EDITORIAL: Shifting feelings toward U.S. oil exploration

Shifting sentiments on U.S. oil exploration

On Monday of this week President Bush rescinded a 27-year moratorium on oil drilling on the outer continental shelf to ameliorate growing concern over rapidly rising energy costs.

The President's executive action, hailed as a purely symbolic gesture, quickly fostered tangible effects. Not long after the announcement, OPEC released news that its long range forecast for exports was downgraded and the stocks of major offshore drilling companies rose.

There is no question that OPEC's diminished projections were affected in part by falling demand in the U.S. but tempered somewhat by growing demand in developing countries such as India and China where consumers are less dissuaded by high prices at the pump.

In the U.S. the latest estimates show a 5 percent drop in consumer demand for gasoline. The economic hardship wrought by record high food and fuel prices has forced American's to change their consumptive behavior, make lifestyle changing sacrifices and question more deeply the factors affecting skyrocketing commodity costs.

OPEC members must certainly realize that the U.S. has finally reached a tipping point in terms of making a lasting commitment to conservation and energy self sufficiency.

In this election year, the presidential contenders and Congressional leadership now confront a sea change in the sentiments and expectations of an increasingly beleaguered electorate.

For 30-years American's have depended upon foreign sources for fuel while protecting vast tracts of resource-rich land and seabed from oil exploration and extraction; in effect exporting our environmental impacts to other countries in the interest of homeland preservation and conservation.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in June reveals that in the span of just five months a shift has taken place with respondents favoring the opening of drilling rising from 42% to 50%.  The same poll also reported a shift in energy policy priories toward expanded domestic capacity and away from regulation and conservation.

A recent U.S. Energy Department report noted that opening drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Pacific and Atlantic regions would not materially impact domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices 20 years, however, clarity can be found in hindsight. If a sustainable, responsible, diverse energy policy been indoctrinated 20 years ago, the crisis we now face would not be nearly so dire.

The final impediment to expanding domestic oil production falls upon Congress on the question of lifting Congressional ban.  Democratic leadership so far has been successful in stalling efforts to place a vote on the moratorium for fear that the shifting tide away from the party's long held environmental doctrine will leave the party's continued leadership resting on rocky shoals.

Momentous decisions now weigh heavily on a Congress that must place the economy and energy policy above the political posturing that typically dominates a general election year. The people expect and deserve meaningful action, and soon.