The oil shale and off-shore drilling fraud

I see that besides pushing for off-shore drilling President Bush has called for harvesting oil shale in the west. From this mornings Denver Post,

The fight over energy and how to lower gas prices threw the Rocky Mountain West into the spotlight Wednesday when President Bush urged Congress to repeal a moratorium on the development of oil shale.

In a speech that spurred protests from Democratic leaders and environmentalists, Bush called for harvesting oil from shale rock found in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. The president also advocated drilling for oil in coastal waters and the Alaskan wilderness, saying the tight supply is pushing up gas prices.

"Every American who drives to work, purchases food or ships a product has felt the effect," Bush said. "And families across our country are looking to Washington for a response."

The two ideas are both part of the same political and business strategy. It's a transparent giveaway to the oil and gas industry enabled by a cynical play on American's very real financial worries.

The President and Republicans are exploiting the current mood of the country and high gas prices to place Democrats in an untenable position of opposing drilling/shale extraction. As Americans face higher and higher prices at the pump they understandably want to see action. What Republicans are cynically banking on is that most Americans will not be interested in the relevant details and will see this as a case of Republicans acting and Democrats obstructing. The hope then is that Democrats cave and Republicans have a political victory but more importantly they will have a victory for their friends in the oil and gas industry.

What's really going on? Well it's simple actually. Any oil from new drilling is 10 years or so away from market. For the sake of discussion we'll include oil shale development in that metric but in reality oil shale may take even longer to get to market. The amount of oil that could be brought to market is of course a drop in the bucket in terms of global supply, thus it will not make a difference in oil prices or gas in any significant way. Experts predict the impact will be pennies per gallon of gas (.pdf from the Energy Information Administration). With gas prices escalating at their current rate it's no real savings at all or consumers. Add in the fact that global oil demand is not being driven by the United States but by China and India and it becomes more clear that we have little ability to affect market prices for oil.

As good Texas oilmen George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are of course well aware of this reality. So why the dog and pony show? Is it just to score political points? No, of course not - it's about leasing even more public lands to their friends in the oil and gas industry. Not so they can hurry up and drill now to relieve gas prices by pennies in 10 years but so they can hold onto those leases, leave those oil reserves untapped and sit on them. All the while global oil production decreases and those reserves become more and more valuable.

How do we know that this is what the real motivation is? Because today the oil and gas industry holds leases for oil and gas development for 44 million acres of public lands and they are only drilling on 1/4 of them. They're not drilling on 75% of the public lands they already hold leases on but they need access to more public lands?

Pardon my French but this plan from the GOP is pure bullshit, plain and simple.

This is a cynical ploy by Bush and Republicans to play on the high-level anxiety that Americans are currently feeling. It's a transparent gambit to force leases to more of our public lands into the greedy hands of oil companies.

If George W. Bush and the Republican Party were really concerned about providing temporary relief to Americans why won't they support a 3 month extension of unemployment benefits? A majority of House Republican's voted against the extension, Senate Republicans wouldn't even allow it come to a vote and President Bush has vowed to veto any extension should it reach his desk.

Don't be fooled, their motivations are transparent. They have no interest in the plight of everyday Americans, they're only interested in more giveaways to their friends in the oil and gas industry.


Cross-posted at Colorado Pols