Offshore Drilling Move Muddies Obama’s Relationship to Oil and Gas

In a move that has drawn criticism from virtually all sides, President Obama today proposed opening up vast areas of previously off-limits ocean to offshore oil and gas drilling.

Interestingly, this comes only a week after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed including the oil and gas industries among those industries that will be required to report carbon dioxide emissions beginning in 2011. When it comes to oil, the administration appears to be opening some doors while closing some windows.

“It’s like saying, ‘You want to quit smoking? Here, have a carton of cigarettes,’” said Jacqueline Savitz, a senior campaign director with environmental non-profit Oceana. “Not only does it make it harder to quit, it increases your chances of getting cancer.

"The same thing is true here. If we’re trying to quit oil, why are we going to open up new areas to oil and gas production?”

The new proposals would open up offshore areas along the northern coast of Alaska, the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico, and a huge swath of the Atlantic Ocean stretching from the northern tip of Delaware down to central Florida. The last portion alone is about 167 million acres, while areas of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic Ocean make up about 130 million acres.

Potential for Disaster

Critics on the left say that allowing drilling operations in these areas increases the risks of incredibly damaging oil spills, as well as other potential problems.

“Any offshore drilling also necessitates industrialization of the coast,” said Mike Daulton, director of conservation policy at the National Audubon Society. “There is always onshore infrastructure to support offshore drilling, so there is industrialization and oil spill risk on shore as well as off shore.”

Daulton said that major oil spills might be the most visible image of oil drilling’s risks, but “the release of toxic substances and oil residues on a constant, ongoing basis is a constant threat. But the major oil spill is in fact a risk, and one major oil spill is all it would take to significantly damage the coastal community and environment.”

Wrapped up in all that risk is the well-established fact that drilling in these offshore regions simply wouldn’t change much in terms of overall oil production and imports.

“We can’t drill our way to energy independence,” Daulton said. “And we think this perpetuates that myth — that we can drill our way to energy security. The facts show that this would have no impact on gas prices and energy security.”

In his announcement today, Obama described the move as being "part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy." But the president also stressed: "We have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves; we consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil. And what that means is that drilling alone can’t come close to meeting our long-term energy needs. And for the sake of our planet and our energy independence, we need to begin the transition to cleaner fuels now."

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, maintaining the moratoria rather than drilling in the restricted areas would increase gas prices in 2030 by all of 3 cents per gallon.

“I could come up with a list of 1,000 different things that will have a bigger impact on the U.S. economy in one way or the other,” said Michael Levi, director of the program on energy security and climate change at think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

“It strikes me as primarily a political move rather than a move that will have an impact on oil markets.”

Political Effects