Talking points that don’t suck

As diligent readers may recall, we weighed in on Bush’s lifting of the executive ban on offshore oil drilling, noting that it was a particularly stupid idea and an obvious giveaway to his oil tycoon social circle. One of our readers agrees, and sent us a list of his own “talking points” on the issue, in the hopes that they will gain momentum and roll back the “drill drill drill” Republican mantra that has seized control of the issue. Here they are, unedited.

Even before Bush lifted the executive order on offshore drilling, such drilling was ONLY prohibited within 3 miles off the U.S. coast. Anything beyond that was open to drilling. However, by allowing drilling within three miles, Bush has created potential environmental threats to pristine beaches, many of which are important contributors to the local economies of states like California and Florida (indeed, the original ban was put in place after a major oil spill decades ago that harmed some of California’s beaches). It has also created environmental threats to endangered coral reefs. While much of this threat is from oil spills (caused by hurricanes, etc) the “ordinary” operation of offshore drilling also causes toxins to be dumped into the ocean on a daily basis.

Any new oil drilling will not provide immediate relief. Bush’s own Dept of Energy estimates that it will take at least 10 years for oil from new drilling to hit the market. And that’s likely an optimistic estimate, as, depending on problems (equipment/personnel shortages, etc) that could arise, it could take 15-20 years.

Contrary to the often repeated right wing talking point that “just talking about new drilling has caused the price of oil to drop,” this is not the case at all. The price of oil has dropped for two reasons: One, demand decreased as people started driving less and using less oil, in response to the high oil prices. Decreased demand in and of itself lead to decreased prices. Two, the big oil companies, and oil commodity traders, looked at the situation, and became frightened that if the price of oil continued to rise, people would start using even less of it, and do so on a permanent basis - a situation that would harm their profitability. They decreased prices accordingly, to prevent this from happening.

Even when the new oil does hit the market, decades down the road, the price impact will be minimal, and it will do nothing to wean the U.S. off foreign oil. The U.S. has already far surpassed its peak oil production, and, even if we open up new drilling, the new fields will barely make a dent in the decline of U.S. oil production, as thousands of old fields continue to dry up. The ONLY solution to our foreign oil problem is to move away from oil. PERIOD.

Gas prices are already a major issue in this election, but, sadly, people are buying into the “drill, drill drill” mantra. It’s important that we combat this line of thought wherever it arises. We need REAL solutions to our energy problems, some of which you can find here. More drilling will only dig us deeper into our hole, while providing a major boon for big oil.

We’d like to thank our reader for contributing these, and we’d also like to remind him (and anyone else reading this) that another consequence of drilling here is apathy - if people get lulled into thinking domestic drilling will solve our energy crisis, they won’t support efforts to develop alternative fuels because they won’t see the necessity. We literally can’t afford that. Again, this is something you should be writing your representatives about, and keep the above points in mind when confronted by someone who doesn’t see the bigger picture.