Offshore drilling needs more science, less politics

Sentiment continues to grow in favor of the federal government opening oil reserves, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and, most recently, repealing federal legislation to allow offshore drilling. The sentiment seems reasonable; after all, gasoline prices are at record-high levels, and the American people are demanding relief.

The argument for new offshore drilling, however, is based more on election-year posturing and political brush-offs than science and logic. Americans who believe that drilling off the Eastern and Western seaboards will get us back to $2 or even $3 a gallon gasoline are in for quite a rude awakening.

Offshore drilling won't even make a dent.

If we began drilling today in ANWR, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie sleeping, it would reduce the price of crude oil per barrel only by about 50 to 75 cents, and we might see that relief 17 years from now, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

The same goes for drilling off the continental shelf: Americans wouldn't see any oil until 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. How much relief? According to a 2004 EIA report, it may save — maybe — 4 cents a gallon. Adjust the number for inflation, if you want, and it still amounts to spit.

We seem to believe that there are no more drilling fields in the U.S., that we must open offshore drilling or go without. But it may be surprising to learn that more than 65 percent of the 36 million barrels believed to lie under federal land — that is, open for drilling — are accessible, according to a June report in the New York Times. The federal Mineral Management Service notes also that about four-fifths of nearly 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil offshore already are available for drilling — most of that oil is in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

Earlier this month, President Bush repealed an offshore drilling moratorium, the same one his father signed in 1990. Congressional bans on offshore drilling were enacted in 1981, and Bush is urging Congress to lift them as well. The move is unlikely.

More than risking any environmental catastrophes or destroying critical natural habitats, attempting to open additional offshore drilling fields is a great way not to come up with a long-term solution to our energy needs and, if you buy the argument that it is, then it's a great way to win the votes of an uninformed, politically blinded or desperate American people.

It's important to note that before the issue became partisan, election-year politics when Sen. John McCain flipped on the issue to garner votes this summer, legislators and governors in most coastal states that would be affected took tough stands against offshore drilling. They still do — Florida's former Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, North Carolina's Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Current Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, is all for drilling. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, is for it, too, so long as America is for it, he said tiptoeing across the political tightrope Monday. U.S. sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, both S.C. Republicans, jumped ship and are now for offshore drilling.

On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that South Carolina has little to gain and much to lose from drilling offshore. Mitchell Colgan, a College of Charleston geology professor who worked for Shell Oil, told the AP, "There's no petroleum" off South Carolina. Fellow geology professor Cassandra Runyon added that several million years ago, there might have been oil, "but it didn't have the right geologic conditions like the Gulf shore did where there were swamps and the conditions were just right for the peat and everything to convert itself to the carbons and eventually to the oil."

Even if the ban was lifted, South Carolina's $16 billion a year tourism industry wouldn't be off the hook. After all, what happens in North Carolina and Georgia could have an adverse impact on our pristine shoreline. According to Gov. Easley, "If the state above or below you has a problem it affects your shores as well."

That's a lesson we've learned many times in coastal communities.

But in the end, we can put our money on the science or the politics, although with the latter, we won't be laughing our way to the bank.