OPINION: Solving the "Off-Shore Oil Drilling" Political Impasse
Hammering away at the need for new offshore drilling sites, conservatives believe they finally have an issue that will give them traction in the fall election. They have precious few issues working for them right now, and even fewer ideas about dealing with the fallout from the last seven years of incompetence, ineptness and corruption.
And it just might work...if the Democrats cave in again to the bully in the playground. But it doesn't have to.
The conservative argument is based on the fact that most Americans have only a rudimentary understanding about how the global oil market works. By implying that allowing offshore drilling will have any measurable impact on gas prices is a shrewd way to get those oil rights back into the national energy conversation. Something they have wanted to do for some time now.
The first fact to consider is that it takes years, and sometimes even decades, from the time oil companies first begin to explore for oil before even a single drop of oil makes it to the refinery. But more to the point the market is a global one, and once the oil is extracted from beneath the sea, these companies will sell the oil where they can get the best price. Currently, that is Japan and China, where gas is $8 to $10 per gallon, and not the US where it is less than half that. Also, refinery capacity in the US - about 98% - is well beyond what is normally considered "full", and oil from the US continental shelf will have no impact on the amount of oil refined into gasoline or jet fuel in the short term.
One political solution would be for the Democrats to allow the oil drilling, but with this caveat - all the oil extracted from American sites must be shipped, stored, refined, sold and consumed in America by Americans. This, of course, would be impossible for the oil companies and the conservatives to agree to. In fact given how the global shipping and supply chain for oil works, it could not happen. It would, however, open the conversation wide enough so that average Americans would begin to see that the oil market doesn't work in the simplistic way they have been led to believe it does.
A restriction in such legislation would also highlight for the American people that US multi-national energy companies are just that - multi-national. The assumption that energy companies with American sounding names will necessarily act in this country's best interests is a flawed one. That is not to say that these companies are anti-American. Far from it in most cases. It is to say, though, that they will act in their own best interests and in the interests of their shareholders - every time. Including this time.
Update: Here is a link to a YouTube video that sums things up rather nicely in a bit over a minute.