Will Offshore Drilling Really Help Us?

Question

On the Gulf Coast near Biloxi, also in Louisiana, there is offshore drilling. During Hurricane Katrina, it was a scrambled mess, and the environmental damage is as yet unknown. Off the coast of Florida, on the Gulf side, there is an island owned by the Bush family. One wonders if the planned drilling will encompass the territory around this island. But, I digress....

If offshore drilling is expanded off our coastlines, it will be at least ten years before we see any results. Even then, what is the guarantee that the prices will be any cheaper? Does anyone think that offshore drilling for oil will bring great benefits to the American people, considering that we have a great deal of land already leased for oil drilling, with no drilling taking place? Will the environmental hazards during storms and hurricanes be a problem? Will the price of oil, once we see the oil from these sites, go down? Or is it simply a matter of greedy oil barons hungry for another slice of the pie?

Answer 1

Destruction of Automobiles will.  Bulldozing shopping malls and replacing car parks with bicycle lock ups will help.

Imposing a confiscation law on all automobiles. Except Ambulences Fire Trucks, and Police Cars. And Classic Cars and the ones in parades. Community Currency made by computer imaging then the image copiedby hand and copies it then printed recycled paper.

Answer 2

This is a really good question and I'm glad you asked it. Politics aside, there is some benefits to offshore drilling and even opening up ANWR. We all know our country is largely dependent on foreign oil. What people don't necessarily know is that Oil is traded many times before it even reaches American soil (Trade = Bought, resold over and over) therefor the price is nearly uncontrollable. However, showing that our country is willing to produce our own oil supply whether it takes 6-10 years to fully work will drive oil prices down. Historically this is has happened in the past, and could happen again. Why? To prevent us from moving forward with such policy, suppliers will lower prices if they want to continue receiving funds for oil.

Another reason is that it stops our depency on foreign oil, especially in the middle east where we can continue to give money to nations that harbor and unofficially support terrorism. In turn the idea will give our economy more leverage, lets face the fact that if our oil supply was cut off our country will fall apart.

Being effecient with our own supply will lead us to focus on renewable energy sources like nuclear, solar, wind etc. As for the econuts and environmentalist, what's the difference from our offshore drilling from and any other offshore place on the planet? So it's okay to exploit other locations because we can?

Answer 3

it will help, for starters....We will be able to STOP financing our enemies in the middle east

i'd say thats a pretty big plus alone, i dont give a c**p what the price is

Answer 4

Offshore drilling isn't going to help us in the 'now' time.  Once those rigs get up and running, it could take between 5-10 years before we even see a drop of that oil.  Also, there is only about 2 years worth of oil in the Gulf of Mexico...so what's the point in restarting the drilling down there.  My opinoin, start drilling in Alaska! We know there is tons of oil there and we need to stop depending so much on foreign oil.  We have oil here in the US, we need to start using it!

Answer 5

Will doing nothing really help us?  Of course not, at least drilling will help our future needs.