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Outer Continental Shelf in Danger
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Outer Continental Shelf in Danger
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

contributed by Matt Kirby

The day before yesterday President Bush began the process of opening the Outer Continental Shelf to exploration and drilling. From an administration that has been riddled with tactical blunders and outright assaults comes a final, flailing attempt to line the coffers before they’re put out to pasture. In another context, this would be almost endearing. The idea that offshore drilling would actually affect gas prices is so preposterous, so naïve, and so shortsighted that it would be viewed as nothing more than the slightly incoherent ramblings of someone for whom retirement is long overdue. Unfortunately, within the current context of soaring gas prices and given the fact that the should-be-retiree is the most powerful man in the world, the incoherent ramblings could prove dangerous.

Make no mistake, however, the lifting of the executive ban on offshore drilling IS a tactical mistake. Members of both the Senate and the House cannot scurry fast enough to distance themselves from the most unpopular President in recent history. Since the exploration and drilling cannot actually occur without Congress lifting its own moratorium that has been in place since 1981, it would have been more prudent to follow their lead. Unfortunately, however, Americans are feeling the pain at the pump and Congress is being heavily pressured to do something, no matter how rash, to deflect blame.

Let’s be very clear: the facts, no matter how you cut it, are on our side. To begin with, 80 percent of all the oil available on the OCS is already available for leasing. Why hasn’t it been drilled, you ask? Because up until now it hasn’t been economically feasible. Even the oil companies know that there just is not much oil out there. And what about the other 20 percent? The Energy Information Administration estimates that at peak production in 2025, this oil would only produce 220,000 barrels a day. For reference, that’s only 1/3 of what the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would produce, or .78 percent of daily demand. That equates to mere cents at the pump in twenty years. But the President’s own administration can explain it better than I: read pages 50-52 of the EIA report here.

Call your senators, call your representatives, and write emails. Tell them to continue to support the moratorium on offshore drilling. We cannot sacrifice our treasured coasts, beaches, and barrier islands. Not only would we be irreparably harming wildlife both on land and in the ocean, we would be threatening our coastal economies. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of the coast. To harm them is to harm a very American way of life.

For more information:

Sierra Club on the OCS

The Huffington Post

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