TO DRILL OR NOT TO DRILL

Gasoline prices have apparently reached the tipping point causing an actual change in behavior. Percentages vary depending on the source but it is clear that American's have reduced their driving from 10 to 20 percent since the average price per gallon passed the
$4.00 mark.
Whether the rationale is to reduce our dependence on foreign sources or to
reduce the price at the pump, most polls reveal that the majority of Americans now favor drilling for oil. The Drill Now and We Can't Drill Our Way Out advocates have begun their campaigns to convince us of the rightness of their positions.
The anti-drilling proponents use basically 2 arguments in support of their position. The
first is that drilling will not result in new supplies for many years and secondly that there is
a significant risk of pollution. In the interest of space, I will not attempt to explore the
pollution issue in depth other than point out that there are hundreds of offshore rigs currently in use and there is no evidence that they have impacted negatively on their ocean ecology.
New Mexico's governor and former Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson said about drilling offshore,"It's a bad idea. First of all it will be 30 years before it affects gas prices". This statement is clearly at odd's with other experts even those who support the anti drilling position. The oil and gas analyst for Oppenheimer & Co, Fadel Ghett has stated that,"If we were to drill today, realistically speaking we should not expect a barrel of oil...for 3 maybe 5 years."
On the pro drilling side, arguments have been made that these estimated delivery times are exagerrated and that the actual time for intitial increase of oil supplies may be as soon as 1 to 2 years. Who ever is correct, it is clear that additional oil will not reach the market soon enough to suppress prices in the short term. But is this a good reason to oppose drilling.
Newt Gingrich, on his American Solutions website states," Opening up new fields in the U.S., even if new supplies won't actually reach our gas tanks for several years, would immediately impact the amount of upward speculation on long-term commodity investment in oil."
This argument is supported by the news that within days of President Bush announcing the lifting of the federal moratorium on drilling, the price of oil dropped $9.00 per barrel.
It is clear that even as demand for oil flags and the efforts to transition to alternative sources of power escalate, we will require fossil fuels in large amounts for the forseeable future. America cannot afford to depend on foreign governments, often hostile to be the primary vendor of this vital commodity. Drilling therefore seems to be the rational and intelligent approach.

The Edge