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House Natural Resources Committee Report: The Truth About America’s Energy
From Bluestem Prairie blog written by Ollie Ox for Tim Walz MN-01:
http://www.bluestemprairie.com/a_bluestem_prairie/2008/06/house-natural-r.html
_ On the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of federal natural gas and 79%
of federal oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.
_ Onshore, 72% of oil and 84% of natural gas resources are either fully accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands and wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use planning or environmental reviews.
_ Between 1999 and 2007, drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands increased more than 361%.
_ Since 2004, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land; in that same time, only 18,954 wells were actually drilled.
_ Oil and gas companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.
_ Onshore, of the 47.5 million acres of federal lands leased by oil and gas companies, only about 13 million acres are actually producing oil and gas.
_ Offshore, only 10.5 million of the 44 million leased acres are currently producing oil or gas.
_ Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of federal land that are not producing oil and gas.
_ The 68 million acres of leased, inactive federal land could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day.
_ That would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75%.
_ 4.8 million barrels of oil equals more than six times the estimated peak production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
_ Development of and production from the 68 million acres currently under lease but not in production would cut US imports of oil by one-third.
There's much more and a link to the majority report of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Check it out and spread the word.
Comments (3)
thanks for linking.
It is also important to remember:
The Threat of Oil and Gas Drilling
The effects of an oil spill are cemented in the minds of anyone who remembers the Exxon Valdez spill or, for those who remember, the 1971 oil spills off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. The images of oil-coated birds and wildlife, and of ruined beaches, are hard to forget.
However, the damage caused by oil and gas extraction goes far beyond the effects of an oil spill. In an environmental impact statement on drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico, the Minerals Management Service listed the following as “unavoidable” consequences of offshore drilling: erosion of wetlands, air pollution, contamination by toxic chemicals, dumping of industrial waste and debris, and the decline of fish populations.
A single drilling rig can drill between 50 and 100 wells, each dumping as much as 25,000 pounds of toxic metals such as lead, chromium, and mercury, and potent carcinogens such as toluene, benzene, and xylene into the ocean. Each drilling rig can create as much air pollution as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles each day.
http://environmentoregon.org/issues/ocean/stop-offshore-drilling
June 18, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep no doubt about the environmental damage but that's not the purpose of my post. Bush and the Republicans are trying to pin the high price of gas at the pump on Dems and environmentalists when in fact the oil companies they've been pampering with our tax dollars haven't even exploited the fields they've been given.
Indie Pro let's please stick to the subject. Arguing about environmental damage is exactly what they want us to do right now. It's more important to point out how they're lying about what is already available here in the US as Repubs try to convince voters we're chaining ourselves to their drilling rigs.
Exxon Mobil is the most profitable corporation on earth and they spent all of $3 billion dollars over 5 years between 2001 and 2006 on R&D.
June 18, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. I'll leave you alone.
June 18, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
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