Lifting restrictions on offshore drilling will not provide immediate relief at the pump

President Bush's announcement that he would seek to lift restrictions on offshore oil exploration so that Americans would not face such higher prices for fuel at their gas stations is one of the worst examples of political pandering I've seen from an administration that has made its reputation on political pandering.

The only thing lifting such restrictions would do is endanger the coasts of communities whose economies are based in large part on having clean water and clean coastlines.

It also calls into question why anyone would be stupid enough to think that additional drilling, and not conservation, is the answer. As Senator Harry Reid said yesterday (and I'm paraphrasing here), How can a country that consumes a quarter of the world's oil supplies yet owns a scant 3 percent of its reserves be foolhardy enough to think it can drill its way out of its problems. The Energy Information Administration reports that if offshore restrictions were lifted immediately on both coasts, consumers would not notice any relief at gas station pumps as a direct result of this action until the year 2030 at the earliest.

Here's some more data to file away on this issue. Oil companies already have drilling access to more 90 million acres of federal land offshore and yet they are not even drilling on 68 million acres of it (this according to the House Committee on Natural Resources and supported by studies conducted by the Wilderness Society). My question is: Why don't they drill on these lands instead of asking for the lifting of restrictions on others? And the reason is that this has nothing to do with producing more oil or helping consumers -- it is quite simply a blatant land grab the big oil companies hope to pull off before their buddies, George Bush and Dick Cheney, leave the White House.

UPDATE: It can be successfully argued that Sen. Robert Menendez is not the most objective person on this argument since he sponsored the original legislation that limited offshore drilling. But he sponsored it because his state, New Jersey, has many of those communities (i.e., the entire Jersey Shore) whose economies could be devastated by an oilspill. Nevertheless, his objections to lifting the ban merit examing. Besides, I'm naturally going to admire and promote anyone who re-inforces my arguments.