Offshore Drilling - Is It Worth It?

Off-Shore Drilling is the process of extracting petroleum from beneath the ocean's floor. Recently, President Bush removed the executive moratorium on this procedure in hopes that offshore drilling will expand. Currently, an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil, "enough to satisfy U.S. energy needs for two and half years" is located below America's East and West Coast, as stated by "The Week."* Bush wants offshore drilling to expand and to ease our dependance on foreign oil and ultimately lower gas prices. This premise is outlined in John McCain's Lexington plan and also receives some approval from Barack Obama.

The first concern of citizens is that the oil rigs are prone to spills. The Exxon-Valdez spill and others all make citizens wary. Oil companies argue that techniques in Offshore drilling have vastly improved and oil spills that hurt tourism and are detrimental to wildlife are far less likely. Nonetheless, environmentalists counter that these rigs also emit trace chemicals from the drilling process and that these chemicals have altered the surrounding environment. According to Mineral Management Services via Enviroment Oregon*, Offshore drilling causes "erosion of wetlands, air pollution, contamination by toxic chemicals, dumping of industrial waste and debris, and the decline of fish populations."* In addition, new drilling wouldn't begin today and could take several years (although the date that oil can be extracted from newly built rigs is highly contested). Conversely, proponents cite that it doesn't matter that oil isn't being pumped tomorrow, only that Oil Speculators know that it will be pumped in a few years. This is because the price of gasoline is set by Speculators based upon the amount of oil that will be available in the future. Therefore, it is widely accepted that offshore drilling would lower gas prices. In the end, the major issues are the neccesity of lower gas prices and the trade-offs of achieving it in addition to reducing foreign oil dependance.

I personally think that this is one of the most messed up and gray area issues currently in American Politics. While I may live in a more centralized area where everything I need is close-by, many Americans are forced to commute and gas prices are going to cost them. Not to mention, industries such as trucking and airplane-travel will suffer. Nonetheless, we need to keep focused on improving public transportation, emphasizing the development of more fuel efficient engines, and expanding our use of renewable and alternative fuel thus lowering our dependance on foreign oil while we resolve this issue. Who knows, maybe we won't need the fuel in the future.

* "Offshore Drilling and the Environment". "The Week". August 22, 2008. pg. 13
** "Stop Offshore Drilling". Environment Oregon http://environmentoregon.org/issues/ocean/stop-offshore-drilling