LIFTING THE 25-YEAR-OLD BAN on new offshore drilling for
natural gas is a bad enough idea on its own. But a proposal scheduled to be
debated Thursday by the House is as devious as it is dreadful. Because natural
gas is rarely found by itself — it's usually found in the same place as oil —
the provision could increase the possibility of oil drilling off California
and other coastal states.
But the first point against this proposal is that it's simply unnecessary.
About 75% of estimated offshore gas reserves are in areas where drilling
already is allowed, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
Nearly 4,000 gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico remain
unused.
Even so, the energy industry wants to expand operations along the coasts, and
it has found a friend in Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Pa.), who inserted an
amendment in the Interior Department appropriations bill that would allow gas
exploration in federally controlled waters three miles from shore. That's not a
happy prospect for California's
tourism industry; gas rigs would be visible from the beach, not to mention the
pipelines and other industrial infrastructure onshore. And though drilling for
gas doesn't carry the same potential for environmental catastrophe as drilling
for oil, it produces significant water and air pollution. Yet the gain in
energy resources would be minimal.
Just last year, the energy industry was making many of its opponents'
arguments. Arguing for the right to drill for oil as well as gas, the industry
said that companies would be unwilling to invest the money in exploration for
gas alone because no one can know in advance whether a site will yield gas, oil
or both. In fact, Johnnie Burton, director of the Interior Department's
Minerals Management Service, expressed doubts about whether drilling for gas
alone could succeed. "Natural gas seldom comes totally by itself," he
said, noting that it is usually accompanied by oil. If oil is found with the
gas, he asked, "What do you do? Do you plug it?"
Good question. The industry naturally will press to pump it, and with the
economics of oil being what they are — and likely to remain — someone will. But
then the U.S. would have the offshore
oil drilling that caused environmental disasters such as the 1969 Santa
Barbara spill from an offshore oil platform. Or the
ruptured pipelines and oil structures damaged by Hurricane Katrina last year,
spilling 191,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The House is scheduled to consider a new amendment that would restore the
drilling moratorium, nullifying the Peterson amendment. It would halt, for a
while, one more damaging proposal by lawmakers who appear to favor the
short-term interests of the industry over the long-term interests of the
nation.
