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By: INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted: Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Last Updated: 4:20 PM PT
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Energy Independence: President Bush asks Congress to lift the 1981 drilling ban on offshore oil. The no-drill Democrats will call it flip-flopping. We call it change you can believe in.
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IBD Series: Breaking The Back Of High Oil
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In a speech in Houston on Tuesday that critics dissed as pandering to Big Oil, GOP presidential candidate John McCain said we "must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. . . . But a federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift those restrictions."
McCain previously opposed offshore drilling and remains opposed to oil exploration in the frozen tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But that was before $130-a-barrel oil and $4-a-gallon gasoline, factoids that threaten both our economy and national security.
On Wednesday, Bush took the lead, also changing his position somewhat to address the growing energy threat to our security. He asked Congress to lift its 27-year-old moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling. In 1981, Congress added a rider to a spending bill that barred energy leasing on 85% of the Outer Continental Shelf surrounding the contiguous 48 states.
Congress has extended the moratorium every year since by prohibiting the Interior Department from spending money on offshore oil or gas leases in virtually all coastal waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico and in some areas off Alaska.
President George H.W. Bush issued a parallel executive order banning drilling in 1990. That was extended by President Clinton and then again by Bush the younger. It extends to 2013.
"For many Americans, there is no more pressing concern than the price of gasoline," Bush said Wednesday from the White House Rose Garden. "Truckers and farmers, small-business owners have been hit especially hard. Every American who drives to work, purchases food or ships a product has felt the effect, and families across the country are looking to Washington for a response."
The Democratic response has been to call for more taxes on oil companies and to pressure, even sue, OPEC. A group of 10 Democratic senators led by Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, joined by one independent, on Tuesday called for Bush to file a complaint against OPEC with the WTO. Wow. That'll lower pump prices.
The Democrats and their standard bearer, Barack Obama, talk a lot about change, but it seems Republicans have the political courage to change in the face of strategic necessity.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a former supporter of the offshore ban, has changed his position as well. "I mean, let's face it, the price of gas has gone through the roof, and Florida families are suffering," Crist said Tuesday. "My heart bleeds for them."
A bleeding-heart Republican — imagine that!
Crist added: "We're a tourist state. We have to protect the beauty of Florida, but we still need to have people have the opportunity to drive here and be able to drive here and be able to afford to."
According to the Department of the Interior, more than 7 billion barrels of oil have been produced in federal waters since 1985, with less than one one-thousandth of a percent spilled.
It's likely that more oil has been leaked by cars, SUVs and motor homes traveling to these pristine beaches, or from the boats and jet skis rented by tourists, than is being leaked or will be leaked getting the oil to fuel them.
Eric Draper, policy director for Audubon of Florida, warns: "If you had an oil leak out there, an explosion, you would end up damaging all the beaches on the Gulf Coast." The only explosion in the Gulf has been an explosion of marine life around the offshore platforms that act as artificial reefs.
Never mind that off the coast of Louisiana, not far from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 3,200 offshore oil platforms survived Katrina without leaking a drop of oil. One hundred eight platforms were destroyed and hundreds more damaged in the Gulf of Mexico without a single drop spilled.
California and its governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, still oppose offshore drilling and won't go after the 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off their coast, largely because of an oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969. Drilling technology has advanced quite a bit since then, and our energy needs have also grown. Yet we are producing the same amount of domestic oil we did in 1948.
Two House Republicans previously opposed to drilling in ANWR, Jim Walsh of New York and Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, recently announced that they would now support drilling there. "There will be environmental impact," Bartlett said, "(but) I believe the environmental impact pales compared to the need."
Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., offered an amendment a year ago to permit offshore drilling. It was defeated 233-196 by drill-nothing Democrats. He tried again on June 11 to permit drilling in U.S. waters 50 to 250 miles offshore. That measure failed by a 9-6 party-line vote in a House appropriations subcommittee.
As we've said, Democrats are quite content to send half a trillion dollars annually to despots who are not always friendly. "In effect," McCain said Monday, "our petrodollars are underwriting tyranny, anti-Semitism, the brutal repression of women in the Middle East, and dictators and criminal syndicates in our own hemisphere." And that's the way the Democrats want to keep it.
Maybe we can't drill our way completely out of our energy dilemma, but we can get every drop of domestic oil we can. American oil for American cars, American factories and American jobs: The GOP wants to drill for it; the Democrats don't.
What a simple choice this November.
Special Series:
Breaking The Back of High Oil
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