[Peace-discuss] NG letter: McCain's offshore plan is of no value

[Robert Naiman]

McCain's offshore plan is of no value
Wednesday August 6, 2008
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/letters/2008/08/06/mccains_offshore_plan_is_of_no_value

Sen. John McCain is urging Americans to support overturning a ban on
most oil drilling off our coasts as a way to bring down gas prices.
But the federal government's Energy Information Administration
projects that McCain's proposal would have no impact on gas prices in
the near-term since it will be close to a decade before the first oil
could be extracted. The EIA projects production would reach 200,000
barrels a day at peak production. It describes this amount as too
small to have any significant effect on oil prices, even when
production is at its peak.

If the U.S. had raised auto fuel efficiency standards between
1985-2005 by a quarter of the amount it raised them annually from
1980-1985, instead of leaving them virtually unchanged, the result
would roughly have been the equivalent of 3.3 million barrels of oil
per day in new production, 16 times the projected impact of offshore
drilling.

If we negotiated a deal with Iran that led to the lifting of U.S.
sanctions, oil production in Iran could increase one to two million
barrels a day. That would be five to ten times the projected impact of
drilling off our coasts.

Wouldn't it be better to pursue modest conservation and negotiations
with Iran, having the effect of bringing 20-25 times as much oil on
the market, rather than endanger tourism, fishing and beaches on our
coasts for a long-term effect that we won't even notice?

ROBERT NAIMAN

Urbana

--
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Ambassador Pickering on Iran Talks and Multinational Enrichment
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A