House Republicans remain in DC to push oil drilling
Tue, August 5, 2008
Posted in Alaska News, Top Stories
Two dozen Republicans in the US House are continuing their protest this week in Washington, DC, refusing to go home for the August recess. Even though Congress started its 5-week break last Friday, about 25 Republicans returned to the Capitol yesterday and today to demand action on offshore oil drilling and increasing domestic oil supply by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Libby Casey, APRN - Washington, DC
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I just ran across this interesting article “Drill Here, Drill Now,” that delivered a number of interesting points about offshore drilling. One interesting fact is that 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America’s ocean floors each year, compared to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998. It’s an interesting article and i suggest you read it.
Indeed, nature does release petroleum products on land and in the oceans at all times at specific locations where the rock formations allow it. But folks should keep in mind nature doesn’t release petroleum in an economically viable way or in large quantities in local areas. That 620,000 barrels sounds like a lot, but it’s spread out across the North American continent and oceans AND spread out across an entire year, these are tiny natural seepages, predating human industrial development.
The Trans Alaska Pipeline alone carries that many barrels of oil (and more) in a single day — and there’s just one aging and declining oil field feeding it.
Most spills, by number, in the oil industry are minor, with limited environmental impact. But the big spills, like the Exxon ‘Valdez’ spill of 1989, dump tremendous amounts of oil into a small area — the ‘Valdez’ dump alone was about equal to that annual natural release figure above. But the ‘Valdez’ spill happened in one place, not across all of North America’s oceans. These catastrophic events produce environmental damages that are immediate and devastating. Via network effects (impact on wildlife, then industries, then families, then communities) the impacts reach beyond the environment.
Natural petroleum outflows don’t have these effects.