Offshore drilling is neither the cure-all that the “drill, baby, drill!” disciples extoll nor the imminent calamity that many environmentalists decry. It is only a part of the overall strategy for weaning Americans from our dependence on foreign oil. The Columbian has repeatedly endorsed two beliefs on this issue:
There’s nothing wrong with expanding offshore drilling in the right places and at the right time. Where plentiful reserves have been found and where safe, practical offshore drilling has been established as a reliable force in the regional economy, increasing production is a rational approach.
But we hasten to exclude Pacific Coast states from that sanction for many reasons, starting with the fact that in all three states, the people and their elected officials, for the most part, just don’t want it. That there is even any oil to be had off our shores (particularly in the Northwest) is a matter of speculation; solid science points to plentiful supplies elsewhere.
Therefore, President Obama’s Wednesday announcements about offshore drilling — expanding it in East Coast waters, the Gulf of Mexico and selected areas of Alaska but extending bans off the Pacific seaboard and in certain Alaskan waters — make sense to us. Associated Press Writer Ben Feller described Obama’s new policy as “aggressive and pragmatic.” We agree and would add the adjective “centrist” because — as has been the case in several other policy announcements — the president angered the strongest advocates on both opposing sides.
For example, Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity unleashed this hyperbolic rant: “Short of sending Sarah Palin back to Alaska to personally club polar bears to death, the Obama administration could not have come up with a more efficient extinction plan for the polar bear.” Oh, brother! And pro-drilling House Minority Leader John Boehner complained in a statement: “Opening up areas off the Virginia coast to offshore production is a positive step, but keeping the Pacific Coast and Alaska, as well as the most promising resources off the Gulf of Mexico, under lock and key makes no sense.”
Reality thrives somewhere between those two polarized views. As Obama said, “The answer is not drilling everywhere all the time. But the answer is not, also, for us to ignore the fact that we are going to need vital energy sources to maintain our economic growth and our security.” And the addiction to buying oil from other nations — many of questionable loyalty to the United States — has for decades been established as both foolish and dangerous.
The public’s obsession with the offshore-drilling issue recklessly ignores the long-term (and we mean very long-term) solution: clean and renewable energy to be derived from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and other sources. That goal is decades away. Meanwhile, it’s up to Americans to quench the American thirst for fossil fuels.
The public also seems distracted by the “offshore” component of this matter. Only about one-fourth of U.S. oil production is offshore; other massive reserves await exploration on dry land. As we’ve pointed out before, the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana contains an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and the Green River Formation in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado holds more than a trillion barrels.
As for environmental concerns, it helps to remember that even during the costliest storm in U.S. history — Hurricane Katrina — not one accident occurred among the 3,900 offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
A measured approach — drilling in the right places, at the right time, guided by scientists — is what’s needed as Americans pursue energy independence.
