Drilling Down on Republican Rhetoric on Gas Prices
06/12/2008
The Republican answer to our gas crisis is only “drill more.” They say Congress needs to act to open up more land to the oil companies.
But that’s really a solution in search of a problem.
- The fact is there are 68 million acres onshore and offshore in the U.S. that are leased by oil companies—open to drilling and actually under lease—but not developed.
- The fact is 80 percent of the oil available on the Outer Continental Shelf is already open for leasing—but the oil companies haven't decided it’s worth their money to drill there.
- The fact is that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge wouldn’t yield any oil for 10 years—and then would only save the consumer 1.8 cents per gallon in 2025.
- All told, the U.S. has only 1.6 percent of world's known oil supply. But every day, Americans use a quarter of the world’s daily oil consumption.
So the fact is, we CAN'T drill our way out of this problem.
But we do have unlimited amounts of sunshine, wind, biofuels, biomass, and geothermal heat—and the American ingenuity to discover new ways to power the world, to grow these industries, to create hundreds of thousands of high paying green job—and to become a lot more energy independent.
But that will require Republicans moving into the 21st century… and not standing in the way of incentives to boost the AMERICAN renewables industry.