The "Drill Here, Innovate Less" Crowd Gets in the Way of Cleaner Legislation

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Once again, Congress is in the midst of debating energy legislation. Unfortunately, the conversation is taking the same old wrong turns, even in the face of looming concerns for homeowners anticipating cold winters.
Many Americans had to put their travel vacations on hold this summer because of high gas prices. But disappointing "stay-cations" will pale in comparison to the astronomical home heating bills coming our way. Even with the temporary dip in oil prices, we are looking at a long, expensive winter.

Solutions Delivered in a Few Months versus in 10 Years
The business as usual crowd claims that drilling in areas that have been off limits for 30 years will help Americans right now. Considering it will take seven to 10 years for offshore oil to get into the market, this clearly isn't the solution Americans need.

There is a real solution that can help Americans with their energy costs: incentives for more efficient buildings and incentives for people to weatherize their homes so that for this season, and many more to come, their heating bills are lower.

That's the kind of bold, long-term solution Congress should be implementing. Speaker Pelosi and others in the U.S. House of Representatives have offered a bill that includes forward looking incentives for clean, homegrown energy that will reduce our energy costs.

Voting Against Clean Energy 61 Times
Unfortunately, the drill-more, innovate-less crowd has launched a highly funded campaign and may try to strip the good, renewable energy provisions from the bill and add more drilling and more dirty fuels.

Proponents of drilling like to position themselves as trying to save Americans money at the gas pump. Yet Congressional allies of the oil industry have voted against efficiency and energy independence bills 61 times this year alone--effectively delaying relief from high gas prices and America's addiction to oil.

What Congress Should Keep in the Legislation
They will be sticking to the same old tactics this week if they try to remove the good things House Leadership included in this bill. It is my hope that both the House and Senate enact legislation that will move us forward with clean energy, not backward with dirty energy. Congress should enact legislation to:

- End tax breaks for Big Oil and give taxpayers their money back so consumers can
really save at the pump by buying new fuel-sipping cars or fixing up their old ones;
- Invest in our transportation infrastructure so people have more choices;
- Provide incentives for clean, homegrown technology;
- Provide efficiency incentives; and
- Double the average fuel efficiency of existing cars to at least 50 miles per gallon

Comments

[graphite]

Ah yes, alternative energy. How 'bout that corn based ethanol? Good for the environment and good for America, yeah? Oh wait, it turned out to be a complete and utter fraud that suceeds in only enriching Iowa corn farmers and driving up international food prices.

I would like some assurances that the next big thing that the government throws money at has some chance of success. Some claim that green energy is merely a matter of will power. Its really more of a question of serious technological impediments. I would appreciate it if those who write our energy policy have some understanding of thermodynamics and related fields so that we are not duped into further self defeating initiatives.

[Kelley Bell-Wenzlaff - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for an insightful and well written essay.

[NL207]

The article is ill infornmed.

Some examples:

"it will take seven to 10 years for offshore oil to get into the market" This falsehood is repeated over and over again by the left. Offshore wells begin production usually withing 21 days of being completed. Drilling seldom takes more than three weeks for all but the most dificult wells.

"incentives for clean, homegrown energy that will reduce our energy costs"

Another falsehood. All of the clean energy options available are more costly over the normal amortization schedule than conventional energy supplies. That is why nobody wants to invest in them without the guarantee of government underwriting. Even T. Boone Pickens was looking to the government to provide the transmission line to get his product to market.

"against efficiency and energy independence bills 61 times this year alone"

None of these bills will do a thing to actually reduce consumption of oil. Like the Kyoto Protocol, they will have no effect beyond magnifying government power. Some of these proposals, in particular those involving biofuels, will likely cause food prices to rise even higher.

"There is a real solution that can help Americans with their energy costs: incentives "

The incentives are free. Right? Not! They just transfer the cost onto someone else by force.

[realpolitic]

Bush 's own Department of Energy says offshore drilling will not have an impact on prices until 2030. "The Department of Energy says there may be 18 billion barrels of oil in coastal waters, but they also say that drilling for it would not have a significant impact on production or prices until 2030." Oil industry insiders "say drilling won't ease the oil pinch." Matthew Simmons, President of energy investment bank says, "It's really misleading to hold that out as a panacea. It won't work. It might work for our grandchildren."

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080716-Will-Offshore-Drilling-Lower-Gas-Prices-/

A 2004 study by the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that drilling in ANWR would trim the price of gas by 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027. (If oil prices continue to skyrocket, the savings would be greater, but not by much.) Opening up offshore areas to oil exploration .... might cut the price of gas by 3 to 4 cents a gallon at most, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council."

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1815884,00.html

Oil is a finite commodity. With rising consumption in China and India, oil prices will continue to rise. Importing oil from volatile Middle Eastern countries have dramatic implications for our national security. When you consider the national security costs of importing foreign oil than tax subsidies for producing alternative energies is a critical governmental investment.

[roadworker]

I was listening to a right wing nut job radio host in Providence (There are only rightwing stations in New England). A caller was responding to the host who was ranting that we need to drill on Georges Bank, the richest fishing ground in the world, to save us from foriegn oil. He claimed that Democrats were holding our country hostage by opposing drilling.
A caller asked how letting multinational oil companies drill the oil that we own, and then sell it on the international market and return the profits to their multinational owners, was going to help us. The host denouced the caller as a liberal defeatist and dumped his call.
The caller made a good point. If there were a shortage of apples and I owned an apple tree, why would I want Exxonapple to harvest my apples for free and then sell them back to me at the market?

[NL207]

"why would I want Exxonapple to harvest my apples for free and then sell them back to me at the market?"

Of course not! You'd prefer to let the apples rot on the tree and buy foreign apples from Exxonapple at high prices.

[realpolitic]

The point is if we own the oil why not make the oil companies pay for the leasing of the lands and we should share in the profits. The oil company is going to sell the oil back to us at the market rate anyway. It is not like the oil companies are acting altruistically by selling us our own oil.