It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush's decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America's continental shelf.
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There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney exit the political stage.
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Separate studies by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Wilderness Society, a conservation group, show that roughly three-quarters of the 90 million-plus acres of federal land being leased by the oil companies onshore and off are not being used to produce energy. That is 68 million acres altogether, among them potentially highly productive leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

With that in mind, four influential House Democrats Edward Markey, Nick Rahall, Rahm Emanuel and Maurice Hinchey have introduced "use it or lose it" bills that would force the companies to begin exploiting the leases they have before getting any more. Companion bills have been introduced in the Senate, where suspicions also run high that industry's main objective is to stockpile millions of additional acres of public land before the Bush administration leaves town. -- read full article at The New York Times

There is no way offshore drilling in the United States will lower gas prices. Ever! If anything, it will prolong our addiction to oil and make the eventual break from it worse.

This latest episode though of "drill more oil!" tips the hand of those who are responsible for high oil prices. This whole thing is being orchestrated in order to garner public support for drilling oil offshore. The fact is that there have been thousands of leases and permits issued under the Bush Administration for oil companies to drill on public land yet they don't do it. Why? They like the high oil prices. It's good for them and good for Morgan Stanley who now owns the most oil futures contracts of any company trading oil.

Their drive to drill for oil off the shores of California and Florida is only for them to secure future profits. They have no interest in decreasing the price of oil.

Off shore drilling currently accounts for 25% of domestic oil production. Oil companies hold leases to vast reserves of oil in both off shore areas and land based areas. They have chosen NOT to drill in these areas so that they can hold on to that oil speculating that the price will continue to rise and they will reap better profits in the future. Meanwhile, they pump where they're at at maximum capacity and make record profits selling every drop of oil they can get. So why are politicians tying o "open up" off shore drilling? So that oil companies can obtain more leases in areas they have been restricted from getting leases. Understand, they won't be drilling there anytime soon, they just want the option to do so, so that when oil hits $200/brl they might want to increase production.

There are so many reasons why the Bush-McCain drilling plan is absurd. There are hometown reasons, like the threat to our beaches. There are national reasons, like the failure to lower gas prices. And there are global reasons, like the future of our planet.

In the end, this is a plan that brings relief to oil companies, not American families. John McCain and George Bush just don't seem to get that the future is in a green economy, renewable energy, alternative fuels and energy efficiency, not in oil. But then again, I guess we shouldn't expect anything more from a president who is an oil man and the candidate he supports, who chose to give his big energy and environment speech in Houston, oil capital of the nation.