Article Contributed on: 7/29/2008 5:02:25 PM
These are popular lies from the right that have been repeated over the past couple of weeks. I'm sure you've heard them
Lie:There was no oil spilled during Hurricane Katrina.
According to the National Response Center 595 spills occurred as a result of Hurricane's Rita and Katrina causing one of the worst environmental disasters in our history dumping an estimated 9 million gallons of oil. The EPA called this the "worst of the worst case scenario."
Lie: ANWR and new off shore drilling will impact fuel costs in the near future.
According to several government surveys any new drilling for oil in ANWR or elsewhere would take a decade to impact the market. Factcheck.org has done an excellent job at debunking Mc Cain's ad claiming more drilling will help our current situation.
Lie: China is drilling off the coast of Cuba.
Everyone from George Will to Dick Cheney has used this lie as an argument for more drilling. Unfortunately it isn't true.
Lie:Democrats are holding up drilling and that drilling will save us on our fuel.
Oil companies now hold over 5,000 leases to drill in 68 million acres they aren't using. That's approximately 54 Billion barrels of oil. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that it would be at least a decade before new drilling yielded a drop in oil prices.
Lie: ANWR oil production won't damage the arctic refuge.
Yeah, and the Exxon Valdez won't get caught on the rocks and spill millions of gallons of oil destroying the landscape for generations either. To suggest that it might not is one thing, but to outright state that drilling in ANWR won't hurt a thing is simply a promise from politicians couldn't possibly guarantee.
Lie: More drilling means more energy independence.
Currently much of our domestic oil is exported, especially from Alaska. So unless righties are prepared for the gvmnt to tell oil companies where they can sell their oil, it will probably also be exported. After all, you have to please the shareholders. Even conservative oil man T. Boone Pickens has recognized we "can't drill our way to energy independence." He has begun investing heavily in wind and solar power and even taken out radio and tv ads to make his case.
Lie: The price of gas is just supply and demand.
Supply is fine, demand is down so this metric is completely false. The price of gas, and oil is due to our falling dollar and greedy speculators who benefit financially by investing in the very industries they speculate on.
Lie: Blame the Democrats!
If only we had stayed on the course that whacky liberal President Jimmy Carter laid out back in the late 70's we'd be energy independent by now. That's the thing about progressives. We're always thinking about and preparing for the future. We should have listened to Jimmy back then, we'd be better off on the energy front.
Lie: Environmental whacko's won't allow any more drilling.
Since when has any group been powerful enough to stop the oil companies from getting whatever they want? Environmental groups don't have millions of dollars to lobby Congress like oil companies do. To suggest a bunch of self described tree huggers could stop the multi billion dollar juggernaut that's raking in record profits each quarter and literally wrote our energy policy, is absurd on it's face.