Yeah, I'm asking to be shown PHYSICALLY, where are the leases located that have ALREADY been handed out that the oil and gas companies haven't bothered to begin drilling to illustrate the point that Drill Here! Drill Now! is a slogan attached to a land grab and not (in potential or practice) a panacea to bring down the price at the pump:
Nationally, only about a quarter of federal leased lands are being tapped for crude or natural gas.
Thom Hartmann sugggested on his show Thursday that it would be great political theater to illustrate in video a smattering of the lands RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW that are already open and leased and ready to be drilled.
He suggested compiling videos from across the country, people standing on land which is ALREADY leased and open for exploration who ask, 'if it's so important that US land and offshore areas be opened for exploration to oil and gas companies, why is it that they aren't using this land which is already leased and ready to explore for drilling?'
I think that would make an excellent ad and I should have stopped there, but I decided to try to understand this better and got myself totally confused...
Lies, Damn Lies, and Polls of the American Populace
In June, Rasmussen Reports presented these poll results:
67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices
I gather the Rasmussen folks are on the other side of the aisle, but it's the audience they polled which needs some convincing.
This Wilderness Society Wilderness Society poll sounds a lot more reflective of the people with whom I talk politics:
Americans Don't Believe Bush, Industry Claims on Gas Prices, Poll Shows:
WASHINGTON (July 24, 2008) - The American public is not buying the arguments of President Bush and the oil industry that new drilling will lower gas prices, a new poll finds. Despite a well-funded campaign to convince lawmakers to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the offshore waters of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling, and to allow new oil shale projects in the Rocky Mountain West, a majority (54%) of Americans do not see more drilling as a solution to high gas prices. Instead, the public overwhelmingly believes (76% to 19%) that policymakers should focus on investing in new energy technologies including renewable fuels and more efficient vehicles rather than expanding exploration and drilling for more oil.
So, I keep hearing that one argument against addtional drilling in this country is that if we drill more we'll export more, that bringing up more crude will not be added to what's available here and hence won't bring down the price. I'm sure I've heard 'China' mentioned as a target for the oil in those sentences. So imagine my surprise when I came across the document United States Petroleum Exports on the Energy Information Administration website which answers the very question of where oil produced here goes (e-gads, I've never heard of this official-sounding office and I'm wondering why they don't get quoted, as say, the Labor Department used to heard from every so often before exporting jobs became job #2 of this Administration).
Imagine my further surprise when I opened the file, Exports of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products by Destination, May 2008. According to my (admittedly ignorant) read of this chart, it appears finished motor gasoline produced in the U.S. went to the following countries:
China received 311,000 barrels
Canada received 1,126,000 barrels
Mexico received 3,731,000 barrels
MEXICO?! Isn't Mexico an oil Ex-porter? According to this chart, we also export oil to Costa Rica, Gibraltar, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize.
So, according to this chart, a total of 5,687,000 barrels of Finished Motor Gasoline was exported from the U.S. in May 2008. In my ignorance, I'm going to assume that Finished Motor Gasoline isn't seasonal, and multiplying that by 12, I get a total of 68,244,000 barrels of gas leaving the U.S. annually.
I found a groovy interactive chart on the Energy Information Administration website where you can click to see the amount of oil reserves around the world:
Mexico 12.4 billion barrels
United States 21.8 billion barrels
Iraq 115.0 billion barrels
Canada 179.2 billion barrels
I found the same number used on both HowStuffWorks and a United States Securities and Exchange Commission United States Securities and Exchange Commission site using the number 140,000,000,000 as total annual U.S. gas consumption (that's a fair cross-section of opinions, isn't it?).
If the chart is to be believed, Canada actually has considerably more oil as yet unplundered than does Iraq. Interesting. (Good for them. Shhhhh!)
Here stopeth the math: I simply do not have the ability to begin looking for the amount of oil we import to show myself that what we export wouldn't offset what we consume by any great measure.
Now, I started this exercise trying to figure out a way to explain to the average American that Drill Here! Drill Now! doesn't count as an effective energy strategy, even when we've occupied an oil-rich nation long enough to let the oil companies run off with the natural resources of what used to be a sovereign nation (albeit one run by a pretty, horrific, un-popularly elected dictator who used surveillance on his people and made civil liberties a joke). Of course, while I had hopes of making a complex subject accessible to others, I've turned my brain into a pretzel and confused myself.
Instead of making a sensible argument which shows that it's silliness to advocate Drill Here! Drill Now!, I think I've inadvertently made an argument that attacking our peaceful neighbors to the north (all in the name of maintaining the American Way of Life, of course) would be far more expedient than whatever it is we're doing in the Middle East.
Give me the sun and the wind, my friends - they've fueled the planet since the very beginning of time, long predating fossil fuels, and they'll take us into the future.