The Truth About Offshore Drilling

If you were to make some sense of the discussion on offshore drilling you have to take into account the fact that there is a very big percentage of drilling permits that were already given for the drilling of oil and gas and are used only to claim the land.

From the Daily Kos:

It has been estimated that if all of those currently inactive leases were drilled, the USA would produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas EVERY DAY, accounting for a doubling of US oil production and a 75% increase in US natural gas production. The Minerals Management Service tells us that about 80% of fossil fuels available in offshore are currently available for development.

What’s going on here is yet another cynical attempt by the GOP and the oil and gas robber barons to increase and assure huge industry profits at the expense of the American people. These companies don’t want to drill these areas. They want to hold them as assests to limit the amount of oil and gas on the market so that prices rise still further - and they make more money. They want to hold on to these areas so that they can drill them ten or fifteen years from now and make an even bigger fortune

Why would Bush and McCain ask for more permits when the ones that were given are not being used?

I have to agree that the main intention is to help the oil and gas industry get richer and not to help the private consumer. Don’t know about you but I would demand the companies to use their unused leases in a reasonable period of time or lose them.

If they are just sitting on the land maybe we can use it for better purposes than to help the rich be richer.