comments?). And let’s not forget that the first state that has an environmental disaster will then very quickly have a politically crucified governor.
For states that have thriving tourism industries (North and South Carolina, California, Florida to name a few), the economic benefits that would accrue from having offshore drilling may not outweigh the political and economic risks and potential costs.
So which states would see majority-level support for offshore drilling? Well, non-coastal states are potentially going to reap the economic rewards without the environmental costs. The political calculus in North Dakota is going to be very different than that in Oregon. Therein lies the political trade-off in the offshore drilling debate: will gaining votes in the mid-west outweigh the lost votes in California and other coastal states? Obviously McCain thinks so.
Since the political consensus on the right seems to be to devolve down to implicated states the actual decision to drill, and Obama’s focus on alternatives to drilling, it looks like the actual decision as to whether or not to allow offshore drilling will fall to the next President.
I love election years (and I’m Canadian!).
For more on offshore drilling, read:
- Why Liberals Should Be Happy That Barack Obama Changed His Position On Offshore Drilling for Oil
- Bush Lifts Executive Ban on Offshore Drilling– Why It Matters and Why It Doesn’t
- Poll: Americans Don’t Think More Drilling Will Lower Gas Prices
Photo credit (update):mandj98 via flickr under a Creative Commons License
Offshore, or any other drilling would nor be needed If the U.S. had chosen to be a moral people, and leaving Iraqi oil alone, and following Al Gore, decided to develop the South Western deserts, with the technology of the times - solar/thermal-molten sodium - electricity installations, for the same amount of money as that war cost, ($650 Billion), today, we would be tapping into the largest, renewable, sustainable, energy source the world has ever known. It would have paid every energy bill in the U.S.A. for maintenance fees only - FOREVER! It would be equivalent to an oil field that can NEVER run dry! Low cost electric power, and storeable hydrogen gasoline replacement from the electricity, for all!
After the millions of murders, and $650 billions of dollars, borrowed from our children’s futures and pissed away, with thousands of our own and others maimed and disfigured for life, millions of families utterly destroyed, ours and theirs, we are no closer to Iraqi oil production than the Iraqis are!
The next time you hear a blithering idiot spoiled brat, drunken, drug addicted, sociopath, rich Arabic saber dancing daddie’s boy oilman, stand at a microphone and threaten YOUR safety with someone ELSE’S weapons, remember what you lost America, remember, and weep! (also see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan)