More offshore drilling is not the answer

America needs to have a serious discussion about its energy future. Unfortunately, that discussion now seems to consist of one simplistic slogan: Drill, baby, drill.

Republicans have championed an end to the moratorium on offshore drilling as the magical cure for the nation's oil woes. Drill here, drill now, they say, and the price of gasoline will plummet.

What the Republicans really are selling is snake oil. Increased domestic drilling would have little, if any, immediate effect on the cost of a barrel of oil or of gas at the pump.

Congressional Democrats, however, are working on what they call a "reasonable compromise" that would allow new drilling. They plan to bring a bill to the floor of the House for a vote, perhaps as early as today.

In addition to lifting the offshore drilling moratorium, the bill would raise taxes on oil companies, require electric utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources, and provide loan guarantees to automakers to help produce more fuel-efficient cars. It also would give individual states the option of barring offshore drilling along their coastlines. Democrats claim the plan would help make America energy-independent within a decade.

Let's see if congressional Republicans are eager enough to start drilling that they will go along with taxing the oil companies. Somehow I doubt it.

But while Republicans in Washington may be reluctant to tax the oil barons, their counterparts in Alaska aren't. According to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the state collected an estimated $6 billion from a new tax on the oil industry approved last year -- and signed into law by Gov. Sarah Palin. With existing taxes and royalties, the state's total take was more than $10 billion.

Where did that money go? First, every Alaska resident received $1,200 in a special payment from the new tax. Each Alaskan also will receive an estimated $2,000 this year from an existing fund fed by oil taxes and royalties. It follows, then, that while allowing oil companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might not be a boon to the lower 48 states, it certainly would put more money in the pockets of Alaskans.

Alaska, by the way, also ranks first in the amount of money it receives per resident from the federal government.

Here are a few other pertinent facts about domestic oil production:

• More drilling hasn't lowered gas prices. Although the number of operating oil rigs in the United States increases each year, so does the price of gasoline.

• Some estimate that more domestic drilling eventually could produce 200,000 barrels of oil a day. But during the first four months of 2008, American oil companies exported a record 1.6 million barrels per day.

If we drill here, there is no reason to believe the oil will stay here. In all likelihood, much of the newly discovered oil would be sold to China and other energy-hungry nations, as it is now. Big Oil's first concern is corporate profit, not the pocketbooks of American consumers.

• Most of the outer continental shelf already is open to drilling. Oil companies have access to areas estimated to contain nearly 80 percent of the oil and more than 80 percent of the natural gas on the continental shelf. The companies have permits to drill on another 68 million acres of oil-rich federal lands and waters they have yet to explore.

• The Chinese are not drilling anywhere off the Florida coastline under the auspices of the Cuban government. Despite being repeated over and over, that is a rumor. It has a life of its own, like an urban legend, but it isn't true.

• Finally this: Federal investigators announced this week that the Minerals Management Service, the agency that issues lucrative drilling leases to energy companies and then collects royalties from the leases of taxpayer-owned land, has accepted gifts and favors from the oil companies for years. Gifts included skiing and golfing trips, concert tickets, sweetheart consulting deals, hotel rooms, clothes and cocaine.

Are these the kind of people we want making U.S. energy policy?

This story was originally published September 12, 2008 at 12:33 AM with the headline "More offshore drilling is not the answer."