The ball is with Congress

Putting pressure on congressional Democrats to allow more domestic exploration, President Bush on Monday lifted an 18-year-old executive order banning offshore oil drilling.

The president has also proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling; lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and easing regulations that block expanded oil refining capacity.

"The only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress," Mr. Bush said in a statement in the Rose Garden. "Now the ball is squarely in Congress' court."

The president says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil, curbing price hikes over time.

Mr. Bush's proposal echoes a call by Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain to open the Outer Continental Shelf for exploration. Democrat Barack Obama, in contrast, has opposed the idea, instead arguing the government should collect money from us in taxes and then send our own money back to us to use in buying gasoline, while also stepping up efforts to develop alternative fuels.

Elsewhere among Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he'd refuse to allow a vote on the issue. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee, wailed: "This proposal is something you'd expect from an oil company CEO, not the president of the United States."

But if oil executives want to work harder providing us with more oil, that's admirable and patriotic ... isn't it? How would their interests in such an enterprise diverge from those of an American president or Americans in general? Compare this to, say, South African diamond producers, who might well hope to block the development of new diamond fields, which could lower the value of their own holdings.

Who is it, really, who objects to new drilling, and why? Let's run down the list.

The long-term objection of the congressmen of the shoreline districts has been that oil spills could harm fishing and local tourist economies.

Never say "never," but this concern must be put in perspective: In 2005, the massive Hurricane Katrina -- the third-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States in modern times -- failed to cause a single offshore Gulf rig to spill any appreciable oil. That's an impressive safety performance. Besides, failure of the United States to drill these international waters won't stop the resource from being developed: Cuba and other nations -- with environmental safeguards possibly lower than ours -- already drill these waters.

The second commonly heard objection is that drilling offshore and on Alaska's north slope won't produce new oil for six or seven years, and even then won't produce enough oil to meet all our needs.

True. But as others have pointed out, the "time delay" argument is like saying there's no sense taking a prescribed medication because it won't work for a week or more. All the more reason to get started.

Similarly, would it make sense -- in tough times when the kids are starting to go hungry -- to let the apples from the tree in your back yard rot on the ground, rather than gathering them up and storing some away as applesauce, based on the argument that the apples "won't meet all our grocery needs, anyway"?

These arguments are largely disingenuous. At heart, the rationale to block drilling comes down to a conspiracy theory: The oil and energy companies know they could fully supply our fuel and electric needs at no greater cost by quickly deploying current wind, solar and geothermal technologies, but they're conspiring to "hold these cheap alternatives off the market" because they're greedy.

First, note how this contradicts the assertion that Mr. Bush "does the bidding of the oil companies" when he calls for new drilling. If the Greedy Oil Executives enjoy charging higher prices for imported oil, why would they want to go to the expense of developing their own new wells, thus increasing supply and holding down prices?

In fact, this is little more than a new variant on the old "Guy invented an engine that would run on water but they murdered him and stole his patent and they're keeping it secret because it would blow the lid off their whole operation" fantasy.

If these Luddites believe there are fortunes to be made developing current "alternative power" technologies to quickly generate enough power to meet our growing needs at or below current rates, let them invest their life savings and become the "greedy power barons" of tomorrow.

Congress should indeed authorize offshore drilling, authorize drilling the ANWR, authorize exploration of the Green River Valley, and facilitate the expansion of our oil refining capacity.

If Democrats block such common sense, things are going to get a lot worse at the gas pump, in the electric bill, and in our economy in general.

Time to start taking names.