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More oil drilling isn't the answer

Drilling alone will only stoke our national addiction - and further drain our precious, remaining oil reserves.

By BOB GRAHAM
Published July 23, 2006

The U.S. House last month adopted two principles of American energy policy: It voted to open vast areas of the Gulf of Mexico to oil extraction and it refused to consider any increase in vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

Together, these represented a recommitment to drain America first.

This hollow policy is nonsustainable and destructive. Including estimated oil under the gulf, America sits on 3 percent of the world's known petroleum reserves while consuming 25 percent of the world's production. The date when we will have exhausted our domestic oil and will be fully dependent on foreign sources will be accelerated by the House decisions.

Rather than continuing to drill first and conserve never, America should stretch our remaining oil supply while we fundamentally shift to a long-term strategy that will move America beyond oil.

And we can begin down that path in the coming days when the U.S. Senate also will be asked to significantly expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lawmakers are understandably concerned about sky-high energy prices and America's oil addiction. But in the coming debate, they can demonstrate a true vision by also focusing on the array of strategies to begin transitioning our country from fossil fuels to alternative, renewable forms of energy - from wind and solar energy to fuels made from corn, sugar and wood chips. And in order to restart America's nuclear generation, we must resolve such issues as safety and the disposal of spent fuels.

The solutions for America's energy crisis are clear if we simply accept the realities of our present predicament. But so far we have refused to embrace a coherent policy that would put us squarely on the superhighway toward weaning ourselves from oil by focusing on cheaper, cleaner and faster forms of alternative energy and on more efficiency in our vehicles, homes and office buildings.

Instead, the House voted to end a quarter-century moratorium on drilling in most waters outside the Gulf of Mexico, opening up waters to drilling as close as 50 miles from our Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. That bill would allow states to restrict drilling for as much as 100 miles offshore - or to permit drilling as close as 3 miles.

A proposal before the Senate is less sweeping, but it nevertheless would lift the federal offshore production ban in some 8-million acres - or about the size of the state of Maryland.

The debate over whether to expand domestic exploration obscures the imperative that drilling off our coasts must be regarded as the last resort, not the first resort. Neither the House nor the Senate proposal meets this mandate.

The drill-first-and-ask-questions-later mentality is precisely what got us here in the first place. That's because America in the early 1970s began to strictly curtail oil imports, which forced us to draw deeper on our own, already-scarce resources. In the short run, that approach provided a sense of national security. In reality, it made us even more vulnerable to pressures from abroad.

Drilling alone will only stoke our national addiction - and further drain our remaining oil reserves. Eventually that would leave us totally and permanently dependent on foreign oil.

There is another approach.

Let us commit to an organizing principle that would stretch our domestic supplies to last for a predetermined number of years - say, three generations, or about 75 years - the time it takes to make the technical and even more challenging cultural transitions from a petroleum-driven America.

Such a goal can be accomplished by limiting the domestic extraction of oil to an amount that will still leave us years of at least partial self-sufficiency.

To meet that goal, we would have to reduce domestic production, not increase it. Such a reduction would serve as a powerful engine that accelerates conservation and the development of alternative energy sources. Along the way, we would slow, stop and reverse global warming pollution.

In his second inaugural address, Ronald Reagan vowed to slash the massive budget deficits, asking all Americans: "If not us, who? And if not now, when?"

More than two decades later, those questions are no less relevant as we contemplate America's energy future. If we rise to the challenge, we will leave a legacy that ensures a clean, safe and bright future for our children and grandchildren.

-- Former Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, also served as Florida's governor. He is author of Intelligence Matters and chairs the Graham Center on Public Policy at the universities of Florida and Miami.

[Last modified July 23, 2006, 06:26:17]