On October 1st, the moratorium on offshore drilling that has protected our coasts since 1981 expired when Congress failed to include it as a part of the continuing budget resolution adopted last month. In essence, Congress wasn’t able to come to an agreement on the scope of a plan to open additional offshore acreage to drilling, so they punted the issue to the next Congress and administration.
We do not expect this to be the end of the debate. The moratorium could very well be restored by a new Congress and a new president – who understand that more offshore drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices or solve our energy and climate crisis.
Here’s why the environmental community opposes it: Offshore drilling has become a politically popular symbol for our failed status quo energy policy. Chants of “drill, baby, drill” suggest that if we could just tap our offshore resources, we could go back to the halcyon days of cheap gas and gas-guzzling SUVs. But as much as some Americans might wish it, there are many reasons why that is a time we will not see again.
From an environmental perspective, the most compelling reason for not expanding drilling off our coast is climate change. The risks associated with our continued reliance on fossil fuels threaten to inundate coastal cities around the world as sea levels rise. Changes in climate will result in more severe weather events – including droughts and floods that impact agriculture and our food supply. Unless we act to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, the impacts of climate change will be extremely harmful to the environment and to our economy.
From both an economic and national security perspective, expanding offshore drilling makes no sense. The United States consumes 25 percent of the world’s oil, yet even including the best estimates of how much oil may lie off our coasts, we have less that 5 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Simply put, we cannot drill our way out of this problem.
Because we consume more oil than we could ever hope to produce domestically, we have become increasing reliant on foreign sources of oil, resulting in billions of U.S. dollars being sent overseas, in many cases enriching countries that are not our friends.
Furthermore, oil is an international commodity with prices established based upon demand around the world. As China, India and the developing countries seek economic prosperity based on our fossil fuel-dependent model, demand will only increase, outstripping supply and causing prices to increase.
Unfortunately, the daunting reality of climate change and increased risk to the security and economic well-being of our nation is obscured by the deluge of slick advertising by the oil industry, which together with the oil exporting nations, are the only ones who will benefit from our continued dependence on oil.
There is a better way. Moving aggressively to invest in efficiency and renewable energy, we can stimulate our flagging economy and create millions of new jobs as we tackle global warming and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. Investments in efficiency are the cheapest source of energy; the energy we don’t use. Wind and solar energy are free and right here at home, and the technology we develop in advancing a green clean energy future can offer an alternative development model to China, India and the world that addresses global warming.
Once the politically-charged election season is over, the Congress and a new president must get down to the urgent business of adopting a national energy and climate protection policy that can restore our economy and address global warming. There should be no room in that policy for expanded offshore drilling.
Glen Besa is director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club.
