Why John McCain's plan to drill our way out of the energy crisis will fail
Today the Washington Post reported that John McCain has a solution to America's energy crisis: Drill more oil by opening up more federal lands. The solution is not surprising, given that Sen. McCain has taken nearly $1 million dollars in contributions from Big Oil so far this year.
There's only one problem: There is no guarantee that the leases will be drilled. And even if they are drilled, there is no guarantee that the oil won't be sold to foreign nations. Second, the plan is little more than a continuation of Dick Cheney's 2001 energy plan.
The flaw in McCain's plan is that it relies on the oil industry to actually drill for oil on the land that it leases. It assumes that we have a competitive market for oil and that large mulitinational oil companies will rush to drill once the lands are made available.
This assumption is highly unlikely. According to a new report by the Congressional Committee on Natural Resources, oil companies could immediately begin harvesting an estimated 4.8 million barrels of oil each day from existing leases on U.S. lands. The report notes that according to the federal Minerals Management Service, 79% of the USA's underground/undersea oil supply is already available for leasing.
"Drill Our Way Out of It" is not a new idea. In fact, it is a very old idea crafted entirely by the oil industry in an effort to keep the USA dependent on imported oil for the next 50 years. "Drill Our Way Out of It" is Dick Cheney's original, failed energy policy of 2001 (click here to read the actual policy). It should be noted that the Cheney Plan was crafted entirely by oil and energy industry executives (source) including convicted energy criminal Ken Lay, who was later identified as a key participant in creating the rolling blackout energy crisis of 2001.
For years the oil industry has used a similar argument to "Drill Our Way Out" to explain high gas prices. For example, it has repeatedly stated that "no refineries have been built in the last 35 years." This is a carefully crafted statement that is intended to deceive voters into thinking that the government is rejecting refinery applications.
The reality is that the oil industry doesn't want to build new refineries because more refineries mean more gasoline. More gasoline means the price of gas goes down, and that's bad for profits. If the industry really wanted to build more refineries, it could have taken advantage of George Bush's 2005 energy plan, which made abandoned military bases available to oil companies that wanted to build refineries. To date, not a single company has taken Mr. Bush up on his generous offer.
So far, Big Oil's phony supply side arguments have worked. Millions of Americans believe that the solution to high gas prices is to let the industry build more refineries. Now, Big Oil is using the same distorted lie to explain high oil prices by suggesting that we can drill our way out of this mess by exploiting treasured national parks.
And unfortunately, Sen. McCain believes them.
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Mr Langley is perpetuating a fraud
A fraud was created by the House Committee on Natural Resources claiming that 4.8 million barrels of additional oil can be produced from the 68 million acres of non-producing leases. The 4.8 million figure is completely bogus because the method to derive the amount is a total fraud.
The fraud was created by the House Committee on Natural Resources, with their June 2008 special report, which was released 18 June 2008. The report provides neither data.or method. I had been trying for 10 weeks to obtain the method. On the rare occasion when someone at CNR would answer the telephone, I was shuffled off to someone else resulting in voice mail and never a return call. Previous attempts through Rahall\'s office were always back to the CNR switchboard. This time I told Rahall\'s district staffer I had been trying for 10 weeks and that I watched Rahall on CSPAN talk about this great openness that now exists.
The confirmation as to the CNR method was from Katherine Romans, Policy Section, House Committee on Natural Resources. The confirmation started with a 25 September 2008 telephone call to her that was made via Rahall\'s district office. I finally came up with the method on my own and Ms Romans confirmed that I was correct in her 26 Sepember 2008 email to me, which is below
The Method
- created a percentage of non-producing acreage to producing acreage for the two lease types, onshore and offshore
- multiplied each percentage by the amount of daily production from each of the two lease types that produce oil
- added the two numbers together
The method is fraud for no one in oil and gas or the government agencies that provide production estimates to the government (US Geological Survey, Energy Information Administration, Minerals Management Service) would ever use such a method. Production estimates are based on estimated reserves, which Mr Feldgus did not use. Production estimates are always given with a low, mean and high amounts, which reflects the uncertainty yet Mr Feldgus issued a single number, which denotes certainty. Production estimates are uncertain because the amount of oil is uncertain and is reflected in reserves being comprised also of three amounts of low, mean and high. The difference between high and low are in the billions of barrels. As a professional staffer who deals with energy matter, Mr Feldgus knows how production estimates are made and why so for him use the method that he did is fraud and he knows it. There is not one shred of validity in the method Mr Feldgus used.
The amount and method was the creation of Steve Fledgus, staffer on the CNR subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources. On the afternoon of 2 September 2008, Debroah (subcommittee Energy and Minerals) confirmed to me, by telephone, that the data came from Materials Management Service but did not say what the data was. I called back the same afternoon to the subcommittee and spoke to one of the other two subcommittee female staffers who said Steve Feldgus did the work. I left a voice mail twice with Mr Feldgus for the method but did not return my telephone call.
America can not continue using oil as we have and we can not produce enough oil to get us to energy independance. New sources of energy are needed as well as increased efficiencies. But oil and gas will still be the dominate sources even in 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration and even the Wilderness Society.
Though I live in Houston, I do not work in oil and gas and I am not an operative for any group. I am one citizen who delved deeply into the condition of our nation\'s oil and gas.
If you want verification, contact HCNR (202-225-6065) and ask for the method and all of the needed data? Also ask them to explain the validity of their method when no other organization would use it
Partisan politics is the way the system works because there are different views on issues but that does not give anyone in Congress the right to lie and perpetrate a fraud to further any cause.
Regards,
Charles Moore
Houston, Tx
bush..mccain...same person?
i completely agree with her,, i was actually going to say the same thing that is absolutely correct...
they denied bush every time he tried to pass a law,, and why bc he is a democrat not a republican,, or is it the other way around..
either way congress honestly needs to jsut let us drill, for some poor poeple it would be alot easier to get around if gas was cheaper so why not do it now . :D
well the reason why is bc
well the reason why is bc people say he is just like bush... no one really likes bush, so why would we want another one of him... its called a new presidintial election for a reason...
and i would like to add that all he can do is try and pss laws and they denied bush they will deny him too : )
so maybe people should think again
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