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PRESIDENT Barack Obama opened vast swathes of US coastal waters to drilling for oil and natural gas last week, triggering speculation that he was seeking to lay fertile ground to pass his climate bill.
A prior effort to expand offshore drilling by George W. Bush in 2008 was challenged in court on environmental grounds and later scrapped by Obama. The new plan promises stronger environmental safeguards. It will allow commercial drilling operations in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to be expanded, and supports exploratory drilling off southern Atlantic states and in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska.
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A 2009 study by the US Department of Energy found that if offshore drilling were allowed in all waters off the lower 48 states, domestic oil production would increase by only 7.4 per cent by 2030. It also found the additional drilling would reduce the cost of a gallon of gasoline at the pump by just $0.03 by 2030. The figures include extraction from large deposits found off Pacific coast states which will not be opened to drilling under Obama鈥檚 plan. But deposits found in waters off Alaska would likely yield roughly the same amount, says Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
鈥淭he only reason to do this is to get Republican votes for a climate bill,鈥� Romm says, referring to the cap-and-trade legislation which the US Senate is expected to discuss in coming weeks.