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Obama, Pelosi and Reid's 68 Million Acre Joke

This week President Bush signed an executive order lifting the 29 years old offshore drilling moratorium. Of course lifting the ban is more a symbolic move than a practical one; after all, congress must also lift their ban on offshore drilling before any action can be taken. But congress cannot act unless House and Senate leadership stops blocking the bills that would authorize drilling to commence. Senator Reid and House Speaker Pelosi have both stated that they will not allow drilling legislation to proceed, although they are both aware that the legislation now has enough support to pass both houses. Senator Reid yesterday acknowledged that only 80% of the Senatorial Democratic Caucus opposed lifting the moratorium. If that were the case, then that would mean that the legislation would have close to the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster.

The argument of Reid, Pelosi, Obama and several other congressional leaders has shifted in the past few weeks from an attitude that we cannot drill to an attitude that oil companies should drill on the land they already lease. This argument is based upon a report published by Rep. Rahal that pointed out the oil companies currently hold the leases on 68 Million Acres of unproducing land. According to the report, that 68 million acres, if tapped, would provide 4.8 million barrels of crude per day, or roughly 3 times our current offshore drilling production. Wow! Sounds Great!! If only these congressional leaders had the ability to apply logic and provide actual geological data to back up their claims.

Now most Americans would assume that the production number, 4.8 mil. barrels per day, would be based upon geological studies. But of course, it's not. The 4.8 million barrels per day that Pelosi, Reid and Obama are claiming is a number that was literally made up by congressional staffers putting together the report. The Institute For Energy Research quickly pointed out that the number was based upon our current offshore extraction, stating "in order to arrive at these numbers, the authors of the report had to “extrapolate” as follows:

* Roughly 23 million acres of federal land are producing 1.6 million barrels each day today.

* Roughly 3 times as many federal acres - about 68 million - are leased to oil companies, but are not currently producing oil or gas.

* Therefore, the United States could be producing 3 times as much oil - or an additional 4.8 million barrels per day - if the lease holders for the non-producing federal lands started producing oil today. "

Pelosi, Reid and Obama are using data which has absolutely no geological evidence to back up their claims. The fact is that the 23 million acres that are currently considered to be producing are the result of years of geological research and exploration of the total acreage that the oil companies lease. The oil companies, like any business would, have already tapped into the largest and easiest to reach oil deposits contained within this 91 million acres of land. Therefore, the 23 million acres that are currently producing are the most productive and cost-effective of the total available acreage. The oil companies could extract oil from the 68 million acres of remaining land, but at a much higher costs, a greater length of time, and with less production than their current rate. The very basis of Pelosi, Reid and Obama's claims are false and meant to mislead a general public too lazy to "look into it".

The IER goes further in their criticism of these congressional leaders by pointing out that "Using the “report” as a baseline, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) has calculated several ways to achieve American energy independence September 1, 2008:

* If we use the very same extrapolation, we can estimate that all 2.45 billion acres of the mostly-inactive federal estate (onshore and offshore) could be leased to produce an additional 160 million barrels of oil each day. That’s almost double the amount that is produced on a daily basis in the entire world.

* If we use the very same extrapolation, we can estimate that the 9.4 billion acres of the currently non-producing moon orbiting our earth could produce an additional 654 million barrels each day. That would supply America’s total annual demand in less than 12 days (but the pipeline construction would be a bear).

...Obviously, oil and gas aren’t going to be found under every each and every acre of land, just as the sun is not going to shine and the wind is not going to blow during every hour of every day. The moon, however, may have oil and gas - we don’t know because, like 97 percent of the U.S. outer-continental shelf, we haven’t looked."

If oil extraction was based upon the type of research (made-up numbers) that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have provided us, then why is it that other nations are drilling in the waters off our coasts. By Obama's logic, it is ridiculously ineffective for a nation, such as China, to begin drilling operations just 60 miles off our shore. After all, the Chinese, according to Obama's methodology should have more than enough oil resting off of their massive shoreline. Oh...Wait... the Chinese must not subscribe to the PRO (Pelosi, Reid, & Obama) school of oil extraction. The fact is that the 68 million acres does contain oil, but the question is at what price, length of time, environments intrusiveness, and results could that oil be extracted? Wouldn't it be wiser for us to look for oil deposits that are larger, less intrusive, less expensive, easier and quicker to extract? After all the Chinese and Russians are doing it off our shorelines, and the last time I checked the EPA has no control over their operations.

Obama, Pelosi and Reid would never apply this failed logic to land, but somehow the media has allowed them to apply it the sea. After all, if they used the same extrapolation methods on land, then I could sink a small well in backyard in Illinois and produce more than enough oil to be energy "self-sufficient".

Let's face the facts, we need an energy policy that takes advantage of every possible resource at our disposal, increases incentives to develop efficient and low cost alternative energy and technology, focuses on efficiency and conservation, increases American control over environmental friendly extraction of it's energy needs, creates jobs, and ends the $10 trillion dollar transfer of American wealth that is expected to occur over the next 10 years. Offshore drilling legislation is an important first step in instituting an a comprehensive and no-nonsense based energy policy. Personally, I would like to see an amendment to the legislation that calls for the drilling rigs to be manufactured on US soil. But regardless, we must take action now, and end the ridiculous claims and obstructionism of our current congressional leadership.

18 months ago they ran on a platform that promised us increased energy independence and lower energy costs. In 18 months they have done nothing, proposed no legislation designed to lower energy costs or offset global oil production that peaked in 2005, and now are blocking legislation that will not solve our problems, but will set us on the right path. What is occurring in Washington today is what happens when our elected officials become more focused on obtaining power than doing the job they were elected to complete.

http://politicallydrunk.blogspot.com/2008/07/obama-pelosi-and-reids-68-million-acre.html

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2008/06/26/can-america-extrapolate-its-way-to-energy-security/

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/truth_about_americas_energy.pdf