I just got an email from a Senate candidate that was “setting the record straight” regarding the candidate's position on drilling. It said that the candidate supported more domestic drilling, just on currently leased land and not in waters that could jeopardize tourism and fishing industries. For short-term relief for families suffering from high oil and gas prices, the candidate supports regulating speculation, closing the Enron-Dubai loopholes, a “demand” that refiners process more oil (though how that demand would be carried out remains unspecified), releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and pressuring OPEC to increase production.
I find this response stunningly weak. First, as I’ve posted before, many experts doubt speculation has been the driving force behind high oil prices. With prices so high that people are cutting back on use, I’m not sure why refineries would hold back on production; I’ve heard they’re operating pretty much at capacity. I doubt that releasing oil from the strategic reserve would be substantial enough to have more than a marginal impact on price. And we have no leverage over OPEC; we depend on their oil, so I don’t see how we can pressure them to do anything regarding production (Bush has already tried that path and failed).
But all of these positions are generally in line with the Democratic approach. They’re saying: we do support more domestic drilling, just not as much as the Republicans do. This sounds astonishingly timid, coming off as "drilling lite." The basic problem is that it concedes the idea that some drilling will help solve our oil problems, which isn’t really true but gives credence to the Republican position that more drilling is better. And unfortunately the Republican position seems to be gaining traction.
Here’s how I think Democrats should respond:
“We can drill, but anyone who says drilling is going to help us much in the short term or the long term is lying. Republicans can’t dispute that oil from new drilling won’t come onto the market for years, and anyone who thinks that today’s prices are substantially affected by the prospect of new supply of offshore oil seven years down the road is telling you a fairy tale. Sellers don’t think: gosh, there might be more of this stuff around in seven years, so I’ll lower the price now. Present price is set by present demand and present supply.
“Nor will drilling significantly affect the price when the oil does eventually come onto the market. Yes, there are substantial amounts of oil in ANWR and the outer continental shelf, but it’s not much in the global scheme of things. So the effect on price even in the long term will be minimal. We import about 65% of our oil, so even if we increased our own production by 50%, we’d still be importing over half our oil. That’s not a big improvement.
“The facts simply don’t support more drilling, and so the Republican proposals for drilling everywhere we can won’t solve our gas problem. They will, however, make a lot of money for oil companies (Exxon reported another record quarterly profit yesterday).
“If we’re honest, we’ll admit that there’s not much we can do about current high oil and gas prices. What we can do is start making different choices so that we don’t wind up in this situation again. One thing we can do is encourage people to buy better cars. If the price of gas goes up 40%, you don’t pay one penny more to drive around if your car is 40% more efficient. And it won’t take new technology: European fuel standards are already at over 40 miles per gallon, while we’re still in the low 20s. So the technology is here; we just have to decide to use it.
"And by the time that offshore oil would be coming onto the market, we should be transitioning to cars that are not only more efficient but cars that don’t need oil at all: cars that run on electricity, fuel cells, biofuels, or other technologies. We can make that transition—if we start now.
“The choice is between the past and the future. Republicans are offering the choices of the past: easy choices that don’t work and have led to this situation. Or we can make different choices: better choices that require us to start doing things differently and will leave all of us better in the long run.
“There is no need to wait to start making better choices. If we care about ending our oil dependency, we’ll start making better choices today. If we care about improving our economy, we’ll start making better choices today. If we care about bringing Iran to the bargaining table, we’ll start making better choices today (and waiting at least seven years for domestic offshore oil is far too late). If we care about reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, we’ll start making better choices today.
“And the better choices are about using oil more efficiently and them moving off of it, not indiscriminant drilling that won’t have any effect for seven years if at all.
“This oil crunch will probably ease somewhat eventually. But prices also probably will never return to where they were. We should try to help those families who have no choice but to spend 15% of their income on gas. But we also need to start making decisions, at both the personal and governmental levels, that will keep us from ending up in this situation again.
“Republicans are offering a choice that won’t do much to end our oil dependency or help with today’s prices but will be great for oil companies. Democrats are offering a smarter, better solution—one that might actually work for us domestically, internationally, and environmentally. If we choose it.”
At least that’s what I’d hope Democrats would say. They don’t seem to be saying it yet. Personally, I think it comes off better than looking like a weaker version of the Republican pro-drilling agenda. And it has the added advantage of being true.
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