The McCain/Bush Oil Scheme: Pure Deception For Pure Oil Company Profit

We've long known that Republicans care more about playing politics than actually solving problems. This is especially the case with the environment. For decades liberals have warned of the dangers of global warming and environmental degradation but were dismissed by conservatives as a bunch of alarmist nuts. Now look at who the nuts are, now that liberals were vindicated by science and denial of global warming is about as ridiculous as Holocaust denial. Finally, the mainstream is starting to fully understand what those on the left have known for a long time. Yet even in the last couple of years the Bush administration has tried to silence scientists who have tried to warn us about the role of humans in climate change. Global warming is the most frequently given example of McCain's separation from mainstream Republicans, and rightfully so, he has acknowledged the existence of global warming while most of his colleagues have continued to lie about the overwhelming evidence so they can keep lining corporate pocketbooks with fresh green cash. That, however, is setting the bar pretty low.

That also doesn't mean McCain is in any way green, or in any way opposed to playing politics to feed his corporate friends thick profits while offering fake solutions to Americans that will do nothing to solve problems like global warming. Take for example the Bush/McCain gas tax pander scheme. I've written about this a lot, but since I was writing in the context of the primary election, I focused on Hillary's embrace of this "quick fix", which essentially amounts to a $10 billion handout to oil companies that does almost nothing to reduce gas prices for average Americans. The plan, especially the Republican version of it, actually does quite a bit of harm considering the suspension of the federal gas tax would drain the already underfunded Highway Trust Fund on much needed revenue (you know, the money needed to keep bridges from collapsing as you drive over them), while in theory (if it actually worked to decrease gas prices, which it wouldn't) also increasing demand for gas, thus further exacerbating global warming. If anything at this point we should be discouraging driving by encouraging the use of mass transit and alternative modes of transportation. A great example of eco-friendly mass transit that we should be investing in is intercity passenger rail (Amtrak), which coincidentally is also a great example of another green solution that McCain is against. So on the gas tax pander scheme, McCain sides with Bush and the oil companies, while playing voters for fools by peddling a false solution that will actually end up screwing them over in the end.

McCain has been running around the country touting his "green" credentials, saying he supports alternative energy research even though he consistently voted against research and other investments in alternative energy over the years. McCain has actually made it a bit of a running campaign theme to talk about how we need all kinds of new solutions, while opposing any investment in those very same solutions in the Senate. If hypocrisy were a viable alternative to gasoline, McCain would be a national treasure. On the campaign trail McCain has saved some lukewarm criticism for oil speculators which are believed to be part of the reason for soaring oil prices. Energy speculators are able to drive up prices and generally do whatever they want as a direct result of deregulation in energy trading markets, which has been a pet cause of the Republicans for decades. And guess who's campaign co-chair and top economic advisor (former Texas Senator Phil Gramm) had his hand in pushing the so-called "Enron loophole" that makes all this unrestricted speculation possible? I'll give you a hint: It rhymes with "McSame". Yet again, McCain talks tough about gas prices, yet does the bidding of big oil while opposing every real solution to our crisis of energy independence and climate change.

Of course no discussion of McCain would be complete without a flip-flop, McCain's specialty. While McCain was campaigning for the Republican nomination back in 2000 he was opposed to environmentally destructive offshore drilling, which probably hurt his chances with his corporate-friendly Republican base. This time around, McCain has learned his lesson and has embraced the same destructive right-wing policies of Bush. Flip-flop. Now McCain and Bush sing the praises of offshore drilling as a hideous duet. Given that offshore drilling has become a major part of McCain's so-called "solution" to soaring gas prices, let's take a look at what his "solution" really means.

First, a little background on why people are against offshore drilling:

• A steady stream of pollution from offshore rigs causes a wide range of health and reproductive problems for fish and other marine life.
• Offshore drilling exposes wildlife to the threat of oil spills that would devastate their populations.
• Offshore drilling activities destroy kelp beds, reefs and coastal wetlands.
• Over its lifetime, a single oil rig can dump more than 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean.
• Over its lifetime, a single oil rig can drill between 50-100 wells, each dumping 25,000 pounds of toxic metals, such as lead, chromium and mercury, and potent carcinogens like toluene, benzene, and xylene into the ocean.
• Over its lifetime, a single oil rig can pollute the air as much as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day.

And all that is when they are working properly, here is a look at what can happen when they suffer a catastrophic breakdown:

• In May 1992, Chevron USA pleaded guilty to 65 violations of the Clean Water Act and paid $8 million in fines for illegal discharges from the company's production platform of the California coast.
• In March 1997, Chevron was fined 1.2 million for operating a well off the coast of Ventura with a broken ant-blowout valve, a key environmental protection on an offshore oil well.
• In 1998, a rupture in Torch Oil's pipeline spilled 21,000 gallons of oil, damaging a rich ocean fishing ground and killing wildlife in the delicate coastal ecosystem at the mouth of the Santa Ynez River.
• State and local authorities repeatedly cited the Venoco Corporation for releases of deadly hydrogen sulfide gas at its Goleta platform in 1998-99.
• An ARCO pipeline ruptured in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, spilling 193,000 gallons of oil into the Santa Clara River.

And that is why citizens of coastal states like California and Florida have been strongly opposed to offshore drilling. Now, however, with rising gas prices Republicans (and oil companies) are looking to exploit voter unease to finally undo the decades old moratorium on offshore drilling so oil companies can expand on their already record profits, because apparently they don't already have enough money.

And since Bush, McCain and the Republicans are touting offshore drilling as the solution to all of our problems, we should run their claims through the reality filter.

First of all, according to the Department of Energy there are about 18 billion barrels of oil in these restricted areas that McCain/Bush want to open up to oil companies. That sounds like a lot, but it isn't. At peak production that oil would only decrease the price of oil by around $1.50 per barrel. Oh yeah, and peak production would be about 20 years from now. It would take nearly 10 years for the oil companies to locate the oil, setup platforms, drill and start having the oil flow to refineries and onto the global market (yes, global, did you really think that oil was going to go to the US? That isn't how the market works, all that oil is just a drop in the global bucket). So much for short term solutions. So Bush/McCain's solution is for us to decrease the price of a barrel of oil (now about $136) by $1.50, 20 years from now. If you are 20 now, you will be 40 years old by the time McCain's "solution" kicks in.

But let's stop for a little perspective on that "solution", because it gets worse. Look at it this way, on June 5th of this year oil jumped $5.50 per barrel. The next day on June 6th it jumped $11. That's a $16.50 increase in the price of oil, in 48 hours, McCain's solution would damage the environment and would only drop this price by $1.50 over 20 years! This "solution", even if we magically saw the peak benefits the very same day the drilling was authorized, would be maybe $2-3 per barrel if we drilled the hell out of these protected coastal waters AND the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) (which Bush has been wanting to drill for years now, but McCain has resisted, wait for this to be his next flip-flop). And have you noticed that the few times recently when oil prices actually dropped a couple dollars per barrel the gas prices didn't go down at all? Do you think gas prices would move at all with a minor fluctuation over decades in the price of gas? Hell no, oil companies would pocket that in an instant. Essentially all we gain by drilling is harming the environment, pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, and enriching the oil companies.

And there is another problem: The oil companies already have land they can drill, but they aren't drilling. Why would they not be drilling when they have all this oil laying around? Because keeping supply down drives prices up, and the longer they sit on their reserves and starve Americans for gas, the more money they make. Environmentalist's recent Daily Kos diary exposes the real picture of what is going on:

In fact, only 17% of the leased areas is in production. So, with about 33 million acres of [unprotected] offshore areas already available to drill and not being drilled, why does the oil and gas industry need to have access to still more? The fact is that nearly 25 BILLION barrels of oil off the coast of the United States is currently available for drilling...and industry is not drilling it.

Not to mention natural gas. Most of the natural gas occurring offshore (over 328 TRILLION cubic feet – an eleven year supply at current consumption rates) is currently available for leasing and development.

And they’re not going after it.

This is the story throughout the country, more than 44 million acres of onshore public lands are leased for oil and gas development and yet most of it is not being drilled. All told (onshore and offshore), 68 million acres are leased and sitting idle. Over 10,000 permits are currently 'stockpiled' by industry. But still they want more.

Between 1999 and 2007, the number of drilling permits issued for development of public lands increased by more than 361%. And did you see your gasoline costs drop? How about your electricity costs? Propane? natural gas? Uh...no. There is absolutely no correlation between the industrialization of public lands and the price of fossil fuels.

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 assets 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.

Bingo. The Bush/McCain plan has nothing to do with lowering the price of gas because the problem isn't that oil companies can't drill in enough places, because they don't want to drill the resources they already have. The Bush/McCain plan amounts to nothing more than a big fat gift to oil companies, a giant thank you for screwing Americans at the pumps, and for padding the pockets of Republicans.

In addition to flip-flops, no speech by McCain would be complete without McCain either flat out lying to people, or having absolutely no clue what he is talking about. For instance, during his energy speech (which was received very warmly by oil companies, surprise surprise) McCain said:

As for offshore drilling, it's safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston. Yet for reasons that become less convincing with every rise in the price of foreign oil, the federal government discourages offshore production.

Let's look at the reality of what Katrina and Rita did to our offshore drilling rigs:

The oil pollution in the wake of Hurricane Katrina could be among the worst recorded in North America, officials trying to coordinate the clean-up say. The US coastguard, which is responsible for the marine environment, said yesterday more than 6.5 million gallons of crude oil had been spilt in at least seven major incidents. The previous worst spill in US waters was the 11m gallons in Alaskan waters from the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

The figure does not include petrol and oil spilt from up to 250,000 cars which have been submerged, or that spilt from hundreds of petrol stations. The coastguard says it has received almost 400 reports of spills, the vast majority of which have not been assessed.

Yeah, so much for no spillage or significant damage from Katrina and Rita. Let's take another look at how safe these oil platforms are:

Five days after Hurricane Rita made landfall, the extent of the damage to offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico sharpened yesterday after Chevron indicated that one of its three large platforms had capsized after losing its moorings.

The deepwater platform, called Typhoon, was spotted Sunday drifting nearly 80 miles from its original position, a Chevron spokesman, Mickey Driver, said. The company had first said on Monday that Typhoon had been "severely damaged."

Offshore platforms, especially those that operate in deep water, are designed to withstand the most severe storms. Typhoon's accident came a few weeks after Royal Dutch Shell, the largest operator in the gulf, said that its Mars platform, which accounted for 15 percent of the gulf's oil production, had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

And more:

An oil rig tore free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast, before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge, witnesses said.

The platform broke free from the Bender shipbuilding and repair yard in Mobile during the morning as the then category four hurricane walloped the southern US coast.

The runaway rig then drifted through the choppy waters of the Mobile River before hitting the Cochrane/Africatown USA road bridge.

And more:

From New Orleans to New York, the jigsaw pieces of the USA's energy infrastructure — its rigs, refineries and pipelines — lay in disarray after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

A big offshore rig supplier, Noble, said the storm blew one of its giant platforms 17 miles off its moorings.

Another rig supplier, Rowan, said one of its rigs may have capsized and sunk.

Yeah, that seems really safe McCain. Nothing to worry about there, those oil-filled mammoths are as sturdy as mountains (extreme sarcasm). So, as is constantly the case with the crap McCain spews, we have to ask ourselves, is McCain knowingly lying to voters to further his agenda, or is he really that ignorant that he simply has no idea that crap he is saying is false? It is really hard to tell. He messes up so often, even when it doesn't really help his cause any, that part of me wants to say he is just a complete idiot that just don't have the slightest clue what he is talking about, whether it be foreign policy, national security or the environment (or his own record on any topic).

There is a lot of information here, so let's recap. McCain has consistently opposed measures that would help develop alternative energy and decrease our reliance of fossil fuels. McCain opposes Amtrak, which pretty much everyone (but him and Bush and some of the more hardcore Republicans) agrees is an extremely important investment for a greener future. McCain supported the war in Iraq and energy market deregulation that have been the largest contributors to the skyrocketing price of oil. And McCain's "solution" to record oil prices is to decrease them by a few bucks over the next 20 years by contaminating the coastal waters around our countries major tourist areas (which represent a $300+ billion a year industry) with oil, sludge and metals. That is McCain's "solution" to our energy/ecological crisis.

Obama's plan includes investing heavily in a "green" economy and alternative energy, increasing fuel efficiency standards, and mandatory decreases in CO2 emissions. Read more about his plan here.

“ Well, I don't believe that climate change is just an issue that's convenient to bring up during a campaign. I believe it's one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation. That's why I've fought successfully in the Senate to increase our investment in renewable fuels. That's why I reached across the aisle to come up with a plan to raise our fuel standards… And I didn't just give a speech about it in front of some environmental audience in California. I went to Detroit, I stood in front of a group of automakers, and I told them that when I am president, there will be no more excuses — we will help them retool their factories, but they will have to make cars that use less oil.

— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, October 14, 2007

Update: I'm not sure how I missed this, but I just came across a video of Obama nailing McCain on his offshore drilling deception, using the facts that seem to be excluded from the media coverage of the issue....which is probably why we never saw it. Check it out:



Update #2: Also check out McCain's big payday, courtesy of the oil companies after he completely sold out and started spewing their propaganda (lies) to the voters.