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Al Franken has an advertisement that suggests that lobbyists are to blame for high gas prices. Meanwhile, the STrib's Nick Coleman has gotten out his crayons and scribbled a column that says that we're screwed in terms of high gas prices at the pump. First, here's Franken's money quote from yesterday's press conference:
"Right now hundreds of former Senators and Congressman are lobbying for big oil and special interests in Washington," Franken tells viewers in the TV spot, "No wonder gas is at $4 a gallon."
According to the gospel of Franken, special interests and unethical politicians are why gas is expensive. Let's see what Mr. Coleman has to say about high gas prices:
We think we could solve our troubles if we started drilling on the outer continental shelf. Then we might be able to lower the price of gas to $3.98 gallon. Twenty years from now.
That's because oil is priced in a global market, where the extra production would amount to a tiny drop in the world's bucket, about 200,000 barrels a day. Whoopee.
Contrast that miniscule difference with what might be achieved by improving fuel efficiencies for cars and light trucks.
According to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, the United States could cut consumption by 3.3 million barrels a day (16 times the effect of expanded drilling) if the average auto fuel efficiency was 32 miles per gallon.
It sounds like Nick Coleman thinks it's more of a supply and demand thing. While Mr. Coleman's 'facts' sound like they're straight from the liberal mantra songbook, it's impossible to say that this isn't a supply and demand problem. In other words, Nick Coleman is closer to the truth than Al Franken.
It's a sad day when Nick Coleman is closer to the truth than a US Senate candidate. That isn't to say that Nick Coleman is right. His statistics are flimsy at best. Suggesting that opening the OCS would add "200,000 barrels a day" to world oil production is plain irresponsible. It's obvious that Saint Nick's factchecking team didn't bother running that through the truthmeter.
This study by the Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman provides us with a different set of statistics that I'm betting are more accurate:
These restrictions effectively banned new offshore energy production off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, parts of offshore Alaska, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Recent DOI estimates put the amount of energy in these off-limits areas at 19.1 billion barrels of oil and 83.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, approximately 30 years' worth of imports from Saudi Arabia and enough natural gas to power America's homes for 17 years. It should also be noted that these initial estimates tend to be low.
OCS restrictions are a relic of the past. They were put in place at a time when energy was cheap, the need for additional domestic supplies was not seen as dire, and the political path of least resistance was to give in to environmentalists. All that has changed, with more than a quadrupling of oil and natural gas prices since the restrictions were first imposed. Extra energy is badly needed, and the risk of producing it has been reduced. All new drilling would be subject to strict safeguards and would require state-of-the-art technology with a proven track record for limiting the risk of spills.
Meanwhile, Franken repeats his populist 'We're paying too much for gas because Washington is corrupt' message everywhere he goes. The thing is that he doesn't prove any sort of correlation between lobbyists and high gas prices.
While it's always appropriate to clean up Washington, I'd doubt that lobbyist reform would change the price of a barrel of oil by more than a couple pennies. This is just another example of why Franken's part of the No Solutions Brigade.
People from all walks of life in Minnesota are hurting because of these prices. Despite that, Mr. Franken refuses to put serious solutions on the table. That's likely because his environmental lobbyist friends won't give him serious solutions to this problem.
Contrast that with Sen. Coleman's serious plan to increase production:
U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman told a group of Rochester businessmen Wednesday that the United States can bring down the price of gasoline by opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration as part of a broad mix of energy options.
Coleman, a Republican who is seeking a second term in the U.S. Senate, also predicted that the clamor from a public battered by the soaring price of gasoline, now hovering at $4 a gallon, will lead to a bipartisan consensus on the need to drill off the nation's coasts.
"Right now, we're being held hostage to Saudi sheiks and thugs and tyrants like (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chavez and (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, because we don't have the options. It's like fighting a fight with one hand tied behind your back," Coleman said.
Mr. Franken's environmentalist friends will undoubtedly criticize Sen. Coleman's plan. That should be proof that he's on the right track. The environmentalist lobby hasn't gotten it right with energy policy in a generation. The Democrats' steadfast adherence to the environmentalist lobby's line is why the OCS and ANWR are currently offlimits. Contrary to Mr. Franken's contrived extrapolation, there's abundant proof that environmentalists have driven up the cost of a gallon of gasoline by putting ANWR offlimits:
"So the debate started way back in 1977, I think that was the first time I came to Congress and testified on that issue," Herrera recalled.
At that time, Stan Senner was a young environmentalist from Fairbanks, Alaska. He flew to Washington to lobby for protection of the coastal plain, a wilderness teeming with wildlife in northeastern Alaska.
"We knew right from the outset that it was going to be a big fight," Senner recalled.
He remembered that environmentalist members of Congress were determined to stall the bill until it protected the refuge's coastal plain. They succeeded in the House, but not in the Senate. Then President Jimmy Carter, who supported preservation, lost his re-election bid to Ronald Reagan, and environmentalists like Stan Senner were worried.
"There was this enormous pressure to settle for whatever we had to settle for to get the larger Alaska Lands Act taken care of, " Senner said. What they settled for was limbo for the coastal plain. Congress asked the Interior Department to research the possibility of oil development, and it reserved for itself the power to decide whether to open it to drilling in the future.
There's more to this story:
In 1987, when Reagan was still president, the Interior Department recommended that Congress allow drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge. It reported that the area represented the nation's best chance to boost domestic oil production. But it also cautioned that drilling could harm wildlife, especially the caribou herds that use the area as a calving ground.
Franken's environmentalist friends have opposed opening up ANWR's coastal plain since the Carter administration. Stated differently, they've opposed sensible solutions since before Mr. Franken paid attention to energy policy.
When will the environmentalist lobby let companies supply real solutions to this Crisis of Choice? More importantly, why does Mr. Franken allow himself to be held hostage by a bunch of extremists who oppose providing viable solutions?
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