Drilling

One of the things that bugs the Hell out of me about the current “energy debate” is how our loyal, patriotic, and oh-so-concerned-about-OUR-welfare Democrats distort… nay, totally misrepresent… the issue of domestic oil drilling. There IS a Democrat Party Line in this space and it goes something like this (from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, via The Obamanon’s web site):

Oil companies, he said, already have drilling rights to millions of acres of federal land, "and yet they haven't touched it," Obama said. "John McCain wants to give them more when they're not using what they already have."

The companies ought to pay a fine on drilling rights they're holding but not using, he said.

Well, now. That Las Vegas speech drew some attention from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal Monday:

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."

Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that?

Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Nick Rahall and others writing Congressional energy policy. As a public service, here's a remedial education.

[…]

To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban – and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong – Democrats also say that most of the current leases are "nonproducing." The idea comes from a "special report" prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Resources Committee, chaired by Mr. Rahall. "If we extrapolate from today's production rates on federal lands and waters," the authors write, the oil companies could "nearly double total U.S. oil production" (their emphasis).

In other words, these whiz kids assume that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. Yet the existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research quips that, using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently nonproducing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day.

There’s much more at the link, and it's all good. Whenever I see or hear the Democrats’ arguments against domestic drilling, I naturally assume they’re both arrogant and insulting. Arrogant because they truly believe they have the only answer(s) to our energy problems, and they most certainly don’t. And they (Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Emmanuel) are insulting because they obviously expect me to believe this shit. Why else would they repeat the same erroneous, discredited crap over and over and over again? And they know they’re wrong, too. Further from the WSJ:

Yet companies are not allowed to explore where the biggest prospects for oil and gas may exist – especially on the Outer Continental Shelf. Seven of the top 20 U.S. oil fields are now located in analogous deepwater areas (greater than 1,000 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Chevron discovered what is likely to be the largest American oil find since Prudhoe, drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor. The Wilcox formation may have an upper end of 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and should begin producing by 2014 – perhaps ushering in a new ultradeepwater frontier.

Likewise, in April, the U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate for the Bakken Shale, underneath the badlands of North Dakota and Montana. The new assessment – as much as 4.3 billion barrels of oil – is a 25-fold increase over what the Survey believed in 1995. Such breakthroughs confirm that very large reserves exist, if only Congress would let business get at them.

All of which has Democrats sweating bullets. The leadership is desperate to avoid debating a Department of Interior spending bill, because they know Republicans will offer amendments lifting the drilling moratorium that may peel off some Democrats. Last week, Chairman David Obey shut down the Appropriations Committee rather than countenance more domestic energy production. Given Democratic energy illiteracy, this is a fight the GOP can win if it keeps up the pressure.

Sweating bullets, indeed. Some Blue Dog Dems are already raising red flags to the House leadership. Like this (from yesterday’s The Hill):

Lampson penned a letter to House Democratic leaders last week asking them to chart a completely new course.

“The rancor and incivility with which this debate has been waged thus far has overshadowed the true policy concerns we must address and is unacceptable to the American people who look to us for leadership and solutions,” Lampson wrote. “We will not be able to accomplish anything, let alone lead our nation to energy independence, if we are unable to have a civil debate and are unwilling to allow all options on the table.”

But Lampson’s plea may have — at least for the time being — fallen on deaf ears.

The same day Lampson issued his letter, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared her caucus united and ready to fight against Republican efforts to open up more coastal areas to exploration.

Representative Lampson is from Texas, by the way, a Big Oil state. And he is vulnerable this coming November, too. So…some Dems get it, especially when there’s “enlightened self-interest” at work, eh? I mean… look at the tea leaves. The puzzlement is in the Dems steadfast refusal to change their policies. OTOH, it’s just that ol’ Democrat arrogance, ain’t it? They’re right and damn the facts or what Americans think.

Business as usual.