Missing the chance to lead on energy issues
By Michele S. Byers
Where has our leadership gone? In this presidential election year, you might expect the debate about our nation’s energy policy to include a wide range of long-term solutions to our oil dependence. Instead, political pandering and lack of courage has forced the debate to a narrow focus on offshore oil drilling.
For 26 years, Congress has continued to ban drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. But now, however, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that could potentially open waters 50 miles off our coastlines to oil and natural gas development. The Senate hasn’t yet acted on the issue, but several possibilities are under consideration. Regardless of what the final legislation looks like, it will end the ban on offshore drilling.
With the skyrocketing price of gasoline, no one can deny the stress placed on businesses and families. But drilling off our coastlines is not the solution.
Because the price of oil is driven by global market dynamics, even if we drilled in every spot possible, the new oil would still be “a drop in the global barrel” and not a significant factor affecting prices. Our country consumes about 25 percent of the world’s oil, but has only 2 percent of the world’s reserves. In other words, our strength in lowering global prices is by using less oil, not by increasing domestic production.
Evidence shows that market prices are impacted by more than simple supply and demand. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for example, recently announced that the increase of speculation in the energy marketplace has vastly outpaced the increase in oil prices; this may have created an oil “bubble,” like the Internet stock bubble of a few years ago. The Federal Trade Commission also recently discovered that eight of 47 gas wholesalers and retailers had artificially increased prices.
More drilling will not address these realities. Perhaps the prospect of opening new areas to exploration and drilling will drive down prices in the short term. In the long run, however, it’s only a temporary fix because our fundamental addiction to oil remains. Our current debate needs to focus on moving our economy to the next generation of energy supply. Take it one step further and shift a significant portion of our energy supply to sustainable sources like solar and wind power, then watch the impact on oil prices.
Are we willing to live with short-term higher gas prices if we know there is light at the end of the tunnel? Could we wean ourselves from oil and invest in establishing a more diversified, stable and environmentally friendly energy supply? And turn the tables by developing new energy technologies for export?
It’s not as epic-sounding as reaching for the moon, but I think the American people are willing to accept a big challenge for the public good, if they are asked. The trouble is, our prospective leaders aren’t asking.
For more information on this topic, visit the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Web site at www.nrdc.org.
Michele Byers is executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. For more information, contact her at [email protected], or visit NJCF’s Web site at www.njconservation.org.

