Offshore Oil Drilling is No Energy Fix

Statement

Offshore Oil Drilling is No Energy Fix

By Congresswoman Lois Capps

Published in the San Luis Obispo Tribune

This week I voted against opening California's coastline to new drilling. I did so because I simply cannot support the myth that a lack of offshore drilling is at the root of our energy problems.

President Bush was right when he said our country is addicted to oil. The U. S. is like the alcoholic who says they need just one more drink to get them through the day and then tomorrow they will stop. And this recent effort to open up the entire U. S. coast to more drilling looks to me a lot like a problem drinker in denial.

The relentless and disingenuous attempt to drill our way to energy security is doomed to failure. The U. S. consumes 25 percent of the world's oil and yet we have only 3 percent of the world's supply. Do the math. Or better yet, just look at recent history.

Seven and a half years ago, President Bush took office promising to make America energy independent. But his energy policy has mostly been about enabling our addiction to fossil fuels by focusing only on increasing domestic oil and gas supplies.

For example, between 2001 and 2007, the Bush Administration offered 343 million acres of leases for offshore drilling, selling more than 33 million acres to oil and gas companies. And over the last five years, the Republican-controlled Congress gave the president approval for new leasing in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. In fact, the U. S. has more oil and gas rigs operating today than the entire rest of the world.

Meanwhile, President Bush paid lip service to conservation, neatly summed up by Vice President Cheney's ridiculous remark that "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." When Congressional Republicans needed to reduce the cost of their "landmark" 2005 energy bill, they slashed support for renewables and energy efficiency, but left intact tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for already rich oil companies.

The results haven't been pretty: in 2000, the U. S. imported 53 percent its oil; today, that figure is 59 percent. And while consumers pay record high prices at the pump, oil companies are racking up record high profits. Exxon-Mobil's last quarterly profits were $11 billion, the largest in human history.

For years, Democrats tried to convince the Republicans that real energy security would be found by making our cars, buildings and appliances more efficient; by dramatically speeding up the development of renewable and alternative energy sources; and by beginning the long, hard transition away from fossil fuels that imperil our economy, damage our planet and come mostly from unstable countries all too often wishing us harm. Those arguments were all rejected by the president and his supporters in Congress, leaving us where we are today.

It's no surprise that I don't want to see more oil rigs off the South and Central Coast. Many of us witnessed firsthand the devastation of the Platform A blowout in 1969. We saw the dead birds and seals, the beaches covered with oil, the land that we love so much nearly destroyed.

In the years since oil accidents and drilling-based pollution here have been plentiful. Exxon-Mobil recently agreed to pay almost $3 million for releasing dangerous PCBs into the Santa Barbara Channel from Platform Hondo. Greka Oil has been polluting our local creeks with toxic runoff and countless oil spills, looking like it got its environmental policies straight from the movie "There Will Be Blood." There was also the Torch pipeline explosion in 1997 and the decades-long pollution that required rebuilding the entire town of Avila Beach. And that's not even including the impacts on our air and water quality we deal with every day.

So, yes, we don't want more of that.

Even so, my opposition to new offshore drilling is mostly because it is simply not in the best interests of this country. The longer we try to fool ourselves into believing that this time new drilling will bring us lower prices and that we still have plenty of time to get ourselves off this oil addiction, the tougher the day of reckoning will be. Our economy will continue to be at the whim of dictators, global warming will continue unabated, and the decisions to send our troops in harm's way will too often be tainted by the stench of oil politics.

And just so we are clear, this "American" oil we want to drill for is more likely to end up in gas tanks in Beijing or Calcutta than in Cayucos or Oxnard because oil markets are global. The multinational oil companies sinking their rigs off California sell oil to the highest bidder. That is why the Bush administration has admitted that even opening the entire U. S. coastline to more drilling would have virtually no impact on oil prices.

We need to end our addiction to fossil fuels and we need to start now. Expanded drilling off our coasts will not bring us closer to that goal.

Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, represents the 23rd District in Congress, which includes parts of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Source