Offshore drilling: short-term fix, not a solution
by Benjamin Ossoff | Asheville Citizen-Times | August 20, 2008
. . . drilling off our shores is not a solution but a futile short-term action to no benefit.
ONLINE COMMENT TO LTE:
Straw man argument.
Offshore drilling is not intended to be a "solution." It is one of many means of increasing domestic oil supply. This is a positive value and the marketplace should be unleashed to pursue it. Increases in supply help to satisfy demand and lower prices.
If offshore drilling was indeed a "short-term action" with no prospect of any benefit to any parties, then a free market would take pains to avoid that and any other similar action.
FURTHER READING
Investigate Big Congress, Not Big Oil
by Alex Epstein. "With gasoline prices exceeding $4 a gallon in some states, politicians are responding as usual: Blame Big Oil First..."
Open ANWR Already!
by Jon Basil Utley | Reason Magazine | August 14, 2008. The media constantly repeat the claim that it would take a decade to get the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) into oil production and about as long for offshore continental oil to start flowing. Most accounts promote the views of extreme environmentalists to make the issue appear so hopeless that we must instead "change our way of life" rather than tap into proven oil reserves. In July, CNN repeatedly reported that offshore drilling would take "seven to 10 years" to get into production. Yet Brazil's Petrobras expects its new finds in extraordinarily deep waters to already be producing 100,000 barrels per day in just two years. What is wrong with American oil companies that they would take so long?...
