Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) has filed an amendment to the Democrat “No Energy” bill to force energy companies that currently own oil and natural gas leases to either “use it or lose it.” This rhetoric may make people think Democrats are getting tough on oil companies, but the truth is the federal government is getting in the way of companies who are trying to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
What Bingaman doesn’t want people to know is that after a company buys a lease, it still needs to get a permit to drill (APD) from the Bureau of Land Management for each hole a company wants to drill. While the permit process should take no more than 120 days, it often takes months and sometimes even years for the federal bureaucracy to complete a single permit. Meanwhile, extreme environmental groups bring frivolous lawsuits against the company to prevent it from drilling.
Over at National Review's The Corner, the title of Larry Kudlow's blog post today reads: "Bush Says Drill, Drill, Drill — and Oil Drops $9!" So, what about all that liberal talk about how allowing new drilling now won't make a difference for at least a decade? Looks like it was just talk, according to Kudlow's blog post:
In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136...
FOX News reports that 63 percent of all oil in U.S. waters comes from natural seepage, 32 percent comes from consumers (boaters, jetskiers, etc.) and only 1 percent comes from offshore drilling. They also note that the U.S. Coast Guard has documented a dramatic reduction in oil spills in the last 30 years as environmentally friendly drilling technology has advanced.
Sens. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) followed Sen. DeMint to the floor Thursday afternoon to urge the Senate to make energy its top priority. Watch the clips of their speeches below:
USA Today: “Drilling in ANWR and offshore is an important piece of any long-term strategy to make the nation less vulnerable to oil-producing nations and supply disruptions. It is one of many imperfect steps needed to both increase the supply of oil and curb the demand for it, while seeking energy alternatives.”
The Washington Post: “FOR THE PAST quarter of a century, the federal government has banned oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters. Efforts to relax the ban have been repelled on environmental grounds, but it is time to revisit this policy. Canada and Norway, two countries that care about the environment, have allowed offshore drilling for years and do not regret it. Offshore oil rigs in the western Gulf of Mexico, one of the exceptions to the ban imposed by Congress, endured Hurricane Katrina without spills. The industry's safety record is impressive, and it's even possible that the drilling ban increases the danger of oil spills in coastal waters: Less local drilling means more incoming traffic from oil tankers, which by some reckonings are riskier. Although balancing energy needs with the environment is always hard, the prohibition on offshore extraction cannot be justified.”
Wall Street Journal: “Yet companies are not allowed to explore where the biggest prospects for oil and gas may exist – especially on the Outer Continental Shelf. Seven of the top 20 U.S. oil fields are now located in analogous deepwater areas (greater than 1,000 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Chevron discovered what is likely to be the largest American oil find since Prudhoe, drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor. The Wilcox formation may have an upper end of 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and should begin producing by 2014...
Critics have been trying to make this point for some time now but here's a news report (discovered via HotAir.com), confirming what many of us had already suspected: ethanol simply doesn't provide the level of energy that gasoline does -- so when it's added to the fuel you purchase at the pump, you pay more fill to up and have to fill up more often.