Offshore Drilling Moratorium: One of the committees on which I serve is the Joint Economic Committee. This committee is primarily tasked with studying the U.S. economy, and consider factors which affect it. Last week, we had a hearing on the subject of energy. One of the witnesses was a professor from Texas A&M University. He made a very interesting point about the Obama Administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling. Ostensibly, the purpose of this moratorium is to reduce the risk of another oil spill until such time as acceptable oil spill prevention activities are in place, if ever. Interestingly however, this professor challenged that supposition. He pointed out that if the moratorium continues, 150,000 very high paying American jobs will be lost to Brazil, India, and other places for a period of at least 2 years. But in addition to that, the US will be forced to import more oil because of the domestic oil production that will be lost. That imported oil will come into the Gulf of Mexico and other ports, in ships. The professor estimated that it will take 1,500 additional tankers full of oil (roughly equivalent to 269 million barrels of oil) to make up for the oil not extracted from existing oil fields. Statistically, the risk of an oil spill is much greater from a tanker than it is from an offshore drilling rig. Therefore, the U.S. is actually now at GREATER risk of an oil spill because of the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium due to the massive increase of oil being imported on ships. It’s something to think about.
On another note, isn’t it interesting that the Obama administration chose to challenge the State of Arizona for its attempts to enforce immigration laws, when that same administration has taken no action against the so-called “sanctuary cities” that have statutes which specifically prohibit their (local) law enforcement officials from noting or pursuing KNOWN violations of federal immigration laws.
On still another note, lest you thought things had changed on Washington’s spending culture, the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development spending bill passed by the House last week represents an increase of 38.1% over the FY 2008 level. What’s more, it contains 461 earmarks. Because most Republicans have accepted a no earmark moratorium for this year, 455 of those earmarks were offered by Democrats and 6 by Republicans. But what’s the problem? It’s not like we have a deficit or owe a bunch of money or anything…………. (heavy sigh).
For more on this, tune in tomorrow!