57 percent of Americans support drilling off-shore and in wilderness areas.
Barack Obama, lamented in mid-June that high gasoline prices have hurt Americans, but he later gave a much more accurate representation of the party line: “I think that I would have preferred a more gradual adjustment,” he said in an MSNBC interview. It should be noted that the Kyoto treaty calls for emissions reductions some 15 or 20 times as great as those induced by higher gas prices. Its goals would presumably require much higher gasoline prices — perhaps $7 or $8 a gallon, or even more — over a very long period of time. '
President Bush’s decision this week to allow preparation of leases for energy exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lets Republicans press their energy advantage even harder. Bush’s executive order of Monday removes all White House restrictions on the establishment of new oil leases. Democrats had been using these restrictions as an excuse for Congress to do nothing about oil exploration. The ball is clearly in the Democrats’ court. The OCS drilling ban expires on September 30, with the Department of the Interior’s fiscal 2008 appropriations. Although House sources believe it will almost certainly be renewed, that renewal will create another political pressure point on a good Republican issue close to this year’s election.
Recent polls show that between 57 and 67 percent of Americans want to drill for oil on the OCS. The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) has estimated that there are 85.9 billion barrels of oil (11 years’ worth of U.S. consumption) and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (an 18-year supply) sitting out there. And there could be much more, since many areas off the coasts remain unexplored.