Americans are still hurting because of the high cost of gas. Here in North Carolina, we’re still paying over a dollar per gallon more than we were one year ago today. In response, North Carolinians are driving less, because they know they need to save money to pay for other expenses, like rising food costs and health care.
As a state legislator, it’s easy to see how rising gas prices impact people’s bottom lines. It’s too bad those engaged in the national debate about energy don’t get the simple truth that we need to move beyond a drilling debate. Expanding offshore drilling is the one thing we could do that would guarantee demand goes up and prices remain high. More drilling can’t produce enough, takes too long, continues our unsustainable dependence on fossil fuels and only benefits a small number of oil executives.
With less than three percent of the world’s oil, the United States could drill every national park, wildlife refuge and coastline and still need to import 60 percent of the oil we use – and that’s just based on current energy demand. It is deceptive to imply that we can drill enough to offset growing demand or drive down gas prices – in North Carolina or across the country. Besides, drilling won’t deliver a drop of new oil for 10 years.
Most of all, more drilling just deepens our addiction to oil, which is good for Big Oil but bad for people here in North Carolina. We know more drilling doesn’t mean lower gas prices – because we’ve already tried. The number of new offshore drilling permits has tripled since 2001 – and yet we’re also paying triple what we were in 2001. Meanwhile, Big Oil is enjoying record profits.
The recent price gouging experienced during the run-up to and aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike has demonstrated the precariousness of locating offshore oil drilling and refineries in harm’s way. North Carolina’s coast is the most vulnerable on the Atlantic Coast; and if Hurricane Ike is any example, just the threat of a storm will result in higher prices.
It’s also surprising to learn that the oil and gas industry already has access to more drilling than it knows what to do with. Oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of American oil-producing land that they could have started drilling yesterday, already more than can be drilled effectively. The industry should responsibly drill in those areas before we hand over more of the public’s land and coasts.
What we need is to relieve the pain at the pump (through federal energy rebates) and get moving with solutions from clean technology that already exist, so that when Americans drive past a gas station – they can just keep on driving. We need cars that go farther on a tank of gas and we need them to be affordable. Most of all, we need a comprehensive American energy-production plan that increases our energy independence and boosts our local economy.
Right now, 200,000 green jobs are in peril because Big Oil and a majority of the members of Congress refuse to extend incentives to American renewable-energy companies. Right now, we are importing wind turbines, solar panels and other clean technologies from our global competitors that could be built by American workers right here in North Carolina. It’s time to invest in clean, homegrown energy sources that will wean us off our addiction to oil, create local jobs and allow us to compete with China, India and Europe in the new global economy.
North Carolina has taken important steps in the right direction by adopting a renewable-energy portfolio standard requiring that 12.5 percent of our future energy needs come from increased efficiencies and renewable energy sources, setting up the Biofuels Center, funding important energy research at our universities and other important energy measures. While we are doing what we can, we cannot solve the energy crisis at the state level; we need leadership at the federal level.
If we get started now, we can create millions of new clean-energy jobs, make America safer, head off the worst of irreversible catastrophic climate change and clean up the air. It’s time for real relief, not recycled rhetoric.
There’s no reason to think more drilling will lower gas prices – but there’s every reason to think the people talking the loudest are really looking to boost Big Oil’s already sky-high profits. Now that Congress has returned, it should move forward with a policy that doesn’t benefit oil executives but instead helps families by investing in renewable technology and insulating them from global oil spikes.
Pricey Harrison represents Guilford County’s District 57 in the North Carolina House, where she chairs the Energy and Energy Efficiency Committee.