Bush asks Congress to lift off-shore drilling ban

When's the last time you heard of an off-shore oil rig causing an oil spill? The gulf has numerous rigs and Katrina didn't make them cause a spill.

Obama sound bite on TV yesterday, basically saying that drilling for more oil won't help things for at least 5 years.

I think he's wrong on several levels.

The oil prices are high because of speculation in the futures markets. The future is 5 years.

Second, anti-Bush people talk a lot about how Cheney's energy task force was secret, blah blah blah. Yet they did produce legislation that was open for the public to read. It wasn't passed, and here we are.

FWIW, that legislation called for new exploration, nuclear development, conservation, and research into alternative energy sources. Not sure there was anything wrong with the final product. If we had drilled back then, Obama's 5 years for that oil would be coming on line about now, if not already.

The moral of that story is, why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?

EDIT: Are oil rigs any uglier a blight on the landscape than windmill farms?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Jun 18 2008, 11:39 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'>When's the last time you heard of an off-shore oil rig causing an oil spill?</div>
I don't know, that's why I was asking. The arguments for drilling in that article make sense, but none of the speakers seemed to address the reason why its supposedly been stopped in the first place. If there were a way to prevent any environment/ecological damage, then there's really no reason to keep this ban.
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My take is that the rigs are considered an eyesore. However, we're now talking about drilling so far off shore that it's over the horizon to people at the shoreline. Probably some moose in alaska would be bothered by it or some other absurd reason.

Or the jetsetters don't want to have to see the rigs as they fly over on their way between NY, Paris, and London.

 

The Democratic party line is "you can't drill our way out of our situation."

The truth is you can not-drill our way into this situation.

The ban on offshore drilling is decades old, probably a vestige of when certain interest groups controlled the president and congress.

Democrats opposed drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because it would ruin a pristine place that nobody ever goes to. Though if you look at the size of ANWR, the size of the land to be explored is a teenie fraction.

 

I do consider myself to be quite liberal, but I have few left-leanings.

Here, the Democrats show their true colors.

http://www.foxnews.com/urgent_queue/printe...ef44,2008-06-18

House Democrats call for nationalization of refineries

Per Pergram-Capitol Hill

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.

At an off-camera briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the same. And a senior Republican House Appropriations Committee aide adds that "there were multiple reasons for the postponement" including discussion on the supplemental. But the aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments.

Here are the highlights from briefing

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling

1115

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

Hinchey on why they postponed the Appropriations markup

1119

I think there aren't enough votes for the Peterson amendment. It wasn't taken up (the Interior spending bill) because of the omnibus Appropriations bill. That's the main focus of the Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)

1116

They (Republicans) have a one-trick pony approach.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the Resources Committee

1106

You cannot drill your way out of this.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming

1111

The White House has become a ventriloquist for the oil and gas energy. The finger should be directed back at them. They had plenty of opportunity to (arrange an energy policy). But they did not put an energy policy in place.

Markey

1123

The governors of California and the governors of Florida are going to scream this is not the way to go.

Hinchey

1125

There are a lot of arrows in the President's quiver that he decided not use.

Hinchey

1128

What we do has to be in the interest of the American people. Not major corporations.

Emanuel

1131

It's like when I talk to my kids. Before we're going to talk about dessert, we've got to talk about what's on your plate. I hope I'm a little more successful with the oil industry than I am with my kids.

Markey7

1132

There are so many red herrings out there they might as well construct an aquarium.

From House Majoirity Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) when I asked him if the markup was cancelled because of potential Democratic defections on the Peterson amendment..

"No. The reason the markups aren't going through is because we're trying to get the supplemental on the floor tomorrow."

Andfrom a Senior Republican House Appropriations Aide..

"There were multiple reasons for the postponement including ongoing negotiations on the (supplemental) and a (Democratic) wish to avoid debate and votes on the energy amendments.

 

What part of "drill where the oil IS" doesn't he get?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/washingt...tml?ref=science

Will $4 Gasoline Trump a 27-Year-Old Ban?
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — One was an oilman from Texas, the other a high-paid energy executive. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, for seven years George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been unable to persuade Congress and the public that domestic oil drilling is an answer to America’s energy needs.

With the clock running down on his presidency, Mr. Bush made one last push Wednesday by calling on Congress to end the 27-year moratorium on most offshore drilling. With oil at more than $130 a barrel, gasoline over $4 a gallon and the broader economy threatened, the White House is betting it can finally break a decades-old Washington deadlock between those who favor domestic oil exploration and those who say conservation is the key.

The question is whether Americans are feeling enough pain at the pump to force their elected leaders to go along, and whether it will make any real difference if they do.

“If Congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act,” Mr. Bush said Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden. “And Americans will rightly ask how high oil — how high gas prices have to rise before the Democratic-controlled Congress will do something about it.”

Other Republicans, notably Senator John McCain, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, are abandoning their long-held opposition to drilling in coastal waters. Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, recently posted an online petition, headlined “Drill Here, Drill Now,” to strengthen support for domestic oil exploration, and gathered 650,000 signatures in two weeks.

“My prediction is that unless oil prices go down below $60 a barrel, you are now at a fundamental turning point at which you will see a new political coalition emerge,” Mr. Gingrich said in an interview. “This is a huge populist issue, and politicians who ignore it do so at their own peril.”

But Democrats do not feel especially imperiled. Although one moderate Democrat — Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who has long advocated expanding drilling in the Gulf of Mexico — is drafting legislation aimed at increasing domestic production, the leadership is holding fast. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Wednesday, “We cannot drill our way to energy independence.”

If anything, Democrats say, the White House action gives them a chance to paint Mr. Bush as beholden to the oil industry and Mr. McCain as a clone of Mr. Bush, a message that will only grow louder as the November election draws near.

“To have President Bush be the face of this issue for the Republicans means having the worst possible spokesman,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist who helped run Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“What Republicans are doing for themselves right now,” Mr. Garin added, “is deepening the impression that they are the party of Big Oil.”

Whether $4-a-gallon gasoline is producing more support for domestic drilling is hard to discern. A Gallup poll conducted last month found that 57 percent of those surveyed favored drilling for oil in coastal and wilderness areas that are now off limits, but there are no earlier data for comparison. In March, before the latest spike in gasoline prices, a Pew Research Center survey found that 50 percent opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in Alaska, while 42 percent were in favor.

Mr. Bush has long supported the proposal to drill along a coastal strip of the refuge. But he has not before taken up the cause of offshore drilling, partly because it was such a hot-button issue in the state of Florida, where his brother Jeb was governor. Congress first adopted its moratorium against drilling on the outer continental shelf, 3 to 200 miles offshore, in 1981. In 1990, Mr. Bush’s father signed an executive order reinforcing the ban; Mr. Bush promised Wednesday to rescind the order if Congress ended its moratorium.

In the Rose Garden, the president made the case that in the long run, the solution to high prices was to reduce demand for oil by promoting alternative-energy technologies, a view widely shared across the political spectrum. But “in the short run,” he said, “the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil, and that means we need to increase supply, especially here at home.”

The federal Energy Information Administration estimates that 18 billion barrels of oil are in the area covered by the moratorium, and the White House says that is enough to match current American production for 10 years. But a 2007 analysis by the agency concluded that opening up drilling in the moratorium area “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

The primary concern about offshore drilling has been that unsightly oil rigs would dampen tourism, or that spills would threaten the environment. Advocates, and even critics, say new technology has greatly reduced the risk of spills. But David B. Sandalow, an energy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington who advises Democrats, argues that the amount of oil that could be recovered is so small as not to be worth the environmental risk.

“It’s like walking an extra 20 feet a day to lose weight,” he said. “It’s just not enough to make a difference.”

But Robin West, who managed the offshore leasing program for the Reagan administration and is now chairman of PFC Energy, a consulting company, argues that additional supply could make a difference in price, especially if domestic drilling were coupled with aggressive conservation efforts. He said it would take time, though — a minimum of five or six years, even if drilling were to begin today.

“A logical energy policy,” Mr. West said, “is to encourage production and discourage consumption. And prices will go down.”

But with just seven months left in his presidency, the relationship between Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats is already set, and unlikely to produce fresh agreement on what might be a logical energy policy, especially in the thick of a presidential election season.

As Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota, said: “I think we have been deadlocked on energy over ideological concerns for a long time, and the urgency in the country was not there to break out of this debate. And now the urgency of the country is there, and it’s too late for this administration.”

 

http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/...0617_734947.htm

<span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%">There's Plenty of Energy in This Race</span>
Presidential opponents McCain and Obama go head-to-head with competing plans for reducing U.S. reliance on foreign oil

by John Carey

With gas prices rising and billions of additional dollars flowing to the Middle East to buy oil, energy policy is turning into a battleground in the race for President. On June 17, the presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain, laid down the gauntlet with a speech in Houston, talking about his vision "to free America once and for all from our strategic dependence on foreign oil."

Of course, this is easier said than done. Every President since Jimmy Carter has vowed to break the U.S. addiction to imported oil, yet the country's dependence continues to grow.

McCain's Plan Includes Offshore Drilling

So, how would McCain do it?

He wants to use more coal. He proposes lifting restrictions on offshore drilling to boost domestic supplies of oil and gas. He wants a big increase in nuclear power. Over the long term, he says, technologies will come along "that one day will free us from oil entirely." But "in the short term, we must take the world as it is and our resources where they are."

And his Democratic rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, doesn't get it, McCain charges: "What is certain in energy policy is that we have learned a few clear lessons along the way. Somehow all of them seem to have escaped my opponent. He doesn't support new domestic production. He doesn't support new nuclear plants."

Republicans are hoping that this call for increased drilling will be politically powerful. Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) says "a vast majority of Americans now support deep-sea exploration because they understand that the best way to reduce gas prices is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he's getting 30,000 to 50,000 signatures a day on a petition drive dubbed "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." When people realize that politicians are standing in the way of bringing down the cost of energy by limiting domestic exploration, "they're just incredulous," he said on a recent talk show. "They think the country can't be this dumb."

Even before McCain delivered his speech, Obama and his surrogates were fighting back. Their main spin: McCain is on the side of Big Oil.

Democrats Want to Reduce Demand

"Time and time again, McCain has stood with the oil companies," charges Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa. "McCain does not represent the change we need. This is not a policy that would make us independent of foreign energy." There wouldn't even be any immediate relief at the gas pump, Democrats say. Even if the offshore areas were opened to drilling today, "Americans would not see any oil or reduction in gas prices until late in a second John McCain term," says former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner.

What makes this energy battle somewhat ironic is how many similarities there are between the aims of the Obama and McCain policies. The two candidates share the same basic goal of reducing U.S. oil imports. Obama, for instance, promises to put the country on the path to energy independence by 2030. Both men are also pushing alternatives to fossil fuels, as well as supporting caps on the emissions of global warming- causing greenhouse gases. Such caps will make renewable energy sources like wind and solar more attractive by raising the costs of burning oil and gas.

The crucial differences lie in how the two candidates would go about achieving these goals. When it comes to the current crisis over high oil prices, the new twist in McCain's June 17 speech is his plan to increase domestic supplies. The Democrats, in contrast, say that it's easier and quicker to tame high prices by lowering demand. Reducing "energy consumption—and not the mantra of drilling—is the solution to our energy crisis," says Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Plus, Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) charges, McCain is flip-flopping on this issue since he used to be against additional offshore drilling.

The Nuclear Option

In the candidates' policies over the long term, there is a fundamental philosophical difference. McCain and his advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin are firm believers in the power of the market. The government should not offer tax incentives or other subsidies to wind, solar, ethanol, or other renewable energy sources, they argue. Instead, a climate policy that sets caps on carbon dioxide emissions (and that allows trading of those emissions) would be enough.

Such a policy would raise the price of fossil fuels, making renewable energy more economically competitive. "A cap-and-trade plan would provide automatic incentives for every alternative form of energy," explains Holtz-Eakin. That's why McCain did not vote for the extension of tax credits for wind and solar power last year when they came up in the Senate (and failed to pass by one vote).

McCain isn't completely consistent in his belief in the Invisible Hand. Even as he attacks Obama for wanting the government to pick winners and losers, McCain is in favor of taxpayer support for new nuclear plants. "The only technology McCain wants to subsidize is nuclear power," says Joseph Romm, a former Energy Dept. official in the Clinton Administration.

Obama's Incentives Plan

To Obama and his supporters, alternative energy needs more help than the market forces can offer. In part, they say, that's because oil and gas have been the beneficiaries of decades of subsidies, so the playing field is far from level to begin with. In addition, most new technologies need some initial support to develop them to the point where they can compete without subsidies.

So Obama offers a combination of incentives and mandates. He would require that 25% of the electricity produced in the U.S. come from renewable sources by 2025. He suggests a $150 billion government investment in clean energy over 10 years. He'd even set up a U.S. venture capital fund to support nascent companies. And he wants lower caps on emissions of greenhouse gases than McCain supports, which would make fossil fuel even more expensive.

Which plan will work better? Many economists say that mandates and incentives are essential to meeting the twin goals of reducing energy dependence and combating climate change. But some also worry that a big government-funded effort to develop new technologies might not be the best use of the money. Remember Synfuels?

What is clear is that on this issue, the Presidential race is offering a choice.

 

http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?...26-b9a87f635903

RAND: U.S. Oil Shale Resources Are Three Times Larger Than the Current Oil Reserves in Saudi Arabia

YET CONGRESS RECENTLY VOTED TO MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO DEVELOP U.S. OIL SHALE RESOURCES

With oil prices at an all-time high, Americans are facing escalating gas, diesel, and aircraft fuel increases. Oil prices are projected to increase further.

Congress, however, has made it illegal to develop vast domestic oil resources in large parts of the United States.

The most startling Congressional prohibition on domestic oil production concerns the recently enacted ban on the development of oil shale resources in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming in the Green River Formation. According to a Rand Study estimate, this reserve contains over one trillion barrels of oil, with 800 billion barrels fully recoverable, or three times the current oil reserves as Saudi Arabia:

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years.

(James T. Bartis, et. al., "Oil Shale Development in the United States: Prospects and Policy Issues" (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005), p. ix. http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf) (emphasis added)


The same RAND study indicated that technology exists today that would allow oil shale extraction and that the process would be cost effective once the price of a barrel of oil was $95 (p. x). The price of a barrel of oil today is around $130.

However, Shell Oil has been investing in technology that would make extraction much cheaper than standard pit mining:

Shell Oil Company has successfully conducted small-scale field tests of an insitu process based on slow underground heating via thermal conduction. Larger scale operations are required to establish technical viability, especially with regard to avoiding adverse impacts on groundwater quality. Shell anticipates that, in contrast to the cost estimates for mining and surface retorting, the petroleum products produced by their thermally conductive in-situ method will be competitive at crude oil prices in the mid-$20s per barrel.

(James T. Bartis, et. al., "Oil Shale Development in the United States: Prospects and Policy Issues" (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005), p. x. http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf)


In short, if the Congress removed its prohibition, America could develop a substantial amount of its oil needs from domestic oil shale resources rather than relying on foreign governments.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically declared that it was the policy of the United States to recognize oil shale as a strategically important domestic resource. Section 369 states:

DECLARATION OF POLICY.—Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States that—

(1) United States oil shale, tar sands, and other unconventional fuels are strategically important domestic resources that should be developed to reduce the growing dependence of the United States on politically and economically unstable sources of foreign oil imports;

(2) the development of oil shale, tar sands, and other strategic unconventional fuels, for research and commercial development, should be conducted in an environmentally sound manner, using practices that minimize impacts; and

(3) development of those strategic unconventional fuels should occur, with an emphasis on sustainability, to benefit the United States while taking into account affected States and communities.

(Energy Policy Act of 2005, http://www.epa.gov/oust/fedlaws/publ_109-058.pdf)

Yet, buried in a Department of Interior appropriations bill passed in December 2007 was an amendment that prevented establishing regulations for leasing land to drill for oil shale. The House passed that amendment, proposed by Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado, on June 27, 2007, by a vote of 219-215.

On May 15, 2008 in a 15-14 vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected an amendment by Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) to allow oil shale drilling and overturn the Udall moratorium.

(http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/may/15/panel-defeats-attempt-end-oil-shale-moratorium/)

 

The lameness of the Democrats' logic is astounding.

"It won't help immediately, not for 5 years at least!"

In 5 years, we'll be either happy we started drilling now, or regretting we didn't. Just as we're right now regretting we don't have oil reserves from 5 years ago coming online now.