How Opening Up Offshore Drilling Ban & ANWR Would Help America Now!
June 19th, 2008 by Damon Clifford
Bush urged congress to lift the offshore drilling ban that has been in effect since 1981 in his four point plan to reduce oil prices. Most people believe that there would be no immediate impact on oil prices.
Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn’t affect gasoline prices for at least five years.
But what happens in five years? If we haven’t done something, then we will have to wait another five before anything CAN happen. If we don’t do anything NOW, we will just continue to see oil prices rise. Something has to be done!
I do believe that it would have an immediate impact. One of the reasons why oil prices are so high right now is because of the speculators. If news came out that we were going to open up offshore drilling or even ANWR, from a psychological point of view, prices would start to drop because the speculators would have to start selling off their position because they know the prices wouldn’t be able to go much higher. I think we would start to see a decrease within weeks of an announcement.
Now at the same time, if they were to open up offshore rilling or ANWR, the environmental groups would need to be involved. I want to make sure the companies that are drilling are doing so responsibly! They can do it, it just has to be done right.
Something I wish I would have heard of more in the press conference was the integration of energy alternatives.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told FOX News on Wednesday that while the country moves to energy alternatives, like battery-operated cars, fuel supply has to be increased somehow.
I want to see more mandates on the auto companies to produce a certain amount of flex fuel, battery-operated, or another form of alternative energy vehicles so we can start to see our dependence on oil reduced.
So, open up these areas for drilling will have an immediate psychological effect on people, a promise of new oil, and bring oil prices down while the speculators exit their positions. Then, start rolling out a plan to introduce more efficient vehicles into the market. This is the path to reduce our dependence on foreign oil!
Offshore Drilling Ban
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
If we don’t drill now, in 5 years we will be paying more for gasoline, but at the same time if we drill now, the price of oil IS NOT going to drop. If you had oil, would you sell it for less than market price knowing that people would buy it anyway? I wouldn’t! But, everyone would surely ask for more efficient cars and electric cars! Those alone would drop people’s expenses! If you get a car that uses 1/2 the gas that your current car uses, and the current price of gas is $4.00, that would effectively drop your consumption to $2.00! It’s simple math. Of course if you think that it’s your right to drive a gas guzzling car at the expense of everybody else, then go right ahead, but stop complaining about the price. Your options are available right away! Of course you can always ride a scooter at 100mpg, that would really save you money.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I like that kind of math and that’s what I tell people about the one of the advantages of driving a hybrid or other fuel efficient vehicle.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Saying that that some oil from ANWR or offshore may be exported or it wont lower gas prices is a very stupid reason for not drilling there! Take an class in economics. If we export a million barrels from ANWR and import a million barrels from somewhere else, it costs us nothing. If we import a million barrels and export none it costs us 140 million dollars! Research and development of alternative energy sources is great and we should do that, but as long as we are using more oil than we are producing we need to drill as much as possible. If we end up with more oil than we need we can sell it to China to pay for all our imported lead painted toys!
“Democrats say drilling would not help because we wont get the oil for 10 years, a great argument they have been making for a decade” – Jay Leno
January 10th, 2009 at 3:00 am
And by all the talk of lifting the ban along with $ in research for alternatives, a block from me last week in Houston gas was $1.259!