Another Slick Repug Oil Scam

The Murdoch Street Journal never disappoints when it comes to seeking out reality-challenged commentary; this piece published today was written by House Repug John Shadegg of Arizona, one of the leading “Drill, Baby, Drill” proponents (as you can see from here, that $119K buys a lot of influence)…

The Democratic proposal (which recently passed, by the way; my note) is not a death-bed conversion, it's designed to solve their political problem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members in August that they can say they are in favor of drilling, but that she wouldn't allow a vote on a drilling bill. Now that she has been forced to, she knows her environmental allies will block new drilling from going forward.

…

Indeed, incessant legal and administrative challenges make true the Democrat claim that oil from newly opened areas will not reach the market for years. These groups make use of a wide range of laws and regulations to challenge development. And they will make sure that the Democrats' proposal is meaningless.

As far as the fact that no oil would be yielded in the near term under the “Democrat” proposal (nice one, Shadegg, you creep), this Media Matters post tells us that the Energy Information Administration (EIA) decided as follows concerning drilling in Alaska (by the way, his position of now favoring drilling in the OCS represents yet another flip-flop by John W. McBush)…

"The projections in the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017." In assessing the likely impact of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf area, the EIA further stated that "despite the increase in production from previously restricted areas after 2012, total natural gas production from the lower 48 OCS is projected generally to decline after 2020." The EIA continued: "Although a significant volume of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and natural gas resources is added in the OCS access case, conversion of those resources to production would require both time and money. In addition, the average field size in the Pacific and Atlantic regions tends to be smaller than the average in the Gulf of Mexico, implying that a significant portion of the additional resource would not be economically attractive to develop at the reference case prices."

And as you can see, contrary to Shadegg, the lack of impact on available gas or prices has absolutely nothing to do with potential environmentally related litigation or legislation.

Shadegg continues…

The Alaskan OCS contains 26 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

However, this post tells us…

There’s no reason in principle not to explore the OCS in light of what we know. But exactly what we know isn't the rose John McCain is showing us. The numbers thrown about by McCain and the McCainStreamMedia derive from a 2006 report of the Minerals Management Service, which in turn “updates” in terms of technology and energy prices, a 2003 assessment of the same service.

Oh, and just call me a suspicious, filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but given these recent revelations about the Minerals Management Service, I would tend to question their veracity at the very least (I mean, just how “coked up” were they when they came up with these projections?).

And by the way, in case you were wondering about Shadegg, he’s also working for the current campaign of another Arizona Republican politician (and facing a corruption scandal – surprise!), as noted here.

(I also posted today about Gen. David Petraeus at Wordpress here - just an FYI).