Offshore Drilling Lowdown
President Bush and his perennial echo, John McCain, are heckling Americans to end our ban on offshore drilling to ease the pain of gasoline-price growth and all the other necessities growing more and more expensive by the day due to the trickle down effect of $130-a-barrel oil.
But, like 99% of the air coming out of Bush’s pie hole the past eight years, his words are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Offshore Reserves: 2.4 Years of Oil
The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day.
Just for kicks, here’s the top 5 countries ranked by daily oil consumption:
- United States: 20,730,000 barrels
- China: 6,534,000 barrels
- Japan: 5,578,000 barrels
- Germany: 2,650,000 barrels
- Russia: 2,500,000 barrels
- (See the rest of the list…)
In his speech pestering Americans to let his oil buddies drill offshore, Bush said: “Experts believe that the Outer Continental Shelf could produce about 18 billion barrels of oil.”
At our current consumption rate, that comes to 868 days of oil for the United States, or 2.4 years.
And remember…drilling offshore ain’t cheap. It requires millions of dollars to lease offshore drilling platforms and pay huge CEO bonuses and invest in drilling technology and pay even more huge CEO bonuses. If you think that won’t be passed all the way to the price at the pump, you’re as delusional as Bush.
All for 2.4 more good years out of America’s fleet of 16-miles-to-the-gallon Hummers.
1969 Santa Barbara Offshore Oil Blowout
And let’s not forget the reason restrictions were placed on offshore drilling in the first place: The 1969 Santa Barbara Offshore Oil Blowout, which spewed a quarter of a million gallons into an 800 square mile oil slick that coated 35 miles of California’s coast in a blanket of toxic black slime.
Bush promises it won’t happen again.
Drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Not to put a cap on his irrational pestering, Bush is also still heckling America to let his oil buddies drill all over the 19 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
For what, you ask? For the 8 billion barrels of oil estimated to lie below the surface.
That’s $1,040,000,000,000 worth of oil.
At current consumption rates, it’ll keep America running for 385 days.
Remember, if there’s an environmental disaster, your tax dollars pick up the tab and Big Oil keeps the $1.04 trillion. And either way, the oil’s all gone this time next year.
10 Years to Market
Did I say it would all be gone next year? Well, not exactly…
According to the American Petroleum Institute, if Bush and McCain get their wish and the ban on offshore drilling is lifted, it will be at least 7 to 10 years before a drop of that oil reaches the pump.
Let’s face it…U.S. Oil production peaked in 1971. It’s a fact. Cheap-to-drill oil is limited, runs out, and did run out in America over 30 years ago. It’s time to make the move to alternative sources of energy, not put off the inevitable a couple more years so Big Oil can completely bleed America dry.
Read More: offshore drilling, offshore drilling platforms, outer continental shelf, arctic national wildlife refuge, gasoline prices, offshore reserves, oil slick, daily oil consumption, George W. Bush, John McCain
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Bush and his oil friends won’t be happy until they’ve destroyed every pristine piece of wilderness in and around the US in their quest for greater personal wealth.
You said it, UK. I’ve never seen an administration so blatantly loot the country. I like this quote:
“To hear George Bush and John McCain say it, you’d think gasoline is going to run straight out of the ground and right into your car,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). “This is not a relief plan for American families, it’s a relief plan for oil companies.”
If we just eliminated the waste here we wouldn’t have to worry about all of these problems.
The rest of the world seems to get along really well on a fraction of the oil that we consume. But then again we would have to get along without gas guzzlers, live in normal sized houses and bring our own shopping bags to bring home our purchases.
Many a country’s economies run on the amount we waste.
Pelmo: that’s the good thing about high gas prices…I’m guessing we’ll see the return of the local mom and pop grocery, and a slow down in the huge Wal-Mart super centers popping up 20 miles away on the outskirts of town. Not that a few Wal-Marts are bad, but when everybody’s making 40 mile trips for their groceries, and those groceries and goods are all trucked in from China and South America…we could definitely use a culture change as far as our shopping is concerned. Maybe high gas will also spark a return of local manufacturing.
I would like to add to this that the direct correlation to lowering the price at the pump is so fucking minimal..its ridiculous. We are talking friggin pennies. Also..its market speculators that are jacking the price..its not a shortage of oil causing these ‘prices’ per barrel.
TomPaine.com has a good post up about this bullshittery:
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/offshore-drilling-comes-empty
I did enjoy this post Joe..bless you sir! ;)
Oops..I forgot to add..I was a resident of the Santa Barbara area during that meltdown, I was a junior in highschool. You have not lived until you have walked a black oil-slick beach and watched living things dying whilst covered in that ‘black gold’. And there is little if anything you can do to save them or end their misery other than killing them.
It changed me forever. Even more than watching the Bank in Isla Vista burn down.
No matter how safe oil companies are, odds are there would be at least one environmental disaster while extracting oil from the banned offshore exploratory region. But Bush and the gang are big gamblers, and we’ve let them gamble away our most prized possessions (life and liberty) time and again, so why stop now. Bet the farm, Bushie! Oh, yeah…I guess the farm has already been taken back by the bank…
Interesting article here:
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=389&Itemid=1
Regardless, I believe we have the technology to get away from oil altogether. What we lack is the will to move in that direction.
Thanks for the link, Lynne. Rahall really lays it out in black and white, doesn’t he? Seems like we should see a lot more of this attitude from Congress towards Corporations, the Military Industrial Complex, and the Executive Branch; give them a little bit, and make them use that wisely before giving them anything else. Even with financing the war, we should have locked down the money after 9 billion disappeared unaccounted for. If accused of not supporting the troops, then Congress should tell the Pentagon that their lack of accounting is hurting the troops and their lack of innitiative to fixing that problem is hurting the troops…yeah, we could all go on and on. Back to the link to the bill you sent…it’ll be interesting to see how it fares, and what excuses will be used by Big Oil-friendly Congress critters to derail it…
I don’t think the price of gas is high enough.
I’m in Salt Lake City and the cars race around me race at 65 - 75 on the freeway. They could save 30% if they drove 55. That is over a dollar a gallon.
I’m saying, a huge % of our population has not REALLY felt the effects of gas prices yet. Until they have that awareness, they won’t say much about it. Hopefully, when they do gain awareness, they will also apply that new tool to other problems that seem as out of control.
Here’s a fact that Bush and “Keating Five” McCain don’t want people to think about.
Ending the Iraq war would do far more to cut oil prices than offshore drilling.