Some reports in the media attempt to downplay the significance of the release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident by arguing that natural oil seeps release large volumes of oil to the ocean, so why worry? Lets look at the numbers.

via The Oil Drum – Natural Oil Seeps and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster: A Comparison of Magnitudes. Just in case you were crazy enough to listen to Rep. Young.

Okay, first off a couple of Twitter messages that might provide some background into this issue.

John Culberson, a House Republican from Texas, who uses Twitter has been broadcasting from Congress regarding this and other issues. First off I am happy that a member of Congress is using social media to communicate with people from across the nation on diverse issues. Second, he isn’t my representative so I don’t have a say in how he votes.

Rep. Culberson tweeted this “I will be back on House floor tomorrow at 10 am with others asking the Speaker to call the House back for a vote to drill here drill now”. To which I then responded “@johnculberson why does drilling here matter if it really won’t add any oil in the supply chain, this is just a stunt in my eye”. To his credit he answered, saying “@jtyost2 We can prove to you that it will make a huge diff – we will use our debate time onfloor to show the vast amount of oil in America”. Which I then responded with “@johnculberson http://bit.ly/3SRU1M http://bit.ly/4brs2a http://bit.ly/glNHw <sarcasm> of course you can </sarcasm> I have yet to read any real info on that side”.

Personally it just feels to me like a gimmick for Republicans to look important in this election. There isn’t a lot of oil in the US, that’s just the way it worked out. Yes, I do think we should be energy independent and it is a worthy cause for the government to spend money and time towards, but this isn’t a step in that direction. You are looking at an amount of oil that in the words of Rep. Culberson “@upadaria It takes years & epic big bucks to develop an offshore lease – must 1st survey, be CERTAIN its good, set rig, drill many holesetc”.

So even he acknowledges it isn’t a short term solution, nothing really is. I want Congress to focus on developing resources that are renewable and available in the US. So what if a bill was to pass even today for offshore drilling, it wouldn’t matter for years. Drilling in ANWAR isn’t wanted by the oil companies and won’t add anything to the bottom line for at least 10 years. The other thing is that oil companies currently aren’t using large chuncks of the oil leases that they have in place. What is the point of giving a company more land when they aren’t using the land they already have? That isn’t to say that the oil companies couldn’t have reasons for not using their current leases, but why haven’t they gone public with that information?

Politics is unfortunately politics, but please can it at least develop real solutions to problems rather than gimmicks that do nothing but waste my time oh and money?