Energy policy and high gas prices has dominated the public debate over the past few weeks as both presidential candidates have tussled back and forth on the issue.
For his part, Republican John McCain dropped his past view that it would take years for offshore drilling to affect domestic gasoline prices to claim that new leases for big oil companies on federal lands offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are needed to lower gas prices.
The McCain campaign implied that economic recession and high gas prices were psychological problems that could be overcome with immediate new leases for Big Oil.
The Obama campaign responded saying that we can't drill our way out of high gas prices. The US consumes one-fourth of the world's oil but possesses only three percent of the earth's oil, including in all available untapped reserves.
The Obama campaign further stated that direct relief to working families in the form of tax credits and opening the strategic petroleum reserves were immediate steps that could be taken. In the long-term a sound and comprehensive energy policy is needed, the Obama campaign continued. The long-term solution involves new investments in alternative and sustainable energy and a diversity of energy sources.
John McCain's fixation on oil might benefit the profit margins of big companies like ExxonMobil, who have given millions in campaign donations, but it won't help the country make progress on energy policy.
The environmental group Sierra Club this week compiled a list of frequently asked questions and answers on McCain's call for new offshore drilling.
The list opened by pointing out that new offshore leases for oil drilling won't impact the price of gas. Both McCain and the Bush administration used to agree with this fact. "According to the Energy Information Administration, a branch of the federal Department of Energy," Sierra Club stated. "It would take at least a decade to bring new leases into production, and twenty years for them to reach peak production. Even then, the oil would amount to a drop in the bucket on the world market and would have a negligible effect on gas prices."
Even the oil companies themselves have conceded as much.
And new leases on oil drilling won't reduce the price of gas much at all after the decades it would take to get new production to its peak. "According to the Department of the Interior," Sierra Club noted, "the number of drilling permits on federal lands has doubled in the past five years while the price of gas almost tripled. More drilling does not mean lower prices."
There are some 68 million acres already leased to big oil companies that have yet to be drilled on.
Despite the fact that new drilling won't lower gas prices, Bush and John McCain are promoting it because the "oil industry, with the support of right-wing political forces, are exploiting this concern to push for unfettered and unregulated access to America's coasts, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and wilderness for drilling," Sierra Club emphasized.
So what's the solution to this problem then? Sierra Club called for ending tax breaks to big oil to pay for tax credits and subsidies for working families to face rising costs. Additionally, the drilling into Big Oils big profits instead of the ground could provide resources to invest in alternatives to oil and to bring existing alternatives into the marketplace. The Sierra Club supports more efficient vehicles, more transit choices, and sustainable biofuels. Economic benefits to new investment in alternatives to more oil drilling included creating new jobs, reducing carbon emissions, and gaining energy independence.
In fact, according to North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, whose state strongly opposes the environmental risks offshore drilling poses, some alternatives such as plug-in hybrids could be widely available even before any oil from new offshore drilling could be brought to the market.
John McCain has also pretended that new offshore drilling is environmentally safe. Sierra Club countered that "there is no safe way to drill our coasts. Where there is drilling, there are oil spills." The Coast Guard estimates that during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone, roughly 9 million gallons of oil were spilled with resulting fires as well. In addition, all of the equipment used for offshore drilling from pipelines, to infrastructure "scar beaches, disrupt marine life, and undermine coastal tourism and fishing economies," Sierra Club concluded.
