Drilling for Climate Change

  • President Obama lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling last week, against the wishes of environmental groups. (Photo Courtesy of the US Minerals Management Service, Lee Tilton)

There’s been lots of speculation about why President Obama is allowing expanded gas and oil drilling offshore. Many environmentalists don’t like it. Lester Graham reports the move might be part of a larger strategy to get a climate bill passed in the Senate.

Transcript

There’s been lots of speculation about why President Obama is allowing expanded gas and oil drilling offshore. Many environmentalists don’t like it. Lester Graham reports the move might be part of a larger strategy to get a climate bill passed in the Senate.

President Obama never ruled out expanding drilling offshore, but it still caught a lot of people off-guard last week when he lifted the moratorium. John Prandato thinks he knows why he did. Prandato writes for the Partnership for a Secure America. In a recent article he argues it’s about the climate change and energy bill being pieced together by Senators John Kerry, Joesph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham has said a carbon cap-and-trade scheme such as the one in the House climate bill… is dead in the Senate. But maybe not… now…

“Graham has been a proponent of offshore drilling and he has said any climate change and energy bill would have to include expanded offshore drilling, which Obama has now made that concession. So, with any luck, this concession could revive cap-and-trade in the Senate. But, we’ll just have to see.”

Senator Graham says offshore drilling should be expanded further. The White House says the President is not “horse trading” to get a climate bill out of the Senate.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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How Much Help From Offshore Drilling?

  • Oil is a global commodity, so oil drilled in the US would not have to stay here (Photo courtesy of the Minerals Management Service)

There’s been a lot of talk lately
about drilling for more oil off the American
coasts. Rebecca Williams reports that oil
is not required to go to the US markets:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk lately
about drilling for more oil off the American
coasts. Rebecca Williams reports that oil
is not required to go to the US markets:

Oil is a global commodity. Oil drilled in the US would not have to stay
here.

But most of it probably would.

Alan Good is with Morningstar. He analyzes the oil and gas industries.

“It would generally go straight to America because it would incur the lowest
transportation costs to get to the United States refineries.”

But Good says it would be at least a decade before that oil would come
online. And even then it’s not clear how much offshore drilling here would
reduce imports from the Middle East.

“It will help somewhat with imports but it’s not likely to make a huge dent.”

And he says it’ll probably have little effect on the price you pay at the pump
because world demand drives oil prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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