The "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" Con: Newt Won, America Lost

Back in the summer of 2008, incurable Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich pushed the slogan "drill here, drill now, pay less," claiming that making the U.S. more oil-independent would be a solution to high gas prices. Democrats, worried voters would reject the reality there's nothing we can do to lower market-set gas prices and absolutely terrified of saying no to Big Oil, embraced the slogan. Later, President Barack Obama implemented it as our national policy. Six years later, how's drill baby drill working out for you?

Today, while U.S. oil production is near all-time highs, gas prices also remain near all-time highs. Drill baby drill has been great for multinational oil companies, but terrible for American consumers. Meanwhile, we continue shoveling billions in annual taxpayer subsidies to those same oil companies.

A side effect of higher oil production is that oil transportation disasters are also at record highs. Oil train wrecks and spills, gas pipeline explosions, and oil pipeline ruptures are skyrocketing. Our communities, wildlife and clean air and water are now at the mercy of our national petro-state.

Note that gas prices hit their all-time high of $4.46 in July 2008 under President George W. "Texas Oilman Who'll Lasso Those Saudi Arabians Into Submission" Bush, well above the prior peak of $3.70 under President Ronald "Yes Another Oil-Friendly Republican Are You Seeing The Pattern Yet" Reagan.

Aside from Big Oil's record profits, there was one other winner from Newt's drilling push. Gingrich got 1.5 million people to sign his petition, allowing him to cash in by spamming his big new email list. As Chris Hayes has said, "much of movement conservatism is a con and the base are the marks."

Why Do Only Progressives, and Not Polluters, Need to be Diverse?

Darryl Fears has a good piece in today's Washington Post taking a closer look at diversity in the environmental movement - or lack of it. Tough but fair. I work for an environmental organization and I agree green groups don't do nearly enough.

But what about polluters and their allies - how are they doing on diversity?

• Exxon Mobil board of directors: 12 members, 2 women, 0 Hispanics, 2 African Americans
• Arch Coal board of directors: 11 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans
• Heritage Foundation board of trustees: 27 members, 8 women, 0 Hispanics, 1 African American
• Congressional Republican leadership (House & Senate): 10 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans

What about workers in polluting industries? It's just as bad:

• Oil & gas extraction: 23% women, 9% Hispanic, 4% African American
• Coal mining: 6% women, 3% Hispanic, 1% African American

No one writes articles about polluting industries being almost entirely white men because it's taken for granted that polluting industries are all run by rich old white guys. Even when they repeatedly get caught using stock photos to try to not look to the public like such rich old white guys - and Republicans, coal, and chemical polluters all have - it isn't covered in the mainstream media because again, everyone is just supposed to already know that polluters are rich old white guys who buy pictures of non-rich old white guys to make themselves look like they care about non-rich old white guys.

Again, I think conservationists need to do more to reach out to Hispanics and African-Americans. Excluding them isn't just wrong, it's bad business - polls show minorities are exceptionally strong supporters of climate action in particular and clean air & water in general.

But much like the media holds polluters and their allies to a much lower standard ethically, they're held to no standard on diversity.

GOP Congressman: "Best Thing About the Earth" is Drilling It

Not sustaining life and providing food and water and shelter. Fossil fuels.

Statements like this reveal how incredibly insular the world of Congressmen can be. Do you think Rep. Stockman spends more time talking to sportsmen? To parents? To students? Or to oil & gas lobbyists?

The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.
— Rep. Steve Stockman (@SteveStockmanTX) March 21, 2013

Think We're Saving Money by Driving a Little Less?

Nope - Big Oil is just raising the price of gasoline to make sure your money keeps flowing in. Even though Americans are driving less than we have since 2001, oil companies are on pace for a record revenue year.

It doesn't matter where we drill, or how much we drill, and it may not even matter if we just use a little less. As long as we're dependent on oil companies, we're over a barrel. 

Louis CK: Shouldn't All Christians be Environmentalists?

Continuing the rebuttal to Rick Santorum's contention that God's cool with us destroying the planet, from Louis CK's Live at the Beacon Theater:

His rejection of environmental stewardship only shows the depth of Santorum's cafeteria Catholicism - Pope Benedict XVI himself is a climate activist. There's also the evangelical Creation Care movement, the Jewish Climate Initiative and the Muslim-hosted international conference on climate change.


Graphic via WarmingGlow.UpRoxx.com - go see their Louis CK slideshow.

Energy Project With Least NIMBY Opposition? Wind Farms

The New York Times' Green Blog digs into some polling data from the Saint Consulting Group and finds hypothetical "wind farms on the ridge above one’s home" polls better than any other potential local energy project, with a full 70% in support of local wind power. Even Tea Party members would rather see a local wind farm than a local oil drilling project or new conventional power plant. Makes you wonder why people like Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) think oil drilling off Virginia is "centrist" when 55% of Americans say they wouldn't want oil drilling to take place in their community.

Exxon Mobil Sponsoring Climate Silence on Science Channel

I was watching Faces of Earth on the Discovery Communications-owned Science Channel this morning as it discussed finding fossil fuels, both coal mining and oil drilling. I was amazed at how the show didn't mention any negative effects of mining fossil fuels:

• Nothing about oil & gas disasters or deaths inside or outside coal mines
• Nothing about the destructive effects of mountaintop removal
• Nothing about global warming or any other air and water pollution

So I waited for the closing credits. Sure enough, as the "sponsors" frame flashed for only a moment, Exxon Mobil helped fund the series.

Once again, it's a shame that networks that profit from the wonders of nature aren't doing more to protect them.

Could a Cuban Oil Disaster Spill Oil on Virginia's Coast?

With Cuba set to begin oil drilling, Anya Landau French blogs for the Christian Science Monitor that a Cuban oil spill could deliver disaster far beyond the Gulf of Mexico:

Now, after several delays, with a Chinese-built Italian oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, on its way to Cuba, drilling of the first of five exploratory wells in Cuban deep water is set to commence this December.

A spill from this first, easternmost exploratory well to be drilled by the Repsol consortium could be particularly damaging due to its location where the Gulf Stream exits the Gulf of Mexico for the Atlantic. Whereas the BP disaster was somewhat "contained" in the northern Gulf, Piñón tells me to "imagine a fan-shaped spill with the well as the axis." If something were to go wrong on Scarabeo 9, we could see and feel the effects of a major oil spill in Cuban deep water not just in Florida, but far up the Atlantic coast.

And as Fareed Zakaria writes, "the nearest and best experts on safety procedures and dealing with oil spills are all American, but we are forbidden by our laws from being involved in any way with Cuba." What could go wrong?

Bob McDonnell Wants To, Uh, Y'Know, Do The Thing That Gets The Oil

For someone so anxious to drill for oil just miles from Virginia Beach, Bob McDonnell is awfully terrified to say the word "drill." In his op-ed today in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Gov. McDonnell never uses the words "drill" or "drilling" - not even once.

And with good reason! You might remember the image at right, produced in the very early days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to show what the slick - just a fraction of the size it would eventually become - would look like if it happened off the Virginia coast.

As much as Gov. McDonnell would like us to forget about those thousands of dead birds, hundreds of dead endangered sea turtles, and more than a hundred dead dolphins, he's wrong dismiss the Gulf oil disaster as an "accident." The Gulf oil disaster was no random twist of fate - the bipartisan commission that investigated the blowout said it was the result of a series of bad decisions by the people doing the oil drilling, called the disaster "avoidable," and warned that without significant reform (which we're still waiting on), it could happen again.

But even if oil drilling was less dangerous than it is, would drilling off Virginia do us any good? The U.S. consumes 22% of the world's oil but holds only 1.5% of global oil resources. During the Obama administration, U.S. oil production is up sharply - but that hasn't done a thing to stop gas prices from rising sharply as well. The same story is true on a global scale - worldwide oil production is up, but oil prices are up too. Worldwide consumption is up and the dwindling supplies of oil left underground are getting more & more expensive to drill.

We can't drill our way out of our energy problems. The only way we can reduce our oil costs over the long term is to use less oil - fuel-efficient cars in the short-term, renewable energy-powered electric cars in the long term, and building more transit options & more walkable communities over the really long haul so our lives aren't tethered to the gas pump.

But hey, Bob McDonnell didn't get $33,150 from Exxon Mobil by pushing for hybrid school buses! He got it by promising to open up Virginia's coastline to drilling & leaving it to some future governor to worry about apologizing for how no one could possibly have predicted an oil disaster here.

Olmos to Webb: Drill Baby Drill is the Definition of Insanity

Virginia Newspaper Wants All the Benefits of Drilling, None of the Risks

It's not often you read an editorial that so perfectly encapsulates the complete fraud that is offshore drilling advocacy. Time for a quick fisking. Take it away, Staunton News Leader editorial board!

Of the three reactions concerning drilling for oil off the Virginia coast, we agree with the military's. 

OK, well, the military didn't really have a reaction so much as it issued a report on the facts, that offshore drilling off most of Virginia's shores would conflict with military operations & training. But yes, we get the gist. So far, so good.

The others, of course, are Gov. Bob McDonnell continuing his drive to begin drilling off Virginia's shore as soon as possible ...

Right, Bob McDonnell's clearly extreme position to, against the military's advice, let Big Oil drill right off Virginia's shores in even deeper waters than the Deepwater Horizon -- waters in which Big Oil just proved it can't stop a gusher.

... and President Barack Obama's outright cancellation of those plans.

And Barack Obama's apparently equally extremist ... cooling-off period delaying drilling until safety concerns can be addressed. STOP THE INSANITY!

Our governor and our president need to reach an agreement. On April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 people and causing an immeasurable amount of damage to the environment and fishing and tourism industries, it became crystal clear that yes, offshore drilling can create a disaster.

Right, offshore drilling is a very real, so-huge-it's-difficult-to-fathom risk. When it comes to offshore drilling, this is where I close my laptop, slide it into my backpack, get up, sling my bag over my shoulder, and stride calmly but briskly out the door.

With the Staunton News Leader, however, I'm sensing a but.

But ...

Thought so.

... the military already has said that only a narrow portion of the ocean floor off Virginia's coast would be suitable for offshore drilling, already limiting the impact here. 

Look, when it comes to massive, ecosystem-decimating oil spills, there's no such thing as "limiting the impact." Sure, there are more minor spills & leaks. But there's no "limiting the impact" of the Deepwater Horizon gusher. The Gulf is screwed and that's that. No "blowout preventers" or inflatable booms are stopping it.

And the process and industry bring much-needed jobs and fuel to the state and country.

So begins the unraveling of reality. Even the American Petroleum Institute admits drilling in the full range of Virginia's coast would only directly create 216 jobs -- and that's twenty years from now. But the Staunton News Leader is talking about going along with the military's plan to take much of the drilling territory off the table. How few jobs are we talking about now?

As for fulfilling our fuel needs, even under the most optimistic scenarios, drilling in all of the areas desired by Big Oil combined -- offshore, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rocky Mountain states -- would only mean a 4-5 cent reduction (PDF) in the price of a gallon of gasoline by 2025. Now consider JUST off Virginia. And only a small piece of that. How thin can you slice a penny?

What we want to see is a carefully regulated compromise that explores the possibilities for drilling off Virginia's coast and assures us the environmental impact would be limited and any damage done is repaired and punitive measures taken against those responsible.

So the Staunton News Leader wants to drill in water deeper than the Deepwater Horizon, whose gusher can't be stopped, with full assurances that any gusher could be stopped. And all that irreparable damage going on in the Gulf? Assure us it can be repaired. DON'T ASK QUESTIONS, JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN.

When Obama canceled the plans without apparent wiggle room, he did as much harm as going too quickly. 

Hear that? Holding off on drilling to address safety concerns is EXACTLY THE SAME as rushing into drilling and having a Deepwater Horizon disaster off Hampton Roads. Identical.

We need the fuel, and we need the jobs and other revenue offshore drilling can bring. We also need to take care of the environment and be assured that scientific research into alternatives will continue at an accelerated pace.

And there you have it -- the Staunton News Leader wants all of the benefits of drilling with guaranteed protection from all of the risks. I guess I finally understand what the GOP's "all of the above" energy plans is all about!

BP Has New Plan to Distract Us From How Screwed We Are

As I reluctantly predicted last week, BP's "top kill" effort to stop the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico didn't work. The inescapable conclusion is that offshore oil drilling technology is far more advanced than offshore oil spill stopping technology.

But wait! BP has a new plan to keep us from seeing this spill as an inevitable overdose of our ongoing addiction to oil! Put down that clean energy & climate legislation and check this out:

[BP Managing Director] Bob Dudley said there was a greater chance of success with this operation than with the "top kill" procedure that was tried last week.

"This is a better chance, definitely better. We're not working with those high pressures and pumping that we weren't sure we were able to even connect up. The guys that are running the robots, this is something that they know how to do. The cutting is probably the critical piece. We may have to try a couple of blades to do it. But from an engineering sense, this is much more straightforward. 

If this plan was really so much better than the "top kill" scheme, wouldn't BP have done this a lot sooner? Of course. Because this plan has one major drawback -- it inherently has to make the gusher a lot worse before it has any chance at all of making it better:

But a potential problem exists if the dome doesn’t work: A clean cut on the riser pipe would mean even more oil coming out than before.

"Well, there will be a little bit more oil, somewhere between zero and 20 percent more," said Dudley.

"Well, 20 percent is not insignificant, if thousands and thousands of barrels of oil are pouring out of there," said [CBS News Anchor Harry] Smith. 

Maybe it's time for our national debate to shift away from the gusher itself, which has very little chance of being stopped until a relief well is drilled months from now. Maybe it's time to talk about ways to ease our need for drilling in the first place -- more efficient cars, plug-in electric vehicles, and smart growth. Because maybe, just maybe, all these plans from BP are no more than parlor tricks to make it look like BP isn't powerless to stop this spill.

What Do BP Oil Spill & Offshore Drilling Jobs Have In Common?

Nobody can provide an accurate estimate for either one.

On the same day BP finally admitted its figure of 5,000 barrels per day lowballs the actual size of the spill, the Newport News Daily Press reported Gov. Bob McDonnell may be playing games with offshore drilling job creation estimates:

Even before the Defense Department made known its objections to offshore drilling in Virginia, Bob McDonnell raised eyebrows with a letter he sent to the Interior Department in December.

The letter cites a 5-year-old study that predicts offshore natural gas production alone would generate 2,578 jobs in 10 years. That the then governor-elect would quote the study surprised its author, former Old Dominion University President James Koch, who called the document a "flyover from 30,000 feet."

"I've told them they shouldn't make too much of something done over the weekend," Koch said. "I don't even put that on my [curriculum] vitae."

So how many jobs would offshore drilling create in Virginia? Let's ask Big Oil:

A 2009 [American Petroleum Institute] study found that Virginia would gain 130 drilling jobs, plus another 291 related to drilling, by 2020. The figures jump to 216 and 415, respectively, by 2030.

Only 415 jobs 20 years from now? At the cost of risking this off Virginia's coast?

Former Virginia governor & current Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine says the spill should prompt a fresh look at our energy priorities:

"You have to weigh environmental safety. You have to weigh the significant naval operations and NASA operations off Virginia's coast," he added. "I think a third thing you'd have to weigh in Virginia's case is opportunity cost -- would it be better to do offshore wind?

"The same place where you might want to do oil rigs off the coast of Virginia, there's actually pretty favorable wind conditions," Kaine said.

"So you would look at all the options and you would put them all on the table, including the environmental conditions. And certainly the need to be diligent about that has certainly been escalated dramatically by what we've seen in the gulf." 

Tell Senators Mark Warner & Jim Webb it's time to stop letting Big Oil write our energy policies.

Who Benefits from Expanded Drilling & High Gas Prices?

Expanded offshore drilling means more risk of spills. And just as the economy begins to recover, families are losing more of their disposable income to rising gas prices. But hey, not everyone's complaining!:

Exxon Mobil said Thursday its quarterly profit increased 38 percent as oil prices rose in the first three months of the year.

The company reported a profit of $6.3 billion, or $1.33 a share, in the first three months of the year. [...]

Exxon’s profit relied heavily on its exploration and production operation. Oil prices surged over the last 12 months, jumping from a low of $33 a barrel in the first quarter of 2009 to more than $80 a barrel this year.

It's about time Exxon Mobil's profits got back on track. After all, it's been a whole 16 months since it posted the biggest profit of the history of the planet. Good to see them back on their feet!

UPDATE: As my friend Teddy Goodson reminds me, Exxon's 2009 federal income tax bill was $0.

Cross-posted from BlueVirginia.us

What Would Gulf Coast Oil Spill Look Like Off Virginia's Coast?

Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, we can cut the Gulf Coast spill & paste it, scaled to size, off the Virginia coast in the area where drilling is planned. Via Twitter's Brad Johnson, here's what it looks like proportionately:

Obviously this is not exactly what a Virginia oil spill would look like. There are many variables -- wind direction & speed, water current patterns. This is not a forecast, it simply shows relative sizes.

What would all that oil do? Would it head out to sea? Towards the Chesapeake Bay & Virginia Beach? Up to Ocean City? Who knows.

But hey, at least oil spills come with a darkly comic side. Sen. Mark Warner, a relentless cheerleader for oil & gas drilling off Virginia's shores, is now being listed among coastal-state senators who've "expressed concerns about the safety & environmental impacts of offshore drilling." Who says you can't try to have it both ways?

Cross-posted from BlueVirginia.us

Oil Drilling: Virginia Gets All the Risk, But Has to Share the Rewards?

UPDATE: Accuweather forecasters are now warning of a possible oil spill on Gulf Coast beaches.

As Not Larry Sabato points out, this is what the McDonnell/Bolling/Cuccinelli administration is working so hard to bring to Virginia:

Survivors of a thunderous blast aboard an oil platform off the Louisiana coast were being reunited with their families at a suburban New Orleans hotel early Thursday as the search for 11 missing workers continued.

But there's more! Via The Deadrise, if some senators get their way, Virginians would get no more of the revenue from drilling off our shores than would go to Iowans:

Three key Senate Democrats are urging their colleagues to reject a proposal in the emerging climate bill that would give a cut of oil and gas production royalties to states that allow offshore drilling.

Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia called "revenue sharing" an ill-advised "giveaway" of money that belongs to all U.S. citizens.

All the risk, only a fraction of the rewards. I bet you didn't realize that when Bob McDonnell promised drilling revenue would fund transportation, he was referring to an expanded Route 20 to Sioux City, did you?

Cross-posted from BlueVirginia.us

Roanoke Times Rips "McDonnell's Single-Minded Focus on Coal, Oil and Other Fossil Fuels"

Via Lowell's Blue Virginia, the Roanoke Times editorial board blasts presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell's "1950s" energy plan:

McDonnell needs to realize that if Virginia wants to become the energy capital of America, the commonwealth must look to the future of renewable energy. The state simply doesn't have huge reserves of fossil fuels.

Take coal, for example. The National Mining Association estimates that Virginia has about 770 million tons of recoverable coal. Compare that to the 17.6 billion tons in West Virginia, or the 75 billion tons in Wyoming.

Oil is perhaps worse. In an online chart of proven reserves published by the U.S. Department of Energy, Virginia doesn't even merit an entry. Even if the most optimistic estimates of offshore reserves prove accurate, Virginia would be a minor player.

Check out the coal and oil reserve maps at ShowUSA. Even states like Iowa and Alabama have better shot at being the "coal capital" than Virginia. And forget about oil -- Virginia vanishes from the top 25 altogether.

Now look at the renewable energy map. The first thing you notice is that renewable resources are much more equitably spread among the states than fossil fuel deposits. The next thing is that while Virginia ranks 18th on the list, it's not a distant 18th -- and as a tech leader, Virginia is in much better position to take full advantage of the resources we have than other states ahead of us on the list. And if we do take advantage of Virginia's clean energy resources, we can create jobs, lower consumers' energy bills and preserve our planet.

Every Democratic candidate -- Creigh Deeds, Terry McAuliffe, and Brian Moran -- understands this. Bob McDonnell doesn't get it. We need to make sure voters know that in November.

Moran Reiterates Opposition to Offshore Drilling

In the wake of his pleasantly strong energy proposal, Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran today restated his strong opposition to offshore oil drilling.

Offshore drilling benefits only one constituency: Big Oil. The Bush administration's own Energy Information Administration has said that even if you drilled everywhere Big Oil wants to drill -- off the mid-Atlantic, off Florida, in Alaska, etc. -- it would only cut prices at the pump by a few pennies, if that. In return, we'd get more global warming pollution, higher risk of a spill, and no progress towards clean, made-in-America renewable energy sources.

Moran's stand also sets up a strong contrast with presumptive Republican nominee Bob McDonnell, who still parrots the "drill, baby, drill" slogan that sent dozens of Republican candidates down to defeat last fall.

Want to get really creeped out? Visit McDonnell's issues page (which actually has no issue positions on it). Among the highlights:

• McDonnell's creepy artificial glow
• The crowd behind him appears almost 100% white with maybe one or two Hispanic faces. The best part? It's photoshopped! Couldn't they pick a picture to photoshop with at least one black person in it? Apparently even the best cutting-edge technology can't make Republicans look multicultural.
• From the same photoshopped crowd, the guy with the McCain-Palin sticker in the front row. Again, couldn't airbrush that out?

I'm already fired up about beating this guy. And it's only January.

Colbert Report: Prescott Oil Loves the Earth

Colbert Faces a Formidable Opponent on Offshore Drilling