Pelosi, Voting on Drilling & Drilling Myths

ARRA News Service is pleased to present the following guest editorial . The video provided is not from the author of the editorial but has been included by us as it is germane to the topic. Guest Editorial by an "Unnamed" Congressional Staff Member: House Republicans are continuing to maintain their floor protest this week and are likely to continue it up to the beginning of the Democrat National Convention on August 25th. They object to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to close down debate in the House and leave town without holding a vote on legislation to lower gas prices.

House and Senate staff members are constantly asked for our opinion. Unfortantely, our voices must remain anonymous. Addresses below is both a relevant question and drilling myths. First, is the pressure from the American public and Congressional Republicans finally having an impact on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s at times vehement opposition to allowing a vote on new offshore oil drilling? Let's hope so; let's examine some recent signals from press to see if Pelosi is moving off of her extreme "drilling is not in my DNA" position.

According to The Hill, Pelosi told CNN’s Larry King last night, “They have this thing that says drill offshore in the protected areas. We can do that. We can have a vote on that.” That would certainly be welcome news. Pelosi went on to say,

“But it has to be part of something that says we want to bring immediate relief to the public and is not just a hoax on them.” It’s unclear what, exactly, constitutes a hoax” in terms of relief at the pump in Pelosi’s view. Previously, she’s called offshore drilling proposals from both House Republicans and the White House “hoaxes.” . . . Pelosi had previously said she would allow a vote on drilling and then backed off. On July 30, the last day Congress was in before the August recess, she was interviewed by the Capitol Hill press corps. She was asked if she could envision a vote on drilling in new areas this year, and she answered, ‘Of course.’ But her aides later released a statement saying she was not announcing a change in her stance on a drilling vote.”

How committed Pelosi is to holding a vote remains is yet to be seen. As the summer wears on, opponents of offshore drilling seem to find themselves increasingly isolated. Today, in an editorial titled "Snake Oil," The Washington Post debunks three mainstay arguments against offshore drilling.

The first argument dismantled is one that Congressional Democrats seem to have set as an Auto Reply: “Drilling is pointless because the United States has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves.” According to The Post, “This is a misleading because it refers only to known oil reserves. According to the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), while there are an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil in the off-limits portions of the OCS, those estimates were made using old data from now-outdated seismic equipment. . . . In short, there could be much more oil under the sea than previously known.”

The Post then takes on what is often referred to as “the 68 million acres” talking point, “The oil companies aren’t using the leases they already have.” The editorial explains that a lease is listed as “producing” only when it meets a very specific government definition. Indeed, Shell has a lease off Galveston, Texas, on which it has “drilled several wells to explore the area at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars; and started constructing the necessary infrastructure to bring the oil to market,” but the lease is not yet considered to be producing. The Post goes on to write, “The notion that oil companies are just sitting on oil leases is a myth. With oil prices still above $100 a barrel, that charge never made sense.”

The third argument, that “drilling is environmentally dangerous,” is made with particular vehemence by Democrat senators from coastal states. But, The Washington Post points out, “According to the MMS, between 1993 and 2007, there were 651 spills of all sizes at OCS facilities (in federal waters three miles or more offshore) that released 47,800 barrels of oil. With 7.5 billion barrels of oil produced in that time, that equates to 1 barrel of oil spilled per 156,900 barrels produced.” The Post then makes an argument Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been pointing out: “Besides, if it is acceptable to drill in the Caspian Sea and in developing countries such as Nigeria where environmental concerns are equally important, it’s hard to explain why the United States should rule out drilling off its own coasts.”

Another point used to make the case against offshore drilling is the idea that any new oil production could not begin for around ten years. However in an editorial yesterday, Investor’s Business Daily shares that “[A] Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report says there’s a lot of offshore oil that could be produced very quickly. . . . ‘California could actually start producing new oil within a year,’ the Bernstein report said, because the oil is in shallow water, and drilling platforms have been there since before the moratoria.”

Wrapping up: The Post editorial emphasizes that “True leadership would emphasize both alternative sources and rational approaches to developing oil and natural gas.” That certainly sounds like the issue being advanced by the House Republicans and already presented by Senate Republicans’ in their “Find More, Use Less” approach. We can only hope that both Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be persuaded to allow voting by the all the members of the House and the Senate on a drilling and access by Americans to all of America's natural resources.

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Tags: Gas prices oil drilling, Harry Reid, House Republicans, house revolt, Nancy Pelosi, US Congress To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!