Cross-posted at Eclectablog.
The Democrats are caving on drilling off the shores in the USA and it is completely unnecessary. What they should be doing is making the American electorate more informed. They need to show them solid, easy-to-digest PROOF that drilling more oil in the USA will NOT affect the price of gas.
I'll show you one simple way to do this. Show them the graphic below (after the jump.) It's data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the official federal body that collects energy data such as this. It was put together by Architecture 2030 and you can find much other information at their site. I've even created a mini-poster for you to print out to show to others.
Jump with me...
Here's the effect of new offshore drilling on U.S. oil consumption:
From Architecture2030.org:
According to the US Energy Information Administration, oil production from drilling offshore in the outer continental shelf wouldn't begin until around the year 2017. Once begun, it wouldn't reach peak production until about 2030 when it would produce only 200,000 barrels of oil per day (in yellow above). This would supply a meager 1.2% of total US annual oil consumption (just 0.6% of total US energy consumption). And, the offshore oil would be sold back to the US at the international rate, which today is $106 a barrel. So, the oil produced by offshore drilling would not only be a "drop in the bucket", it would be expensive, which translates to "no relief at the pump".
That's it kids. Pure and simple. The risks of despoiling our precious shorelines and the economic and evironmental devastation that entails are simply not justified by the infinitesimal amount of return we'll get AND IT WON'T LOWER YOUR GAS BILL!!!
I've put this graphic and text together as a mini-poster (a Microsoft Word PDF document) for you to download. Print this out. Show it to your friends. Let's get 'em educated.
You might even want to send it to your favorite Democrat in Congress.
I'm just sayin'...