Drill here, drill now: let go of the past

The cracks around the do-nothing Congress’ leadership’s position on drilling domestically – read that: don’t do it – are getting bigger as more and more of the public and the MSM are starting to voice their support for increasing domestic production. The latest salvo comes in the pages of no less than the L.A. Times. An editorial by George Skelton of the Capitol Journal advises knee-jerk opponents to let go of the past. First up, a reminder that oil is a naturally-occurring substance that’s been around for far longer than America’s oil industry:

On some beaches around Santa Barbara, you could feel the oozing tar between your toes — and that was long before a Union Oil platform five miles offshore spilled crud all over 20 miles of coast in 1969. For centuries, the tar naturally had seeped up through the sand, providing the native Chumash with caulking for their canoes.

This is information that many of the more vocal opponents of oil production would prefer you remain ignorant of. That oil, and the introduction of same into the general environment, is something that’s been around for centuries and continues to naturally escape the ground into bodies of water at a far greater rate than any leakage caused by Man are facts oil opponents conveniently forget to mention whenever they expound on the topic. Skelton contends that over-exaggeration of the dangers is just one reason to reconsider the notion of restarting oil production off California’s coasts:

California is the nation’s biggest consumer of gasoline — 45 million gallons a day, plus 10 million gallons of diesel. That makes us the third-biggest petroleum-consuming entity in the world, behind only the United States and China.

We are the nation’s No. 3 oil-producing state, behind Texas and Alaska.

But California produces only 39% of the crude oil it uses. An additional 16% comes from Alaska and the remaining 45% is bought from foreign sources, according to the California Energy Commission.

So there’s a gusher of hypocrisy here: The state that is the biggest consumer of gasoline in the nation — but produces less than 40% of what it uses — is opposed to drilling for more oil off its shores. We’re slackers not pulling our weight.

To varying degrees, that’s a label all of America can wear with less than pride. From portraying the ANWR as an idyllic paradise with pictures of locations nowhere near where drilling is proposed to sounding the klaxon over images of oil spills the likes of which haven’t been seen in 40 years, opponents want to cover over the issues of economic and national security that come with buying 70% of our energy from sources not really friendly to our interests.

Even the LAT is getting it: quit living in the past and work with the tools you have today.