The Absurd Report

BARACK OBAMA PUNCTUATED his opposition last week to offshore drilling for oil and natural gas with a clever jab at John McCain. “The politics may have changed, but the facts have not,” he quipped. A few days earlier, McCain had called for lifting the moratorium on exploration and drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Obama was only half right. With gasoline at $4-plus a gallon, the politics have indeed changed–in favor of increased domestic oil production. But so have the facts. And it’s that change that has made offshore drilling cost-effective, environmentally safe, and no threat to become an eyesore off the beaches of California and Florida.

Advances in oil technology–which Obama either doesn’t know about or chooses to ignore–allow drilling to go far deeper beneath the sea and thus farther from the coast. Some oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are nearly 200 miles from land. Serious spills from drilling offshore have become practically non-existent. More than 100 rigs in the Gulf were damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single spill.

So Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, was wrong. Now, like other Democrats, he’s in a politically awkward position. He opposes new drilling for oil and natural gas at a time when drilling in areas currently off limits has become popular. Three-fourths of likely voters in a new Zogby poll said they favor it, and Republicans have made it their top issue against Democrats.

Democrats appear wary of saying they oppose any boost in domestic oil production, which happens to be the position of a powerful interest group, the environmental lobby. But despite…

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Tags: Politics v. Energy Policy

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