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Originally Posted by meteotrade
Ugh. How many times does it have to be pointed out that opening up more areas to drilling will have NO SHORT TERM IMPACT on gasoline prices?
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But that's short-sighted: We should not pursue longer-term initiatives because they can't deliver near-immediate results? If we had started drilling 15 years ago, we'd be be done already. But we didn't then, because it would take too long.
I know folks are sensitive to disrupting this gloriously-named "National Wildlife Refuge", but in reality we're talking about allowing drilling operations on a parcel of land less than size of Laconia, in a wildlife refuge the size of South Carolina tucked in the northern-most corner of Alaska that already bears a striking resemblance to the surface of another planet. We're not talking about doing this off the front porch of your lake house during Loon mating season.
Regarding the argument that oil companies aren't drilling on land they already have available is because there isn't a sufficient quantity or quality of oil under those leased parcels. Upwards of 60% of the wells drilled in those areas came up dry. DRY. How many dry wells do you expect them to drill? That's why they want to go offshore -- where the oil is.
Finally, China has the ability to drill off the coast of Cuba into a pocket of oil that also sits off our Florida coast. China can take that oil, but our Congress won't allow Florida the option of letting our own interests extract it. That just doesn't make much sense to me. And it sounds good to say it will take 15 years, but drillers in the Gulf with existing infrastructure note that they can get at that oil in as little as 6 months and no more than 16 months. Drillers without existing infrastructure in place note that there is no oil off our coasts that they can't get to in less than 6 years. Six. That doesn't really scream "too long" to me.
But you are correct, Oil is only one side of the equation. $4 gas is here to stay and will certainly spur a long-overdue drive to bring new technologies to the market. But we need to pursue both sides in parallel. Something that our designated representatives in Washington have been both unable and unwilling to grasp.
