Remember the summer of 2008 when gasoline prices breached $4 per gallon? A public uproar to “Drill Here, Drill Now” demanded congressional repeal of the 30-plus-year ban on most offshore oil development. Multiple polls showed 85 percent of Americans enthusiastically supported repeal of the legislated ban. The United States was the only country in the world denying access to its offshore oil resources. President George W. Bush repealed a longstanding executive order blocking off-shore production. And finally the unthinkable happened – Congress allowed the ban to expire. The administration immediately opened the doors for lease application to drill here, now.
Eighteen months later, in early 2010, the offshore ban might as well still be in place. Regardless of the Obama administration’s frequent protestations about energy independence, oil resources everywhere – offshore, in Alaska, and onshore – are made increasingly inaccessible. Home grown energy seems to include only ethanol, wind and solar.
Not long after he assumed his office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stopped the offshore leasing process by calling for six additional months of public comment. The only offshore activity leased was a wind power installation. In early March, Secretary Salazar told Congress that offshore leases for oil would not begin for two years! The Secretary also denied a request by the Virginia General Assembly for limited offshore drilling. And then the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) failed to meet court-ordered deadlines for processing new oil leases off the Alaskan coast.
Stall ’em if you must but simply stop ’em if you can: try the lower 48. DOI cancelled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah and eight more in Wyoming.
Go for broke: Stop ’em permanently. DOI recently leaked a memo detailing plans to “lock up” 14 million acres of energy-rich Western lands. The document identifies 14 different parcels that the president could close for energy development by designation as “national monuments” under the 1906 Antiquities Act. President Bill Clinton used this authority 22 times to create 19 new national monuments covering almost six million acres. Among those presidential designations, the Grand Escalante Staircase in Utah eliminated access to the largest deposit of low-sulfur coal in the lower 48 and nullified oil and gas leases on 65,000 acres.
Increasing mandates and subsidies for renewable energy will not measurably increase our domestic energy supply. Energy independence per se is an unrealistic and economically ill-advised policy goal. Reducing U.S. dependence on energy sources, however, from unstable or hostile foreign governments (e.g. Venezuela) is a worthy and realistic goal. The federal government need only get out of the way of private enterprise. Allowing the market to develop still abundant U.S. energy resources is the only means of decreasing energy dependence.
– Kathleen Hartnett White