Breakthrough Institute President Michael Shellenberger points to why the environmental argument against drilling -- "that prices won't come down for a long time" -- doesn't work.
By Michael Shellenberger, co-founder and president of the Breakthrough Institute.
I have been confused as to why Americans still support oil drilling even after we progressives and greens have repeatedly explained to the American people (as I did on Hannity and Fox) that gas prices won't come down for many years -- perhaps as many as 10 years -- and even then by only a few cents.
In a phrase: supply and demand. It's a powerful mental short-cut. If gas prices are too high, we need more oil. Who cares if it doesn't give us relief right now? And who cares if it doesn't lower gas prices by much? Given the way poll numbers are changing, Americans have decided they'd rather have a little price relief than continued environmental protection.
This July 30 response by Haley Barbour on Hannity and Colmes to this question challenges the efficacy of the "but it won't lower prices immediately or by very much" argument:
FOX CORRESPONDENT KIRSTEN POWERS: You know the argument that goes back and forth and the side of the Democrats is basically, so even if we drill tomorrow, best-case scenario, you know, maybe in 7 to 20 years this will actually effect the amount of oil we have in this country. You know, is it a quick -- will it be that much of a quick fix, I guess, is the question.
BARBOUR: You know, Kirsten, when I was chairman of the Republican National Committee in the mid '90s, Congress passed a Bill to allow drilling in ANWR. President Clinton vetoed it. Do you know what he said? We wouldn't have had any of the oil for 10 years anyway. Well, wouldn't we have loved to have had that million or two million barrels a day in 2005 and had for the last three years?
I mean, to bring on discoveries and to bring on production does take some time. But if you don't start, you're just putting that off in perpetuity.... I mean, if you want to know why the price of oil got up to $140 a barrel and still in the 120s is because worldwide demand is about 86 or 80 million -- 87 million barrels a day. And world supply is about the same.
If we could increase the supply by a couple of million barrels, that would drive the price down because, for years, we would have three or four million barrels more in capacity around the world, but we don't have that anymore. Mostly because the U.S., by congressional policy led by the left, is keeping us from drilling 85 percent of the best prospects in America, including ANWR and offshore...
Look, Sean, my state is a large, rural, poor state. There's no state in the country that's hurt worse by $4 gasoline than Mississippi.
And our people understand that it's an issue of supply and demand. If you want the cost of something to come down, increase the supply. And they know, everybody knows that our country has an enormous amount of oil in ANWR, on the Outer Continental Shelf, in the shale formations on land. That we've got gas and oil all over, and we're not producing it. And that's what's making my people suffer.
Although I do agree with what you state above--particularly the "supply and demand" shortcut everyone uses--it's frustrating that the Republican argument (we should have started drilling decades ago) is the same as the enviro argument now (we should start building a post-petroleum economy now). One has resonance only in retrospect while the other sounds like folly.
What I'd like to see if some critique that says drilling will have this impact on your overall household expenses, not the cost of gas. I mean, $5/gallon gas wouldn't hurt so much if your healthcare costs weren't going up 25% a year and there were a way to afford getting your kids into college.
That enviros are uniquely tasked with getting your gas prices down is a trap for us from the beginning. It's not a problem enviros can, or should, solve.
Posted by: JH at August 8, 2008 12:07 AM