drill baby drill

IEA to Obama: Please Drill, Baby, Drill

by William Yeatman on May 19, 2011

in Blog, Features

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The Wall Street Journal today reported on a statement by the International Energy Agency’s governing board, calling on oil producing countries to increase their output to “help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening [i.e., higher oil prices] could cause.”

Here’s the full IEA statement:

The IEA Governing Board, at its regular quarterly meeting on 18-19 May, examined oil market developments and their impact on the global economy. Despite a near-10% correction since 5 May, oil prices remain at elevated levels driven by market fundamentals, geopolitical uncertainty and future expectations. The IEA Governing Board expressed serious concern that there are growing signs that the rise in oil prices since September is affecting the economic recovery by widening global imbalances, reducing household and business income, and placing upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. As global demand for oil increases seasonally from May to August, there is a clear, urgent need for additional supplies on a more competitive basis to be made available to refiners to prevent a further tightening of the market.
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The President’s Wacky Oil Plan

by William Yeatman on March 31, 2011

in Blog, Features

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I’m still trying to wrap my head around the President’s energy speech yesterday. I get the goal: Reduce oil imports 30 percent in a decade. But what I don’t get, at all, is the plan to achieve that goal. The President’s “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future” doesn’t make any sense.

Consider, for example, his “Blueprint” for oil. It’s all over the place.

In the beginning of the speech, the President mocked the idea of “drill, baby, drill.” He said,

“We’ve been down this road before. Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon…It hit a lot of people pretty hard. But it was at the height of the political season, so you had a lot of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waving three point plans for two dollar gas—you remember ‘drill, baby, drill?’—when none of it would really do anything to solve the problem. Imagine that in Washington.”

So, the President believes that “drill, baby, drill” would not “do anything to solve the problem.” Yet only moments later, he seemed to change his mind. He told the audience,

“Meeting this new goal of cutting our oil dependence depends largely on two things: finding and producing more oil at home, and reducing our dependence on oil with cleaner alternative fuels and greater efficiency.”

So, the President believes that “meeting this new goal…depends largely on…finding more oil at home.” But “finding more oil” necessarily requires more drilling. How is this different from “drill, baby, drill,” which the President only moments before had denigrated?

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