Spring Break
9/23 Column: Offshore Drilling - A Great Idea?
Simona Li '10
Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Opinion
If you're at all environmentally-conscious, then finding out that the House Democrats passed a bill last week that lifts the 26-year ban on offshore drilling must have been a depressing discovery.
It seemed a sure sign that the Democrats were once again cowing to popular pressure however short-sighted it often is at the cost of long-term security. I was certainly as shocked as the next guy, but I forced myself to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt and am now convinced that this may have actually been the start to a brilliant new strategy.
Why now?
This summer we saw Americans get increasingly more sensitive to the issues of oil and energy as gas prices skyrocketed and then lingered in that expensive stratosphere. The longer the prices stayed up there, the more pressure there was on Congress to do something. Bush had already lifted the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling in July, and the Congressional ban would have expired September 30. The Republicans had vowed to break any ban the Democrats wanted to extend, and the overwhelming clamor by fellow Americans to permit drilling encouraged passage of the bill.
Why 50 Miles?
Defining the permitted drilling area to be at least 50 miles away from the shore provides a large buffer region between any drilling and the shoreline. Also, the further away the drilling is from land, the less likely the oil companies are to actually drill immediately or ever because setting up the necessary infrastructure becomes more difficult. Allowing the ban to expire would have given oil companies license to drill as little as 3 miles off the coast.
Oil companies may not go for it
Of course it's impossible to give a definite answer on this, but economically-speaking, this 2008 plan is far less attractive than the attempt made in 2005 to do the same thing. That plan would have encouraged states to sign on to drilling by offering them half of all the oil royalties. The bill passed last week offers no such financial incentive. If there's nothing in it for the state governments, then they don't have a reason to agree to this lose/no-win situation, is there?
It seemed a sure sign that the Democrats were once again cowing to popular pressure however short-sighted it often is at the cost of long-term security. I was certainly as shocked as the next guy, but I forced myself to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt and am now convinced that this may have actually been the start to a brilliant new strategy.
Why now?
This summer we saw Americans get increasingly more sensitive to the issues of oil and energy as gas prices skyrocketed and then lingered in that expensive stratosphere. The longer the prices stayed up there, the more pressure there was on Congress to do something. Bush had already lifted the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling in July, and the Congressional ban would have expired September 30. The Republicans had vowed to break any ban the Democrats wanted to extend, and the overwhelming clamor by fellow Americans to permit drilling encouraged passage of the bill.
Why 50 Miles?
Defining the permitted drilling area to be at least 50 miles away from the shore provides a large buffer region between any drilling and the shoreline. Also, the further away the drilling is from land, the less likely the oil companies are to actually drill immediately or ever because setting up the necessary infrastructure becomes more difficult. Allowing the ban to expire would have given oil companies license to drill as little as 3 miles off the coast.
Oil companies may not go for it
Of course it's impossible to give a definite answer on this, but economically-speaking, this 2008 plan is far less attractive than the attempt made in 2005 to do the same thing. That plan would have encouraged states to sign on to drilling by offering them half of all the oil royalties. The bill passed last week offers no such financial incentive. If there's nothing in it for the state governments, then they don't have a reason to agree to this lose/no-win situation, is there?
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