Rep. Mark Kirk, in his first appearance on WLS' Don Wade & Roma Morning Show since the infamous "shoot on sight" fiasco,
was back in rare form today. This time, the North Shore
Republican offered listeners a false proposition: either drill for oil offshore
or buy oil from the Iranians. Listen here:
KIRK: We have a fundamental choice. We need to get off oil, but for the time being we are still dependent on it. We can either buy 80 billion barrels of oil from the Iranians or from ourselves. And we should buy it from ourselves.
It's unclear where Kirk got the 80 billion figure. That aside, his assumption that the United States will be forced to rely on Iran if we don't feed our oil dependency at home is a pretty sneaky way of scaring voters into the GOP's pro-drilling camp.
For over a decade, America has kept Iranian crude out of the domestic supply through a ban on their oil imports and congressionally mandated sanctions on companies that attempt to develop Iran's oil and gas. Given the political discourse in Washington surrounding the Iranian regime -- a reality Kirk is well aware of -- it's incredibly unlikely that the ban will be lifted in the near future. But that doesn't stop Kirk from using the "scary" Tehran regime as his foil, fearmongering about hypothetical Iranian influence on American life instead of arguing for his favored proposal honestly.
But just for fun, let's suppose we did lift the Iranian ban and drop the oil-related sanctions. How would this affect supply? Robert Naiman recently posed this question to economist Dean Baker, who responded with some interesting data:
"Suppose they [Iran] open up to foreign investment and production goes up 1-2 million barrels a day after a few years...It's 5 to 10 times McCain's offshore drilling."
So by equating these two options -- drill offshore (adding 200,000 extra barrels per day) or open the U.S. market to Iran (1-2 million extra barrels per day) -- Kirk is greatly exaggerating the impact of expanded domestic production. It might be an effective electoral gambit, but more U.S. drilling just won't effect the energy crisis in any meaningful, immediate way. And Kirk should own up to it.
UPDATE: We looked into Kirk's "80 billion" figure and discovered that the 10th District Republican is actually conflating two very different government estimates. In doing so, he's more than quadrupling the amount of oil thought to be available in the offshore areas under federal moratorium. Read our full explanation here.
markg8 on Wed, 08/20/2008 - 14:20
Norm Coleman cited that 80 bbl figure at a county fair in Mankato back in July I think it was. TPM had the video of him standing in a barn next to a tractor. Maybe from the US Geological Survey? The Petroleum Institute?
The fact is oil cos in the US are drilling on 25 million acres onshore and off in the US now. They have leases on another 68 million. Frankly I agree with Repubs there's probably not much light sweet easily recoverable crude under those 68 million acres. For now it's cheaper for Exxon to buy abroad with no environmental or workplace protections to pay for or worry about.
But what they don't say and I think is true is there aren't any huge fields of light sweet easily recoverable crude left anywhere in the US. Not Alaska. Not off Florida or anywhere else. If there were the oil cos. would have been clamoring for the rights to it for decades now instead of making increasingly one sided deals that don't favor them with state oil cos. in Venezuela, Russia and the Middle East. They surely wouldn't be sinking big bucks into crappy oil sands in Alberta either.
My rough guess is we probably have all of about 10 years worth of oil left under US territory of relatively poor quality in small holes that for national security purposes if nothing else we'd be better off leaving in the ground for now. Unless of course we'd like the Russians and the Saudis dictating to us where and when our military can fight in 10 years. Those F-22s and M1A2 tanks don't run on ethanol.
I find that a very effective counter argument to the "drill here, drill now" lunatics.
Josh Kalven on Wed, 08/20/2008 - 16:27
Good point about the military angle, Mark.
And thanks for the Coleman tip. We looked into the 80 billion figure some more and, not surprisingly, found some problems with it. We're going to be doing a follow-up post shortly.
ArchPundit (not verified) on Wed, 08/20/2008 - 16:35
A small addition--80 BBL would be 59% of all proven Iranian reserves. That the US would be getting that sort of proportion is absurd.
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