Jun 2 2009, 10:22AM
How Long Will Republicans say "Yes" to the Drill?
The connection between the Republicans and oil drilling was a cliche long before Sarah Palin lead the "drill baby drill" chants during the election, but it seems to be taking on a life of its own. A recent post in the WSJ's Environmental Capital Blog highlights the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, who's hitching his political wagon to the drillbit:
"On energy, our opponents will say NO to offshore
drilling, NO to clean coal, NO to nuclear, and NO to the new jobs and
investment that come with it. When it comes to promoting energy independence: They'll just say NO, we'll just say YES!"
And while the drillbit probably looks like a wedge issue right now, it has a self-limiting characteristic, namely that Virginia's offshore reserves are estimated to be only 130 million barrels of oil, enough to supply the US for a week, according to the Washington Post.
The "drill baby drill" argument shows that the Republicans will stand up to environmentalists, but practically it's limited. After all, the US has just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, and a quarter of the world's oil demand. The Persian Gulf holds 67 percent of the world's reserves, we find ourselves playing a measly 3 percent hand in a game that may go on for 50 years. Would we be better off drilling our stores now, or holding on to them when they're rarer or worth more? It seems to me that leaving those reserves in the ground could develop into a conservative position.
What might make Republicans say "Wait" to the drill? It seems that Obama's energy efficiency and alternative fuel projects are making the Saudis fret, according to Greg Priddy of Eurasia Group, "that their hydrocarbons based economy is being undermined." If so, there is already a strong security value to the "green" measures that Obama is encouraging, the the Republicans may want go one better by creating a national security-based "olive green" movement of their own.
There are other reasons to open up previously undrilled areas to exploration. The first is to actually see what is there. The reserve estimates off Virginia or California or New England, etc., are based on old data. In places we are exploring now, we keep finding new oil (and gas!); for example, Chevron's huge deep water fields in the Gulf. Whether or not we "drill now", it would be nice to get up-to-date seismic done on our coasts (way out into deep water) just to get a better idea about what kind of reserves we actually have.
Another big reason to open up the coasts to drilling is that it provides jobs for Americans--including lots of blue collar jobs in both manufacturing and drilling.
In any case, if the coasts were open to drilling today, how long would it be before we had any actual production? That strikes me as the biggest folly of the whole "drill here drill now" gang. Drilling right now is not feasible--oil companies don't make that kind of capital investment until they feel real confident about getting good returns, and even then, the process takes a while to come to fruition.