Common sense is 
breaking out all over:
After opposing offshore drilling for a quarter century as a threat to their lucrative coastline, a majority of Floridians now favor it, polls show. Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline has hit voters’ pocketbooks and psyches, even as the U.S. government says offshore drilling would have a negligible effect on oil supply and price.
At a Hess gas station on the mainland near Caladesi, Gerald Walker says he used to be against extracting oil off Florida, until prices soared. “Drilling? At $3.64 a gallon, I’m all for it,” says the 60-year-old accountant.
“Drill, baby, drill!” is the Republican Party’s rallying cry, and presidential hopeful Senator John McCain of Arizona is gaining traction with it, even in this coastal swing state. An increasing number of Floridians side with him when told he advocates expanded drilling to drive down prices, says Brad Coker of Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. Mason-Dixon’s is one of several polls conducted this summer that showed at least 6 in 10 Floridians now support drilling.
National Security
“It’s become a national-security issue because of wars in the Mideast and Russia’s newfound bravado and aggression,” Coker says.
It’s quite dishonest for Bloomberg to say “the U.S. government says offshore drilling would have a negligible effect on oil supply and price,” because – as we saw just recently when some new drilling areas were opened up – even the promise of more oil in the future causes prices to drop. And of course later on, we’ll want those resources to be available. The recent talking point consisting of a Clinton quote about how even if we start drilling now, it would take ten years to see any effect – and the punchline is that the quote is from ten years ago – still applies.
I’d love to see cost-effective fuel alternatives and of course we should continue development of those. But they are years, maybe decades away. We need an “all of the above” plan, and especially one that doesn’t involve burning food and starving the world’s poor. The bottom line – we have oil. We should go get it, rather than sending money to our terror-supporting “friends” the Saudis. It’s that simple.
I don’t think recent price drops have owed much to discoveries of additional supplies, though it’s undoubtedly a factor. The decline in consumption expected because of declining economies is probably as significant a factor. And the US government *has* said that additional drilling will have a small (I don’t know if they used the loaded term negligible) effect. In fact there’s sufficient capacity in the Caspian Sea that some experts think within 10 years there may even be an over-supply of oil; if that’s true (I’m in no position to judge) then we wouldn’t expect our extra supply to make much difference.
Having said all that I have no problem with drilling anywhere. I’d just like the companies and government to work out a ceiling for the pollution and other environmental damage it would cause (drilling can’t be pollution free; even leaving the oil alone entirely causes a little damage). Then the companies can buy, say, a trillion dollars of insurance to cover any excess damage caused at, say, 10 times the actual cost of cleanup. We’re told repeatedly that such damage won’t happen, so the insurance should cost them virtually nothing, and everyone is happy.