No Solve Dependence
OPEC adjusts
Drilling cant solve dependence– OPEC adjusts
Wetzstein, 10 - professor in the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics
at the UGA (Michael, “U.S. oil problem not due to supply”, The Atlanta JournalConstitution, May 13, 2010, lexis)//AE
President Barack Obama's recently announced support for oil drilling off the
East Coast and in the Alaskan waters was consistent with recent polls
showing Americans putting the economy first over the environment.¶ Facing the
current major Gulf Coast oil spill, the Obama administration and the American
public are now re-evaluating their views. Oil drilling will produce jobs. But
so will adopting alternative energy.¶ I believe the real case against drilling offshore
is not the trade-off between the environment and jobs. It is that drilling will not
solve our oil dependence , which is exacerbated by high oil price volatility at
the hands of the world's oil-producing nations. U.S. production of oil will
not have any impact on oil's price volatility or its world price.¶ Considering a
global oil market, the world is not running out of oil. We currently extract a
smaller fraction of remaining oil reserves each year than several decades
ago. Just this year, Venezuela had an increase of 23 percent in its proven oil reserves,
placing it just behind Saudi Arabia as the county with the largest proven reserves.¶
Counting heavy oil along with oil sands and oil shale, our petroleum reserves, at
current consumption levels, will last well into the latter half of the next century.
OPEC's production capacity is sufficient to annually extract only 1.5 percent
of its proved reserves .¶ America's real energy-security problem is the
increase in oil price volatility caused by a tight oil market.¶ Consider the run-up
of oil prices in 2007-08. The rapid economic growth in Asia tightened this market. Then
in late 2008 the Great Recession relaxed it, leading to high oil price instability.¶ This
instability is exacerbated by OPEC's long-standing commitment to ensure
high oil prices by restricting new oil production capacity. OPEC's oil
capacity is determined by expected world demand and supply for oil. ¶ If
America or any other country pumps more oil, OPEC will adjust downward its projected
capacity to uphold "stable" prices. This will maintain a tight demand and supply
oil relation.¶ Oil resource depletion is not affecting the supply and associated
price of oil.¶ If it were, then a case may be made for America drilling. Instead, OPEC's
objective is to control the oil price by synchronizing members' production
levels.¶ This price control yields a 2005 to 2009 average U.S. crude oil price of $63.50
per barrel compared with a 2008 Middle East oil lifting cost of only $5.48 per barrel.
This marked divergence between costs and price indicates OPEC's large degree of market
power.¶ We are not running out of oil, but are facing an era of increased oil
price instability. This, coupled with oil as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions,
suggests policies that develop a portfolio of energies to circumvent price
swings and greenhouse gas emissions.¶ With OPEC's capacity objective,
increasing our oil capacity will have limited if any effect on oil prices. Instead,
our search for alternative energies will extricate us from under this pricevolatility yoke and potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.¶ It is not
because we are running out of oil that we should be investigating and investing in
alternative energies, it is because we are seeking alternatives to the current
market concentration of oil supply and the environmental costs
surrounding this market.¶ Given the current oil market, drilling offshore does
nothing for energy security ; investing in alternatives does. And it produces
green American jobs.
Global Market
Oil independence doesn’t exist – oil is a globally traded
commodity
Ahn, 11 – adjunct fellow for energy at CFR (Daniel, “Reducing Oil Imports Won’t
Help,” April 1, 2011, http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/04/01/guest-post-reducing-oilimports-wont-help/#more-727)//eek
President Obama’s speech on energy given Wednesday on Georgetown University’s
campus was disappointing to say the least. In particular, the highlight of his speech, a
pledge to reduce the nation’s oil imports by one third by 2025, is both
conceptually unsound as well as difficult to achieve physically. Given that the
US imported roughly 11.2 million barrels of oil per day (mb/d) in 2008, the pledge would
translate into reducing oil imports by 3.7 mb/d to 7.4 mb/d. First, the goal of energy
independence through reducing or eliminating imports on foreign oil is
conceptually bankrupt. The integration of world trade in oil makes global oil
markets “fungible,” exposing consumers to oil price shocks everywhere
regardless of origin and import balance. The recent fighting in Libya amply
demonstrates this. The US imported only a tiny amount of oil (less than
120kb/d at its peak in 2007) from Libya. Most Libyan crude goes to European markets.
But American drivers were hit with higher prices much as their European
counterparts (proportionately more in fact, since Americans started from a lower base
due to lower gasoline taxes.) Even if hypothetically the US were to eliminate oil
imports entirely and become a net oil exporter, Americans will still face the
same prices set in world markets as everyone else. Anyone who lives in Norway
can tell you that. The only way to shield oneself from world shocks entirely is
to impose autarky by preventing trade with the rest of world. Given that the US is
currently the world’s largest oil importer, autarky would come at the cost of
massively higher energy prices in the US, necessary to equate demand and
supply by destroying demand and stimulating domestic production. Even if
that were economically and politically feasible, the Coast Guard and Navy would
have the impossible task of chasing down every smuggler who would try to
sneak in cheaper oil to sell. Physical oil independence is a nonsensical and
meaningless political soundbyte lacking even the most basic understanding
of economics. It is tragic to see that the concept still commands such attention three
decades after we first heard the term from President Nixon’s doomed Project
Independence.
No impact – over reliance on oil incentivizes trade and export –
globalization checks
Powell, 11 – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute (Jim, “Why 'Dependence' On Foreign
Oil Is A Bogus Worry“,11/15/2011, forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimpowell/2011/11/15/global-oil-and-gas-markets-ourbest-energy-security)//AE
Why was that embargo associated with significantly higher oil imports?
From a practical standpoint, there’s really no such thing as a U.S. oil market .
There’s a global oil market, and oil shipments tend to go where the best prices
are offered. Once a tanker leaves a port loaded with oil, the producing
country no longer has control over it . In 1973, oil producing countries continued
shipping to European countries that weren’t involved with the Yom Kippur War, but
much of that oil was re-shipped to the U.S. Some of the OPEC oil shipped to the
Caribbean was also re‑ shipped to the U.S.¶ In addition, OPEC has experienced the
chronic cheating that generally afflicts cartels: it’s in the interest of each member
to have everybody else cut back sales so that prices will be pushed up, while each
member sells as much as possible “under the table” at high prices, making it
difficult to maintain those prices. Algeria, Gabon, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria,
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela reportedly have been among the most
notorious OPEC cheaters, selling as much as 40 percent more oil than their assigned
quotas.¶ So, the much-feared oil weapon had little if anything to do with U.S.
economic problems and specifically nothing to do with the 1970s gas station lines,
because America had plenty of oil. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani
remarked that the embargo “did not imply we could reduce imports to the United
States…The world is really just one market. The embargo was more symbolic
than anything else .” President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
agreed: “the Arab embargo was a symbolic gesture of limited practical
importance…The true impact of the embargo was psychological.”¶ U.S.
economic problems were brought on primarily by Nixon’s policies of inflation and price
controls that became ever more complex, corrupt and disruptive. By holding prices
below market levels, price controls simultaneously encouraged consumers to demand
more and discouraged suppliers from providing more. The result was chronic shortages
that made it difficult for businesses to function, destroying jobs.¶ Nixon’s comprehensive
price controls were a fiasco, abandoned in 1974, but price controls on oil and gas
were retained all through the 1970s. They discouraged U.S. producers from
refining more gasoline, while encouraging consumers to line up at gas
stations for whatever might be available at below-market prices. In 1981,
President Ronald Reagan abolished oil and gas price controls. Prices soared, sending
powerful signals that suppliers could profit by delivering more gasoline. Gas lines
vanished, and prices came down.¶ Meanwhile, despite the fact that the embargos were
non-events as far as oil supplies were concerned, Nixon proposed “Project
Independence.” The idea was to promote energy conservation and alternative
energy sources, so that America could fill most if not all of its energy needs
in the event of an embargo that might disrupt the flow of imported oil.¶ This
idea has been embraced by every president since Nixon. Mainly it has meant (1) federal
subsidies for “green” companies that go bankrupt and (2) higher energy
costs for American taxpayers. In recent decades, the federal government has
spent tens of billions of dollars on energy projects that accomplished
nothing. If “independence” ever included protectionist measures to block foreign oil –
imported because it’s a lower-cost option — American consumers would be socked
to pay higher energy prices.¶ It makes as little sense to worry about our
“dependence” on foreign oil as it does to worry about our “dependence” on
private enterprise , computers and other wonders. We would be worse off doing
things that cost more or don’t work as well. We should make the most of our
comparative advantages.¶ Keep in mind that major oil producers have strong
incentives to sell their oil. In most cases, it dominates their economies and generates
a substantial percentage of government revenues. Moreover, many of these countries live
beyond their means. They have spent huge sums on weapons, wars, palaces, religious
police and money‑ losing nationalized industries. Generally the major oil producers have
failed to diversify their revenue sources by providing an attractive business climate
where different industries could develop.¶ Saudi Arabia’s oil revenues, for
instance, are almost 40 percent of their GDP. Their expenditures are about 15
percent more than their total revenues. Kuwait’s oil revenues are 75 percent of their
GDP. About 48 percent of Qatar’s government revenue comes from oil exports. Oil is 84
percent of Oman’s government revenue and 37 percent of Norway’s.¶ Oil reportedly
accounts for about 80 percent of Iran’s export earnings and 50 percent of government
revenues. Nigeria’s government budget is usually in the red, and in recent years its oil
revenues have been running between 63 percent and 81 percent of total revenues. Oil
represents 57 percent of Kazakhstan’s exports and 46 percent of government revenue.
Oil generates about two-thirds of Russia’s revenue from exports.
Squo Solves
Even if we’re not energy independent NOW, lowering
consumption and fracking provides a statistical SHIFT
Izzo & Casselman, 13 – wsj lead and associate editors (Phil and Ben, “Number of
the Week: U.S. Producing More Oil Than It Imports”, Nov 16, 2013,
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/11/16/number-of-the-week-u-s-producing-moreoil-than-it-imports)//AE
137,000: How many more barrels a day the U.S. produced than it imported in
the week ending Nov. 8.¶ For the first time in nearly 20 years, the U.S. is producing
more crude oil than it imports. But that doesn’t mean energy independence is right
around the corner.¶ U.S. oil output is soaring due to the “fracking” boom in
North Dakota, Texas and other areas. U.S. producers pumped 7.7 million
barrels of crude per day in October, the Energy Information Administration said
this week, up 11% from a year earlier and a whopping 63% over the past five
years. The rise followed decades of declining production.¶ At the same time, domestic
oil consumption, which had been rising for decades, has been basically flat for
the past five years due to a weak economy, competition from biofuels and other
factors. The government expects both trends to continue in the near future;
the EIA estimates that 2014 crude production will average 8.5 million barrels per day in
2014, which would be the most since the mid-1980s, while demand is expected to be
flat.¶ More domestic supply and less demand translates into less reliance on
imports. The U.S. imported 7.6 million barrels a day of crude oil in October, the first
time production has topped imports since February 1995. Net crude imports are down
nearly 25% over the past five years.¶ Still, 7.6 million barrels a day is a lot of oil. Due to
higher consumption, the U.S. now is importing over one million more barrels
than it was in 1996, the last time the country’s full-year output was higher
than the amount coming from overseas. (Production, incidentally, is still more
than 20% below its 1970 peak.)¶ The elusive goal of energy independence may
closer, but it remains a long way off. In its latest World Energy Outlook, the
International Energy Agency predicts that “ the United States moves steadily
towards meeting all of its energy needs from domestic resources by 2035 .Ӧ
The U.S. has boosted its imports mostly from non-OPEC countries in past
few decades. Canadian oil represents 30% of U.S. imports, the largest share for any
single nation. Canada also sends the U.S. more than double the amount of oil
it did in 1995.¶ Saudi Arabia, though, still is sending 25% more oil than in
1995 and accounts for about 13% of crude from overseas. And the numbers for
OPEC countries may have to rise in the coming years. “Non-OPEC supply plays the
major role in meeting net oil demand growth this decade,” said the IEA, “but
OPEC plays a far greater role after 2020.”
Demand
Oil Independence is impossible – supply can’t outpace demand
Ahn, 11 – adjunct fellow for energy at CFR (Daniel, “Reducing Oil Imports Won’t
Help,” April 1, 2011, http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/04/01/guest-post-reducing-oilimports-wont-help/#more-727)//eek
Second, there are grounds to be skeptical whether the goal is even feasible.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released an
advance summary of their 2011 Annual Energy Oultook. 2011 AEO Projections
Mn b/d 2008 2009 2025 2035 Domestic Crude Oil Production 5.0 5.4 5.8 5.7 Other
Domestic Production 3.4 3.7 5.7 6.8 Consumption 19.5 18.8 21.0 22.0 Net Imports 11.2
9.7 9.4 9.4 According to their reference projections (which assumes that oil prices
continue to rise to $200/bbl nominally or $125/bbl in real 2009 prices by 2035), the EIA
sees net imports fall by 1.8mb/d from 11.2mb/d to 9.4mb/d by 2025, before stabilizing
thereafter. So while imports are indeed projected to fall, we are still less than
half way to the President’s goal of getting to import levels at 7.4mb/d. An extra
2.3mb/d would need to be wrung from either reduced consumption or more production.
Yet even the EIA’s projections see consumption slightly rising, offset by
slight increases in domestic crude oil production. The bulk of the import
reduction comes from the category of “other,” which includes biofuels and
shale oil. More liquid fuel production may come from gas-to-liquids driven by plentiful
natural gas supplies. Biofuels and shale oil indeed show great promise but are
still maturing technologically. The picture may change substantially if we
don’t count imports from Canadian oil sands as “foreign imports.” Hence,
reducing imports by 2mb/d sound reasonable, but 3-4mb/d may still be a stretch.
Supply
Any solvency is only short-term – the US doesn’t have enough oil
to maintain dependence
Ahn, 11 – adjunct fellow for energy at CFR (Daniel, “Reducing Oil Imports Won’t
Help,” April 1, 2011, http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/04/01/guest-post-reducing-oilimports-wont-help/#more-727)//eek
There is also the question of what lower imports would mean long-term.
Reserves in the US are notoriously difficult to estimate and are subject to
changing economic and technological constraints but the Oil & Gas Journal
sees the US holding roughly 20 billion barrels of proven reserves in 2009. If
increased domestic production was able to meet all of the 3.7mb/d of import
reduction immediately, the 20bn bbls would last a little less than 15 years.
So even if imports were reduced by a third by 2025, the nation may face
exhausted domestic supplies and much higher import levels thereafter.
President Obama’s speech represented another lost opportunity in a long and sad history
of the nation’s energy policy. Even if reducing imports by a third were feasible, it
is not sensible nor desirable. The administration needs to move beyond these
simplistic and misleading goals of energy independence and move toward a more
rational energy policy based on an acceptance of the nation’s integration with world
markets.
The US has too little production potential to be independent
Fong and Theel 12 – bachelor’s degree in peace, justice, and conflict studies, and
Shauna Theel (Jocelyn Fong, , “Myths And Facts About Oil And Gasoline,” 4/12/12,
http://mediamatters.org/research/201204120005)
EIA Chief Under Bush: "We're Still Vulnerable To Any Shocks To The System"
Even If We Stop Importing Oil From the Middle East. From a Politico report:
Whether the oil is produced in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bakken formation in
North Dakota or offshore of Brazil, the U.S. has to buy it at the same volatile
global price. That price is susceptible to disasters that cut off production or
confrontations with Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. Guy Caruso, who was the
EIA's chief for more than six years of the George W. Bush administration,
called energy independence a "political slogan." "Say we wave a magic wand and
say we import no oil from the Middle East ... does that mean we're secure?
More 'independent'?" he asked. "The answer is no because we're still
vulnerable to any shocks to the system." Another complication is that the U.S. is
unlikely to have much impact on the global oil market, no matter how much
it produces. "The U.S. is a small producer without much flexibility in a much
bigger and rapidly growing global market. There is no way that we can ramp
up any sort of production enough, and fast enough, to materially swing the
global market," [former BP chief scientist Steve] Koonin said. "And moreover, the
cartel, OPEC, has its hand on the tap and can restore the price." [...] Koonin
also noted that increased oil production in a time of high prices is a boon for the
industry. "When you hear the international oil companies advocating for
energy independence, it's really about making money, which isn't a bad thing,"
Koonin said. "If they produce a million more barrels a day, they're not going to change
the global price much. And since they know the global price is going up, they'll just make
more money. "There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't solve the price problem or
the greenhouse gas problem," he said. [Politico, 2/23/12]
Middle East
Increased oil production doesn’t change Mid East politics – cuts
come from elsewhere and increased demand – their authors are
biased
Levi, 11 – David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment
(Michael, “The New Conventional Wisdom of Oil,” December 6, 2011,
http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/12/06/the-new-conventional-wisdom-of-oil/)
Not so much, as I argued a couple months ago, for the international energy system more
generally. The center of gravity of that world remains in the Middle East for
some pretty fundamental reasons (discretionary investment, spare capacity,
low cost supply, a volatile security situation) that are unlikely to change soon.
Why, then, the persistent claims of a massive shift? I think the Journal article
inadvertently hits on a big part of the answer: people are confusing the fortunes of
the oil industry with those of the international system. Our most
knowledgeable oil analysts are often in or close to industry. They can
become prone to occasionally conflating the fortunes of industry with those
of the system more broadly. I don’t mean to suggest any taint; I’m just suggesting that
when you spend a lot of your time thinking through what developments mean for
industry, you’re likely to give special weight to those dynamics in your broader analyses.
To be fair to the author of the Journal article, he attempts to substantiate his assertion
that the shift “could have far-reaching consequences for the politics of oil”, arguing that
“with more crude being produced in North America, there’s less likelihood of Middle
Eastern politics causing supply shocks that drive up gasoline prices”. That’s true, but the
change is relatively small, and certainly not earth shattering. Another, say,
five million barrels a day of North American production, if it displaced a
similar amount from the Middle East, would cut Middle Eastern production
by about a quarter, and hence reduce the threat of disruption from the
region by a similar amount. In practice, larger North American volumes
would have a lower impact on Middle Eastern supplies: come OPEC cuts
would come from elsewhere in the world; increased North American
production would also deter some high-cost production elsewhere; and, if
increased production lowered prices, it would lead to increased
consumption, making everyone more vulnerable to whatever supply shocks
occurred.
Oil independence has no effect on the middle east
Levine, 12 – Future Tense Fellow @ the New America Foundation and writer at the
Atlantic Company about the geopolitics of energy and technology (Steve, “Would
becoming a petrostate change the American character?,” MARCH 27, 2012,
http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/27/will_becoming_a_petro_state
_change_the_american_character)
I think the impact on U.S. foreign policy will actually be rather small, even
negligible. Since 1970, there have been wide swings in the degree of U.S.
energy dependence. According to the figures in the Krauss/Lipton article, imports
rose from 28 to 60 percent of U.S. liquid fuel use from 1982 to 2005. But I can't
discern any resulting changes in the role of the U.S. in protecting sea lanes,
intervening in oil-producing countries, ensuring the security of friendly
governments in the [Persian Gulf], etc. So I don't see why movement back
towards 28 percent fuel dependence will change our role.
Dependence Good
Dollar Heg
Decreasing dependence decreases demand for the dollar
Mutasem 2012
Sam is a Senior Executive in the power industry with 25 years experience in Operations,
Maintenance and Asset Management. “Dependence on Oil...Good or Bad?” March 01,
2012
http://www.energycentral.com/generationstorage/fossilandbiomass/articles/2512/Depe
ndence-on-Oil-Good-or-Bad-/
With the world getting smaller and the economies are interdependent, commodity price in the US will follow the global price. So
whether we depend on foreign oil to some extent or eliminate it all together the
domestic price of oil will be set by the global market and if the price is up
companies will certainly not sell it for less just because we are not importing
any oil. As it is, the US imports 20% of its needs from Canada and only 8% from the Middle East. The remainder is produced
domestically.¶ On the other hand, if we drive to reduce the global dependence on oil , until we find
an alternative, we will negatively impact the US economy and the US consumer.¶ One fact that most do
not realize is that all the oil traded globally is nominated in US dollar. What does that mean? As
the demand on oil increase so does the price. As a result the demand on the
US dollar will increase and so will the purchasing power of the American
Consumer. The Dollar...remains King!
That ends US leadership
Looney 3 [Robert, Prof. Nat'l. Sec. Affairs @ Naval Postgraduate, Strategic Insights,
"From Petrodollars to Petroeuros: Are the Dollar's Days as an International Reserve
Currency Drawing to an End?" Vol. II, Iss. 11, November,
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast.asp]
Political power and prestige. The benefits of "power and prestige" are nebulous. Nevertheless, the loss of key
currency status and the loss of international creditor status have sometimes
been associated, along with such non-economic factors as the loss of
colonies and military power, in discussions of the historical decline of great
powers. Causality may well flow from key currency status to power and prestige and in the opposite direction as
well.[8] On a broader scale, Niall Ferguson[9] notes that one pillar of American dominance can
be found in the way successive U.S. government sought to take advantage of
the dollar's role as a key currency. Quoting several noted authorities, he notes that [the role of
the dollar] enabled the United States to be "far less restrained…than all
other states by normal fiscal and foreign exchange constraints when it came to
funding whatever foreign or strategic policies it decided to implement ." As
Robert Gilpin notes, quoting Charles de Gaulle, such policies led to a 'hegemony of the dollar" that gave
the U.S. "extravagant privileges." In David Calleo's words, the U.S. government had access to a "gold
mine of paper" and could therefore collect a subsidy form foreigners in the form of seignorage (the profits that flow to
those who mint or print a depreciating currency). The web contains many more radical interactions of the dollar's role.
Usually something along the following lines: World trade is now a game in which the U.S. produces dollars and the rest
of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a
comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts
and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies…. This phenomenon is
known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed
peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in
dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the U.S. has
extracted from oil-producing countries for U.S. tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.[10] America's
coercive power in the world is based as much on the dollar's status as the
global reserve currency as on U.S. military muscle. Everyone needs oil, and
to pay for it, they must have dollars. To secure dollars, they must sell their
goods to the U.S., under terms acceptable to the people who rule America. The
dollar is way overpriced, but it's the only world currency. Under the current dollars-only arrangement, U.S. money is in
effect backed by the oil reserves of every other nation.[11] While it is tempting to dismiss passages of this sort as
uninformed rants, they do contain some elements of truth. There are tangible benefits that accrue to the country whose
currency is a reserve currency. The real question is: if this situation is so intolerable and unfair, why hasn't the world
ganged up on the United States and changed the system? Why haven't countries like Libya and Iran required something
like euros or gold dinars in payment for oil? After all, with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 the
International Monitary Fund's Standard Drawing Rights (unit of account) was certainly an available alternative to the
dollar.[12]
1nc – middle east I/L
Oil dependence is good:
a) Solves international conflicts – it’s a gateway into relations
Miller, 10 - assistant professor of political science @ OU (Gregory, “The Security
Costs of Energy Independence”, THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY/ APRIL 2010, pp.
107-119, http://www.asiaresearch.ir/files/10apr_Miller.pdf)//AE
Of the three ways in which an aggressive drop in the U.S. consumption of
foreign oil would be detrimental to the United States and international
security, the first two suggest that the loss of oil revenue will lead some oilexporting states to experience an increase in interstate or intrastate
violence or both.¶ International Conflict¶ A drop in demand for oil would lead
to increased probability of conflict between current oil exporters and their
customers , including developed Western states, as well as between oil producers
and their neighbors. This risk will be especially pronounced in regions with
a high number of oil-exporting states such as the Middle East .¶ According to
the concept of interdependence, the likelihood of states going to war with each
other decreases as mutual dependence between them increases, with trade
being the most common measure of interdependence. This idea was reflected in
the Clinton administration policy of increasing trade with China in the 1990s. Early
European integration in the 1950s was similarly designed to prevent a future European
war.3 If valid, then the inverse of the theory suggests that as states reduce their demand
for foreign oil, levels of interdependence between consumer states and oil exporters will
fall, increasing the likelihood of conflict. Although it is unlikely that war would occur
simply because of lower trade levels, the logic of interdependence theory is that
the wealth gained from trade restrains policymakers who otherwise might
engage in conflict.4 If the United States is no longer dependent on foreign oil
and if oil-exporting states no longer gain revenue from the United States, there would
be fewer constraints on each state’s willingness to use violence, whether it
be in the form of conventional military force or state sponsorship of terrorism.¶
One counterargument is that the United States has been drawn into a
number of conflicts as a result of its dependence on Middle East oil, such as¶
the reflagging of the Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1987 and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.5
According to this logic, reducing its dependence on foreign oil would help
the United States stay out of such conflicts. Although plausible, a useful
exercise is to imagine a future where the United States is no longer
dependent on Middle Eastern states for oil. Although the United States will still
have important economic and political interests in the Middle East, such as Israel, Iraq,
and Turkey as a NATO ally, if oil no longer provides states with some leverage
over U.S. foreign policy, then the United States can pursue its interests with
less concern about retaliation by oil-exporting states or by the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Conversely, as long as oil-exporting
states depend on the United States to purchase oil, they are more inclined to
assist the United States in pursuing any of its interests, such as the fight
against terrorism . Consequently, if states no longer depend on the United
States as a consumer, they may have less interest in cooperating with the
United States.¶ At the regional level, conflicts¶ between neighboring states
would¶ become more likely. Neighbors already¶ make up the bulk of militarized
disputes,¶ which are even more common when¶ states must compete for scarce
resources.¶ Japan’s expansion for oil prior to World¶ War II is one example,
and several¶ conflicts were at least partly about¶ scarce water: Israel and
Jordan (1967),¶ Egypt and Ethiopia (1980), and South¶ Africa and Lesotho
(1986). A dramatic decrease in demand would lower the price of oil on the
world market, which could lead to severe economic consequences for many
oil exporters. Initially, many consumer states will benefit as they will be able
to afford more oil. Oil-exporting states, however, will see profits decline; and
scarcities will become more pronounced, especially in the Middle East.¶ Oil
has often been a cause of regional conflicts, such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in
1990 or the July 2001 clash between Iran and Azerbaijan over oil- bearing zones in the
Caspian Sea. So, it is possible that less global demand for oil would decrease the
frequency of such situations. As states lose their oil revenue, however, and thus
the ability to provide their people the standard of living to which they have
grown accustomed, basic necessities could become catalysts for conflict .
Resources such as food and water are already scarce in many parts of the world, a
problem that would be exacerbated for states that lose substantial oil revenues.
1nc – GCC
The GCC economy DEPENDS on oil investment – dependency is
key to regional stability and global economics
Khaleej Times, 14 – author is an economist at Asiya Investments which specializes
in emerging investments (“Lower oil dependency experienced in the Gulf in 2013”,
Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates), March 4, 2014, lexis)//AE
**GCC = Gulf Cooperation Council
About four years ago, in May 2010, the average barrel of Opec oil was being sold
for $70.¶ A year later, the price had nearly doubled to $125. This rapid increase
in prices translated into higher income from exports in the Gulf countries and pushed
the share of oil in total GDP to an all-time record of 52.5 per cent. Kuwait became the
most-exposed country, reaching a point in which more of 62 per cent of its
GDP came from oil-related activities . Bahrain occupies the opposite extreme: at
its peak, only 27 per cent of the domestic product was coming from oil. Flat exports and a
gradual deceleration on oil prices over the last two years (Opec oil price on average came
down from $110 in 2012 to $105 in 2013) reduced slightly the role of oil in the GCC,
which by 2013 had decreased by three percentage points to 49 per cent of total GDP. ¶
Nominal oil GDP fell in all GCC countries except Oman and Qatar, while in the rest of
countries it stabilised or went down. On the other hand, non-oil GDP witnessed an
increase of close to 10 per cent on average. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia followed a similar
pattern in 2013: stable level of production coupled with falling prices produced a
contraction in nominal oil GDP growth of around five per cent, while the retail and trade
sector showed resilience, with sales benefiting from rising disposable incomes,
favourable demographics and increasing urbanisation. In the UAE, the share of oil GDP
did not change in 2013. Oil output was stable throughout the year at around
2.7mbpd. In the non-oil side of the economy, the good performance of sectors like real
estate was offset by a strong deceleration in re-exports, a key component of the economy
in Dubai.¶ Dependency on any given commodity makes countries vulnerable
to changes in the price and output of that commodity . Oil is no exception
and Gulf countries have been trying, at least in theory, to diversify away
from oil since the 1970s. The initial plans focused on taking advantage of the
abundance of energy resources to foster energy-intensive heavy industry. In
this framework, Saudi Arabia's Sabic was born in 1976 to process oil-related products.
Dubai Aluminium, founded in 1975, was also part of these government-led initiatives.
Some countries also invested in developing their services sectors. The
development in Bahrain of an offshore banking hub in the 1970s and Dubai's free trade
zones in the mid-1980s are examples of these initiatives. These experiences were
partially successful but suffered from some flaws that created distortions in
other sectors or simply failed to grow into sustainable and competitive firms.
The most successful examples came later, truly engaging the private sector and foreign
investors by improving some aspects of the business environment such as labour market
regulation and financial liberalisation, resulting in competitive non-oil sectors, mostly in
Dubai.¶ The GCC has a population of 47 million and a nominal GDP of around $1.5
trillion, similar to the size of Canada. Its geopolitical influence stems from the
fact that it holds almost half of the world's proven oil reserves . Regional
instability could have dire consequences on the world's economy. These countries
have chosen an economic and social model in which the authorities transfer
to citizens part of the wealth obtained from oil exports via salaries in the public
sector and subsidies. This model has failed to create any competitive sector activity that
could drive growth in the absence of a steady inflow of oil revenues. This pattern is not
sustainable in the long run for several reasons. First, with the growing level of
entitlements for the population, expenditures rise constantly while revenues are
volatile. Oil exports account for more than three-quarters of government income, as
taxation is almost non-existent. Second, all other sources of growth (consumption,
government expenditure and, to a lesser extent, private investment) depend
on oil revenues. An extended reduction in these revenues would lead to a
collapse of the whole economy . Third, oil generates low levels of employment, and
the GCC has a large and rapidly growing pool of unemployed youth that will
generate fiscal and social tensions. Fourth, natural resources export-led
growth prevents the development of a competitive local manufacturing
sector (the "Dutch disease"). Strong demand for the local currency makes imports
cheaper and exports more expensive, weakening both domestic and external demand for
local industries. In summary, an economic system that is solely dependent on
revenues from oil exports, will not be able to sustain an economy with a high
level of income over time. Worryingly, this lack of diversification also applies to
other aspects of the region: as an insurance policy, GCC sovereign funds and private
investors have been investing abroad part of their revenues to protect themselves from a
hypothetical slump in oil revenues. Alas, they are massively exposed to a small group of
countries, mostly US and UK, and a very specific type of businesses, like blue chips and
real estate. In summary, diversification should remain at the centre of the Gulf's
development and investment strategies.
Impact card
2NC – terrorism
Terrorism – declining wealth is a precursor to internal terror
Miller, 10 - assistant professor of political science @ OU (Gregory, “The Security
Costs of Energy Independence”, THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY/ APRIL 2010, pp.
107-119, http://www.asiaresearch.ir/files/10apr_Miller.pdf)//AE
Although internal violence, including terrorism, is often believed to be born out
of economic hardship, the number of terrorists coming from Kuwait is greater
than the number from Niger. 6 This suggests that some level of wealth is
necessary for violence to occur; bomb-making requires some education, and
ammunition costs money. The most dangerous situations appear to be when
individuals have wealth, but then lose what they have or fear they are about
to, therefore engaging in violence out of dissatisfaction. For example, Professor
Scott Atran shows that suicide terrorists are not poor or lacking in
opportunities, but that relative loss of economic or social advantage by
educated persons might encourage support for terrorism.7 If true, current
oil-exporting states are particularly susceptible to internal violence as a
result of this relative deprivation . Several of these states already suffer
from internal problems because of social divisions, but these issues will
grow as national wealth declines , making governments less capable of
dealing with unrest either by providing social programs or through
intimidation. Even in states where the majority of the population does not directly
profit from the sale of oil, many people still benefit from oil wealth, such as
better roads, more educational opportunities, and more advanced
technology. Even relatively small cuts in revenue will negatively affect those
populations.¶ Similarly, just as resource scarcity is a catalyst for interstate
conflict, economic problems stemming from a lack of necessary resources
also lead to internal violence, as illustrated in Sierra Leone in the early 1990s and
Indonesia in 1997.8 These same types of conflicts would increase in frequency
within states that are somewhat stable now, only because oil provides them with a
relatively satisfied population and because it gives governments the means to
crack down on those who would engage in violence.
Terrorism leads to great power warfare ----- only scenario for
escalation
Ayson, 10 [Robert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the
Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria University of
Wellington,“After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via InformaWorld]
A terrorist nuclear attack, and even the use of nuclear weapons in response by the
country attacked in the first place, would not necessarily represent the worst of the
nuclear worlds imaginable. Indeed, there are reasons to wonder whether nuclear
terrorism should ever be regarded as belonging in the category of truly
existential threats. A contrast can be drawn here with the global catastrophe
that would come from a massive nuclear exchange between two or more of the
sovereign states that possess these weapons in significant numbers. Even the worst
terrorism that the twenty-first century might bring would fade into insignificance
alongside considerations of what a general nuclear war would have wrought in the Cold
War period. And it must be admitted that as long as the major nuclear weapons states
have hundreds and even thousands of nuclear weapons at their disposal, there is always
the possibility of a truly awful nuclear exchange taking place precipitated entirely by
state possessors themselves. But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor
nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily
separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act
of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive
exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them.
In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted
during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who
were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started
by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as
concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a
considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible
situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive
inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the
United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly
be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the
most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too
responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as
easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves.
For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the
fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and
if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct
attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science
fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a
nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity
makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be
obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most
important … some indication of where the nuclear material came from.”41 Alternatively,
if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American
officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at
all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out
Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and
India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list
consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly
Pakistan. But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out
in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear
terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washington’s
relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already
been traded between these major powers, would officials and political
leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this
occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some
sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each
other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the
present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in
Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the
United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise
domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the
attack? Washington’s early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil
might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided)
confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and
confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the
U.S. president might be expected to place the country’s armed forces,
including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense
environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just
possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of
U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In
that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although
it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a
devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear
terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order a significant
conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the
leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group.
Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or
China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort,
and potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on
their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem
from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the
terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what
Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … long-standing interest in all things
nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise
alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from
Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide. There is also
the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of
nuclear terrorism on another member of that special club. It could reasonably
be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, both Russia
and China would extend immediate sympathy and support to Washington and would
work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance,
albeit a slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some
cases than in others. For example, what would happen if the United States wished to
discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their territory? If, for some reason,
Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply underwhelming, (neither
“for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots with the
group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange.
If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and China, or existed in
areas of the world over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that
Moscow or Beijing were placing a curiously modest level of pressure on them, what
conclusions might it then draw about their culpability? If Washington decided to use, or
decided to threaten the use of, nuclear weapons, the responses of Russia and China
would be crucial to the chances of avoiding a more serious nuclear exchange. They
might surmise, for example, that while the act of nuclear terrorism was especially
heinous and demanded a strong response, the response simply had to remain below the
nuclear threshold. It would be one thing for a non-state actor to have broken the nuclear
use taboo, but an entirely different thing for a state actor, and indeed the leading state in
the international system, to do so. If Russia and China felt sufficiently strongly about
that prospect, there is then the question of what options would lie open to them to
dissuade the United States from such action: and as has been seen over the last several
decades, the central dissuader of the use of nuclear weapons by states has been the threat
of nuclear retaliation. If some readers find this simply too fanciful, and perhaps
even offensive to contemplate, it may be informative to reverse the tables.
Russia, which possesses an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads and that has been
one of the two most important trustees of the non-use taboo, is subjected to an attack
of nuclear terrorism. In response, Moscow places its nuclear forces very
visibly on a higher state of alert and declares that it is considering the use of
nuclear retaliation against the group and any of its state supporters. How
would Washington view such a possibility? Would it really be keen to support
Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, including outside Russia’s traditional sphere of
influence? And if not, which seems quite plausible, what options would Washington have
to communicate that displeasure? If China had been the victim of the nuclear
terrorism and seemed likely to retaliate in kind, would the United States and
Russia be happy to sit back and let this occur? In the charged atmosphere
immediately after a nuclear terrorist attack, how would the attacked
country respond to pressure from other major nuclear powers not to
respond in kind? The phrase “how dare they tell us what to do” immediately
springs to mind. Some might even go so far as to interpret this concern as a
tacit form of sympathy or support for the terrorists. This might not help the
chances of nuclear restraint.
2NC – trafficking
Arms trafficking – countries look to fill in export drops – North
Korea proves
Miller, 10 - assistant professor of political science @ OU (Gregory, “The Security
Costs of Energy Independence”, THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY/ APRIL 2010, pp.
107-119, http://www.asiaresearch.ir/files/10apr_Miller.pdf)//AE
Historically, when states have been unable to generate revenue through
normal trade channels, they sought other sources of wealth. As oil-exporting
states experience economic turmoil, particularly if their governments feel
they must generate wealth to maintain control or to avoid some of the issues
discussed above, many will probably turn to the sale of illicit goods such as
drugs and military hardware.¶ There are several examples of states engaging
in such behavior when economic needs arise. For example, Ukraine’s lack of
hard currency since its independence in 1991 has led it to become one of the
most active suppliers of legal and illegal small arms.9 Although the Taliban
in Afghanistan initially claimed to oppose drugs on religious grounds, they
turned a blind eye to the cultivation of drugs when revenue coming into the
country from any other sources dried up.¶ For other examples of states
turning to¶ illicit trade resulting from the loss of¶ legitimate revenue, one
need only examine¶ the behavior of states following the would lead to an
imposition of trade sanctions. North Korea¶ and Libya each developed
networks for arms¶ sales, including nuclear and missile¶ technology.11 North
Korea continues to internal conflict.¶ lack outlets for legal trade because of¶
international sanctions and relies on¶ several illicit ways of earning money.
According to the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Andrew Coe:¶ In the 1990s,
North Korea engaged in considerable illegitimate trade, including largescale narcotics trafficking, currency counterfeiting, ballistic missile sales,
and industrial and sexual slavery. These new exports grew in parallel with
the decline in legal exports.12¶ Missile technology and conventional weapons
make up as much as 40 percent of North Korea’s total exports. The regime
earns $1.5 billion from missile sales alone, representing 8.8 percent of its
gross domestic product (GDP).13 Although this amount pales in comparison
to the United States, which led the world in arms sales at $37.8 billion in
2008,14 the risk is the potential growth in arms sales by countries such as Saudi Arabia
and Iran, much of which would go to trouble spots in the Middle East and the rest of the
developing world.¶ The danger here is not simply creating illicit trade networks
but the link between such networks and various forms of political violence,
both within states and across borders.15 For example, several terrorist
groups, such as the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and the
Euskadi ta Askatasuna in Spain, had links to narcotics as well as arms
trafficking and were more active as a result of those connections.16
Therefore, rather than wait for illicit trade networks to develop and then
spend the kind of money the United States has been spending in combating
drugs in countries such as Colombia and Mexico, the West should act now
to prevent the growth of such networks in oil-exporting states.
2NC – instability
Dependence key to prevent ‘Dutch Disease’ driven instability
Myers, 13 - environmental director at the Washington Policy Center (Todd, “The
Experts: How the U.S. Oil Boom Will Change the Markets and Geopolitics”, WSJ,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324105204578382690249436
084)//AE
Todd Myers: Countries With 'Dutch Disease' Could Face Some Instability
Geopolitically, the result could be increased instability as countries with
"Dutch disease," those with a heavy reliance on exporting oil to support their
economies, find their primary market eroding. This won't be true universally, but
countries like Venezuela and Russia could find themselves being forced to
make a difficult transition as demand from the U.S. falls.¶ Some believe that
increased production in the U.S. will create what is known as " Jevons
Paradox ," which argues that as efficiency increases, causing a resource to cost
less or become more productive, resource use will actually increase. That
hasn't been the case with oil in the U.S. over the last 30 years. Per capita use of energy
has fluctuated around a median. The U.S. economy is twice as efficient today as it
was 30 years ago despite significant fluctuations in oil price. Increase in oil
demand has been related to population increase, not to higher individual use of oil. (Link
to "U.S. GDP Per Unit of Oil")¶ Oil prices do have an impact on demand, but the
unrelenting push for efficient technology is a powerful force that is difficult to derail,
even in times of low prices and growing supply.
1nc – Saudi arabia
Dependence is key to regional influence – Saudi Arabia is key
Fisher, 10 – the atlantic (Max, “The Upside of Depending on Foreign Oil”, april, 2,
2010, the atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/04/theupside-of-depending-on-foreign-oil/38380)//AE
When President Obama opened the coastline to offshore oil drilling, nearly
every aspect of the plan came under heated debate. The only thing everyone
agrees on, it seems, is the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Statements from
the Environmental Protection Agency to automakers to T. Boone Pickens to Obama
himself, whether supporting or condemning offshore drilling, all cite the dangers of
relying on foreign energy. It's not hard to see why. Shipping oil from halfway
around the world is environmentally costly, economically inefficient, and
lands us in bed with some of the world's least democratic regimes. But our
ties to these states might not be categorically terrible things for us, as
they're often assumed to be . Hidden unexamined among the many
downsides of our dependence on foreign oil is an upside: It gives us
leverage over the countries that sell us oil.¶ The top ten oil exporters to the
U.S., which account for half of all U.S. consumption, read like a State Department
tourism warning list: Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Angola, Russia, Colombia,
and Brazil. (To be fair, Canada has long been our number one oil source, and Mexico
alternates with Saudi Arabia for the number two spot.) But keep in mind that most of
these countries need our money a lot more then we need their oil. If Saudi
Arabia and the U.S. suddenly ended our trade tomorrow, for example, the
U.S. and global economies would not suffer nearly as much as Saudi
Arabia's. The Saudis understand this and so want to keep U.S. and Saudi
interests aligned .¶ As a result, buying Saudi oil gets us a lot more than just
energy. It gets us a dedicated ally that wields unparalleled influence in a part
of the world where we desperately need it: the Middle East. The Saudi royal
family has put their wily intelligence service at our disposal and allowed sprawling U.S.
military bases onto their soil. In 1992, the Saudis even exiled one of their own on
America's behalf: A prominent, wealthy, and popular humanitarian and freedom fighter
named Osama bin Laden. Saudi royalty risked a violent backlash by expelling bin
Laden to Sudan, but U.S. officials had demanded his ouster. That's no small favor. It
would be almost as if the United States deported Google CEO Eric Schmidt to Honduras
at the request of angry Chinese officials. The Saudis came to our aid again in 1996 when
they convinced the Sudanese regime to themselves deport bin Laden.¶ Bin Laden's antiAmerican terrorism did not begin until he fled to Afghanistan, where the United States
then had little influence. In the decade since, he has moved between there and Pakistan,
two countries with which the U.S. has no meaningful economic ties save foreign aid.
Unlike with Saudi Arabia, our pleas to those governments to help us rout bin Laden went
largely ignored.¶ If our oil-greased relationships with other top producing
states are half as close as the U.S.-Saudi partnership, it will give us muchneeded leverage over some of this century's biggest emerging threats. In
Nigeria, we can pressure the government to peacefully contain the state's alarming
increase in terrorism. For Iraq, the economic ties with America would be an
important counterbalance to Iran's religious and political influence. As for
Venezuela, no matter how antagonistic President Hugo Chavez gets, he
would be a lot worse if we didn't take close to a million barrels off his hands
every day.¶ The point isn't that dependence on foreign oil is a good thing. The
political, economic, and environmental costs are severe, unsustainable, and require longterm alternatives. But as we seek to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it's
important to remember that our influence with certain key states will
reduce as well.
Saudi Arabian relations are a CRITICAL component of US
foreign policy – collapse causes terrorism and Iran war
Levine, 11 – adjunct prof @ Georgetown (Steve, “Frenemies Forever”, Jan 2011,
foreign policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/opening_gambit_frenemies_foreve
r?page=0,0)//AE
Besides, Saudi Arabia isn't just a giant gas station with a flag. Saudi help is
now essential for numerous top-shelf U.S. priorities , from containing Iran
to countering terrorism to extricating U.S. troops from Afghanistan and
keeping Pakistan stable. Only Saudi Arabia, with its carefully cultivated, behind-thescenes links to countries and leaders who do not trust Washington, can play this role. ¶ In
some ways, what we're seeing is just a revival of old ties. For nearly five decades
after President Franklin D. Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz aboard a U.S. destroyer in the
Suez Canal in 1945, the relationship pivoted on oil, but also on a mutual distrust of the
Soviet Union. When the Soviet empire broke up in 1991, that logic fell apart too, and the
alliance struggled for a new rationale, fitfully working together to contain Iraq and Iran,
the region's chief troublemakers, but finding few other shared interests.¶ Cooperation
against terrorism languished. Saudi royals funneled money to militants in
Afghanistan, the Middle East, and the former Yugoslavia. Across the Muslim
world and in mosques in Europe and the United States, Saudi-backed
Wahhabi madrasas preached anti-American vitriol. U.S. officials investigating
the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, in which 19 Americans were killed, complained of being
stonewalled by their Saudi counterparts. And we all know where Osama bin Laden grew
up.¶ September 11 marked a breaking point. U.S. public opinion turned sharply against
the kingdom because of the large number of Saudi terrorists involved in the attack, and
members of President George W. Bush's administration bristled at the lack of
investigative cooperation from Riyadh. Meanwhile, the Saudis tired of Washington
taking them for granted as allies. The final straw for Riyadh was fury at
Bush's perceived coddling of Israel and inaction in the face of Palestinian
deaths. By the summer of 2002, a distinct chill had set in.¶ Then, in 2003 and
2004, the two countries were brought together again after al Qaeda's Saudi
branch launched a series of attacks on oil installations, government
facilities, and foreign compounds in Riyadh and other cities -- an audacious
attempt to deepen the split between the royal family and the United States.
After a bruising crackdown that included gun battles in the streets, Saudi security forces
eventually triumphed, and the remnants of the militants fled south to Yemen.¶ The
Saudis poured money and security help into Yemen, with which the
kingdom shares a 930-mile border. So did the United States. But Yemen
struggled to deal with an influx of battle-hardened radicals from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and elsewhere. The wake-up call came in August 2009,
when an al Qaeda suicide bomber tried to kill the Saudi counterterrorism chief, Prince
Mohammed bin Nayef. Prince Nayef then had his agents infiltrate Yemeni tribes that
protect the militants, a turning point that helped uncover the details of an October 2010
bomb plot, when al Qaeda's Yemen branch attempted to send explosive packages
through FedEx and UPS to the United States. Without Saudi Arabia's insistent calls to
the CIA, U.S. officials concede, there is almost certainly no chance the bombs would have
been detected.¶ Beyond al Qaeda, the United States and Saudi Arabia share a host
of common enemies, most notably the Saudis' Persian Gulf rival Iran. When
the United States invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, it also removed a
Sunni shield against Iranian radicalism. U.S. troops now fill that role, but
ineffectively. Tehran has won much influence within Iraq, and its sway over
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza is increasing. Now, with U.S.
forces gradually drawing down in Iraq, Washington wants Saudi Arabia to
carry a larger portion of the burden.¶ Riyadh appears more than happy to help
America "cut off the head of the snake," as the Saudi king was quoted saying in a
WikiLeaked cable. In October, the State Department authorized the largest
arms sale in U.S. history, a $60 billion Saudi purchase of 154 new and
upgraded F-15 fighter jets, 190 helicopters, advanced radar equipment, and
satellite-guided bombs. Saudi diplomats are also playing an invaluable role
in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, and Syria, working to mediate
between the various warring factions and carrying private messages from
Washington to U.S. adversaries like Hamas and the Taliban.¶ Don't expect to
see Obama holding hands with King Abdullah anytime soon, though; domestic
politics in both countries won't allow for that. But the idea that the United States
can end its dependence on Saudi oil is an illusion, just as the notion that
Washington should abandon one of its closest security partners is
profoundly unwise. These two countries were frenemies long before anyone
coined the term -- and for better or for worse, they will be ambivalent allies
for a long time to come.
 Saudi relations good, nuke terrorism bad, iran war bad
Middle East wars cause extinction
Russell, 9 (James A. Russell, Senior Lecturer, National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate
School, ‘9 (Spring) “Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in
the Middle East” IFRI, Proliferation Papers//,
#26, __http://www.ifri.org/downloads/PP26_Russell_2009.pdf__)
Strategic stability in the region is thus undermined by various factors: (1)
asymmetric interests in the bargaining framework that can introduce unpredictable
behavior from actors; (2) the presence of non-state actors that introduce
unpredictability into relationships between the antagonists; (3) incompatible
assumptions about the structure of the deterrent relationship that makes
the bargaining framework strategically unstable; (4) perceptions by Israel
and the United States that its window of opportunity for military action is
closing, which could prompt a preventive attack ; (5) the prospect that Iran’s
response to pre-emptive attacks could involve unconventional weapons,
which could prompt escalation by Israel and/or the United States; (6) the lack of a
communications framework to build trust and cooperation among
framework participants. These systemic weaknesses in the coercive
bargaining framework all suggest that escalation by any the parties could
happen either on purpose or as a result of miscalculation or the pressures of
wartime circumstance. Given these factors, it is disturbingly easy to imagine
scenarios under which a conflict could quickly escalate in which the
regional antagonists would consider the use of chemical, biological,
or nuclear weapons . It would be a mistake to believe the nuclear taboo can
somehow magically keep nuclear weapons from being used in the context of an
unstable strategic framework. Systemic asymmetries between actors in fact suggest a certain
increase in the probability of war – a war in which escalation could happen quickly
and from a variety of participants. Once such a war starts, events would likely
develop a momentum all their own and decision-making would
consequently be shaped in unpredictable ways. The international
community must take this possibility seriously, and muster every tool at its disposal
to prevent such an outcome, which would be an unprecedented disaster
for the peoples of the region, with substantial risk for the entire world .
2nc – global econ
Saudi Arabian production is critical to the world’s economy –
momentum and regionalism
LeVine, 14 – Washington correspondent (Steve, “Iraq shows that the global economy
needs Saudi Arabia again”, June 19, 2014, quartz news, http://qz.com/222958/iraqshows-that-the-global-economy-needs-saudi-arabia-again)//AE
The US shale oil boom is said to be reducing the world’s long-running
dependence on Saudi Arabia. But the upheaval in Iraq appears to be reviving
the kingdom’s centrality to the global economy .¶ Iraqi militants yesterday
attacked Baiji, a large oil refinery that serves a quarter of the country’s fuel and
electricity needs. Despite the violence, many analysts have taken comfort in that
the trouble is concentrated in northern Iraq, well away from the country’s
oil-producing regions, which are almost all in the south. The overwhelmingly Shiite
south lacks the indigenous Sunni population whose support has made the militant Sunni
offensive possible.¶ But that confidence may be misplaced. BP and ExxonMobil have
ordered a partial evacuation of oilfields in southern Iraq. And, in a note to
clients, Citi’s Seth Kleinman suggests that, even though they do not necessarily
face a direct threat, foreign oil companies are less likely to invest the billions
of dollars required for new Iraqi production amid such insecurity. Baghdad
delayed bidding (paywall) scheduled for today for rights to produce oil and build a
refinery at southern Nassiriya, saying it needs more time to make the tender succeed.
Among the reasons for industry reluctance are the violence and Iraq’s frustratingly
cumbersome application process.¶ “Arguments that the south is more secure as it is a
Shiite stronghold may not be sufficiently reassuring to oil companies already
complaining about onerous terms and painfully slow bureaucracies that have to be
negotiated for approvals,” Kleinman wrote.¶ Enter Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have
spent the last few decades largely unchallenged as the largest oil producer
on the planet . Currently, the Saudis produce about 10 million barrels of oil a
day and say they have the capacity to produce another 2.5 million. That spare
production capacity is by far the most of any petrostate, giving the Saudis immense
leverage as a swing producer in a crisis.¶ Until a couple of years ago, some Saudis
spoke of adding yet another 2.5 million barrels a day of capacity, giving
them 15 million in all. But if there ever were such plans officially, they have
been shelved since the recent US shale revolution added millions of barrels
a day to US production. In April, the US produced 11.2 million barrels (paywall) of oil
and gas liquids a day, the most since 1970. It has been said that, four decades after the
Arab oil embargoes, the US will soon become an oil exporter and no longer beholden to
the Persian Gulf, and specifically Riyadh.¶ But a series of geopolitical disruptions
including in Libya and Nigeria have canceled out those gains. And after the
upheaval in Iraq analysts now believe that such disruptions will remain a factor for many
years.¶ If that is the case, Saudi Arabia’s oil will again be central to the global
economy. Specifically, the world may need Riyadh to invest the billions
necessary to increase its production capacity to 15 million barrels a day.¶ But
Kleinman doubts the Saudis will come to the rescue. Quite apart from any potential plan
to increase capacity, Kleinman says that the Saudis won’t be able to supply even the full
12.5 million barrels a day of capacity that they claim they can produce. “Given that the
market has never seen Saudi Arabia hold production over 10 million barrels
a day, a combination of skepticism and caution seems warranted,” he writes.¶
Other analysts say that such worry is unwarranted—that US and other non-OPEC oil will
continue to pour onto the market and smooth out the impact of disruptions without any
added Saudi help. But for now, the pessimists have the momentum on their side.
Extinction
Auslin 9 (Michael, Resident Scholar – American Enterprise Institute, and Desmond
Lachman – Resident Fellow – American Enterprise Institute, “The Global Economy
Unravels”, Forbes, 3-6, http://www.aei.org/article/100187)
What do these trends mean in the short and medium term? The Great Depression
showed how social and global chaos followed hard on economic collapse. The mere
fact that parliaments across the globe, from America to Japan, are unable to make
responsible, economically sound recovery plans suggests that they do not know what to
do and are simply hoping for the least disruption. Equally worrisome is the adoption of
more statist economic programs around the globe, and the concurrent decline of trust in
free-market systems. The threat of instability is a pressing concern. China, until last year
the world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20 million migrant laborers lost
their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years, China faced upward of 70,000 labor
uprisings a year. A sustained downturn poses grave and possibly immediate threats to
Chinese internal stability. The regime in Beijing may be faced with a choice of repressing
its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's
neighbors. Russia, an oil state completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put
down riots in its Far East as well as in downtown Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been
predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse. If that devil's
bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing
threatening posture toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies
face increasing risk and the threat of internal or possibly external conflict. As Japan's
exports have plummeted by nearly 50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have
passed emergency economic stabilization plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary
employees hired during the first part of this decade are being laid off. Spain's
unemployment rate is expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish
unions are already protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as occurred in
the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece, workers have already taken to
the streets. Europe as a whole will face dangerously increasing tensions between native
citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have increased the
labor pool in the past several decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since
1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's residents have foreign citizenship, including almost
2 million Turks. The xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not bode well for the rest of
Europe. A prolonged global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise
tensions inside these countries. Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in
the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial disputes in all regions of the
globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what they are doing. The
result may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang.
2nc – dependence now
Iranian nuclear program means Saudi reliance
Krauss, 12 – nyt correspondent (Clifford, “U.S. Reliance on Oil From Saudi Arabia Is
Growing Again”, August 16, 2012, nyt,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/business/energy-environment/us-reliance-onsaudi-oil-is-growing-again.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)//AE
The United States is increasing its dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia, raising its
imports from the kingdom by more than 20 percent this year, even as fears
of military conflict in the tinderbox Persian Gulf region grow.¶ The increase in
Saudi oil exports to the United States began slowly last summer and has
picked up pace this year. Until then, the United States had decreased its
dependence on foreign oil and from the Gulf in particular.¶ This reversal is
driven in part by the battle over Iran’s nuclear program . The United States
tightened sanctions that hampered Iran’s ability to sell crude, the lifeline of
its troubled economy, and Saudi Arabia agreed to increase production to help
guarantee that the price did not skyrocket. While prices have remained relatively
stable, and Tehran’s treasury has been squeezed, the United States is left
increasingly vulnerable to a region in turmoil.¶ The jump in Saudi oil production
has been welcomed by Washington and European governments, but Saudi
society faces its own challenges, with the recent deaths of senior members of the
royal family and sectarian strife in the eastern part of the country, making the stability of
Saudi energy and political policies uncertain.
AT Oil Shocks Impact
No impact to oil shocks -- consensus of economists
Kahn 2011
Jeremy, journalist, “Crude reality: Will a Middle Eastern oil disruption crush the
economy? New research suggests the answer is no -- and that a major tenet of American
foreign policy may be fundamentally wrong.” February 13, 2011
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/02/13/crude_reality/?page=f
ull
The idea that a sudden spike in oil prices spells economic doom has
influenced America’s foreign policy since at least 1973, when Arab states, upset with Western support
for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, drastically cut production and halted exports to the United States. The result was a sudden
quadrupling in crude prices and a deep global recession. Many Americans still have vivid memories of gas lines stretching for blocks, and of
the unemployment, inflation, and general sense of insecurity and panic that followed. Even harder hit were our allies in Europe and Japan,
as well as many developing nations.¶ Economists have a term for this disruption: an oil shock. The
idea that such oil
shocks will inevitably wreak havoc on the US economy has become deeply
rooted in the American psyche, and in turn the United States has made ensuring the smooth flow of crude from
the Middle East a central tenet of its foreign policy. Oil security is one of the primary reasons America has a long-term military presence in
the region. Even aside from the Iraq and Afghan wars, we have equipment and forces positioned in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar;
the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is permanently stationed in Bahrain.¶ But
a growing body of economic
research suggests that this conventional view of oil shocks is wrong. The US
economy is far less susceptible to interruptions in the oil supply than
previously assumed, according to these studies. Scholars examining the recent history of
oil disruptions have found the worldwide oil market to be remarkably
adaptable and surprisingly quick at compensating for shortfalls. Economists have
found that much of the damage once attributed to oil shocks can more persuasively be laid at the feet of bad government policies. The US
economy, meanwhile, has become less dependent on Persian Gulf oil and less sensitive to changes in crude prices overall than it was in
1973.¶ These findings have led a few bold political scientists and foreign policy experts to start asking an uncomfortable question: If the
United States could withstand a disruption in Persian Gulf oil supplies, why does it need a permanent military presence in the region at all?
There’s a lot riding on that question: America’s presence in the Middle East exacts a heavy toll in political capital, financial resources, and
lives. Washington’s support for Middle East autocrats makes America appear hypocritical on issues of human rights and democracy. The
United States spends billions of dollars every year to maintain troops in the Middle East, and the troops risk their lives simply by being
there, since they make tempting targets for the region’s Islamic extremists. And arguably, because the presence of these forces inflames
radicals and delegitimizes local rulers, they may actually be undermining the very stability they are ostensibly there to ensure.¶ Among
those asking this tough question are two young professors, Eugene Gholz, at the University of Texas, and Daryl Press,
at Dartmouth College. To find out what actually happens when the world’s petroleum supply is interrupted, the duo analyzed
every major oil disruption since 1973. The results, published in a recent issue of the journal
Strategic Studies, showed that in almost all cases, the ensuing rise in prices , while
sometimes steep, was short-lived and had little lasting economic impact . When there have
been prolonged price rises, they found the cause to be panic on the part of oil purchasers rather than a supply shortage. When oil runs short,
in other words, the market is usually adept at filling the gap.¶ One striking example was the height of the IranIraq War in the 1980s. If anything was likely to produce an oil shock, it was this: two major Persian Gulf producers directly targeting each
other’s oil facilities. And indeed, prices surged 25 percent in the first months of the conflict. But within 18 months of the war’s start they had
fallen back to their prewar levels, and they stayed there even though the fighting continued to rage for six more years. Surprisingly, during
the 1984 “Tanker War” phase of that conflict — when Iraq tried to sink oil tankers carrying Iranian crude and Iran retaliated by targeting
ships carrying oil from Iraq and its Persian Gulf allies — the price of oil continued to drop steadily. Gholz and Press found just one case after
1973 in which the market mechanisms failed: the 1979-1980 Iranian oil strike which followed the overthrow of the Shah, during which
Saudi Arabia, perhaps hoping to appease Islamists within the country, also led OPEC to cut production, exacerbating the supply shortage. ¶
In their paper, Gholz
and Press ultimately conclude that the market’s adaptive
mechanisms function independently of the US military presence in the Persian Gulf, and that they largely protect the
American economy from being damaged by oil shocks. “To the extent that the United States
faces a national security challenge related to Persian Gulf oil, it is not ‘how to protect the oil we need’ but ‘how to assure consumers that
there is nothing to fear,’ ” the two write. “That is a thorny policy problem, but it does not require large military deployments and costly
military operations.”¶ There’s no denying the importance of Middle Eastern oil to the US economy. Although only 15 percent of imported
US oil comes directly from the Persian Gulf, the region is responsible for nearly a third of the world’s production and the majority of its
known reserves. But the oil market is also elastic: Many key producing countries have spare capacity, so if oil is cut off from one country,
others tend to increase their output rapidly to compensate. Today, regions outside the Middle East, such as the west coast of Africa, make
up an increasingly important share of worldwide production. Private companies also hold large stockpiles of oil to smooth over shortages —
amounting to a few billion barrels in the United States alone — as does the US government, with 700 million barrels in its strategic
petroleum reserve. And the market can largely work around shipping disruptions by using alternative routes; though they are more
expensive, transportation costs account for only tiny fraction of the price of oil. ¶ Compared
to the 1970s, too, the
structure of the US economy offers better insulation from oil price shocks.
Today, the country uses half as much energy per dollar of gross domestic product as it did in 1973, according to data from the US Energy
Information Administration. Remarkably, the economy consumed less total energy in 2009 than in 1997, even though its GDP rose and the
population grew. When it comes time to fill up at the pump, the average US consumer today spends less than 4 percent of his or her
disposable income on gasoline, compared with more than 6 percent in 1980. Oil,
though crucial, is simply a
smaller part of the economy than it once was.¶ There is no denying that the 1973 oil shock was bad —
the stock market crashed in response to the sudden spike in oil prices, inflation jumped, and unemployment hit levels not seen since the
Great Depression. The 1979 oil shock also had deep and lasting economic effects. Economists now argue, however, that the economic
damage was more directly attributable to bad government policy than to the actual supply shortage. Among those who have studied past oil
shocks is Ben
Bernanke, the current chairman of the Federal Reserve. In 1997, Bernanke analyzed the effects
of a sharp rise in fuel prices during three different oil shocks — 1973-75,
1980-82, and 1990-91. He concluded that the major economic damage was
caused not by the oil price increases but by the Federal Reserve overreacting and
sharply increasing interest rates to head off what it wrongly feared would be a wave of inflation. Today, his
view is accepted by most mainstream economists.
Oil shocks are offset by existent US demand and global increases
Petroff, 13 – financial journalist with Morningstar (Alanna “U.S. oil boom causing
energy upheaval,” May 14, 2013, http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/14/news/world/oiliea-demand/)
"North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout
the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven. "This is helping
to ease a market that was relatively tight for several years." Growing North American
production will help the U.S. begin to meet its own energy demands, leading it to cut
back on imports that will instead start flowing to emerging markets. In its latest report,
the Paris-based IEA forecasts that North America's oil supply will grow by nearly 4
million barrels per day between 2012 to 2018, amounting to nearly 50% of global output
growth over that period. "The shock waves of rising U.S. shale gas, light tight oil
and Canadian oil sands production are reaching virtually all recesses of the
global oil market," stated the IEA report. The U.S. is experiencing an oil boom, in
large part thanks to high world prices and new technologies, including hydraulic
fracking, that have made the extraction of oil and gas from shale rock commercially
viable. The new supply surge comes as developing nations are set to consume more oil
than developed countries for the first time. The IEA says the shift will be seen this
quarter, with demand from developing countries hitting 54% of the global total by 2018,
up from 49% in 2012. Related: U.S. to become biggest oil producer The country
leading this move is China, the world's second largest consumer after the U.S., which
has been guzzling oil at an ever faster rate. The report forecasts that Chinese demand for
oil will rise by 25% between 2012 to 2018, while U.S. demand will steadily decline.
10 years after Saddam: Iraq's oil boom 10 years after Saddam: Iraq's oil boom But
developing countries and emerging markets will not simply be passive
consumers. The IEA says these nations are investing heavily in oil storage,
transportation and refining. "In the next five years, virtually all net crude
distillation capacity growth is forecast to take place in the emerging market
and developing economies," states the report. The IEA also expects the African
continent will present suppliers with "a new demand frontier."
No Price Change
1nc—no price effect
Price decreases haven’t happened yet, because they never will –
several larger reasons for high gas prices
Conathan, 12 – Director of Ocean Policy at Center for American Progress (Michael,
“More Drilling Won’t Lower Gas Prices: Soaring Domestic Production Has Failed to Ease
Pain at the Pump”, Center for American Progress, 2/29/12,
http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2012/02/29/11091/more-drillingwont-lower-gas-prices/)//SJF
If the solution were so simple, then the problem of rising gasoline prices
wouldn’t exist—we’re already drilling like crazy in the United States. And yet prices
have continued to spike. As my colleague Daniel J. Weiss explains, the reasons for the
recent price increase are myriad and include political instability in the
Persian Gulf, the influence of financial speculators, and increasing
worldwide demand as economies recover.
Yet many conservatives are dusting off their old bumper stickers and touting more drilling as the sole solution to high
prices at the pump. One Republican presidential contender, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, is on the
campaign trail promising that if elected he’ll get the price of gasoline back to a nationwide average of $2.50 per gallon. Yet
even in a 29-minute infomercial-style speech, he couldn’t find the time to address any of the reasons why more drilling
will not lead to lower prices.
Gingrich simply trumpets the misguided talking points of building the Keystone XL pipeline,
tapping shale oil in the upper Midwest, and of course opening more areas to offshore
drilling. He then
leaves it to his audience to make the assumption that supply-side economics
will work its voodoo magic, and presto-change-o, we’ll all be able to drive
Hummers and have enough cash left over to put a latte in every cupholder.
By contrast, President Barack Obama delivered an address on energy last Thursday in which
he made the less politically expedient but actually realistic proclamation that “there is no
silver bullet” that will solve our energy problem. He further suggested anyone who
pitches the idea that drilling alone will lower gas prices “doesn’t know what
they’re talking about or just isn’t telling you the truth.”
If increasing oil drilling lowered gas prices, we’d know it already. When President Obama took office in 2009, there were
fewer than 400 drilling rigs operating in the United States, a number that dwindled to fewer than 200 by April 2009.
Since then, even as his administration conducted a wholesale review of drilling regulations in the aftermath of the worst
offshore oil spill in the nation’s history—the BP Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico—the number of
oil rigs operating in the United States has quadrupled. But that massive influx of supply has done nothing to reduce the
price we pay to top up our tanks.
As fundamental as the law of supply and demand might be to macroeconomic theory, the on-the-ground reality is that
more drilling will not lower gas prices. Here’s why:
It hasn’t worked yet. There are currently more oil rigs operating on U.S.
lands and waters than in the rest of the world combined, production is at an
eight-year high, and the most recent “Short-Term Energy Outlook” from the Energy Information Administration
projects production to continue growing at least through 2013 based on current activity. By the end of President Obama’s
recently issued five-year drilling plan, fully 75 percent of our undiscovered, technically
recoverable offshore reserves will be open to drilling. All that additional
activity hasn’t stemmed the recent gas price spike.
If oil companies wanted to increase production, they could. In March 2011 the
Department of the Interior released a report revealing two-thirds of oil-andgas companies’ offshore leases and more than half of their onshore leases
are not being produced.
2nc—no price effect
The benefit is only 2 cents by 2030 – no link threshold
Conathan, 12 – Director of Ocean Policy at Center for American Progress (Michael,
“More Drilling Won’t Lower Gas Prices: Soaring Domestic Production Has Failed to Ease
Pain at the Pump”, Center for American Progress, 2/29/12,
http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2012/02/29/11091/more-drillingwont-lower-gas-prices/)//SJF
Pumping oil takes time. Opening new offshore areas will take seven years to
produce any new oil, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will take 10
years to produce a single drop of oil. Even if more production would lower
prices, it wouldn’t happen tomorrow. And the Energy Information
Administration finds that even if we wave the green flag for our entire
exclusive economic zone, it will do nothing more than reduce the cost of
gasoline by two cents, and not until 2030.
You can’t put crude oil in your tank. Ultimately, gasoline supply is
constrained not by oil production but by refining capacity. More than half of the
nation’s refineries are controlled by five companies, and last spring, as gas prices
surged close to $4 per gallon, the Los Angeles Times reported domestic refineries were “operating
at about 81 percent of their production capacity,” and that exports of refined
products such as gasoline were increasing because foreign buyers were “willing to
pay a premium.” Take one look at gas prices in Europe and you’ll
understand why.
Supply is global too. As U.S. production increased, other oil-producing countries
actually reduced their output to ensure the price didn’t fluctuate . Remember, there are
two ways to make money—increase volume, or increase price. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, whose reserves are
reportedly on the decline, have every motive to ration their golden geese’s eggs.
US oil reserves is a drop in the bucket – no impact
Walsh, 8 – I'm a senior writer for TIME magazine, covering energy and the
environment (Bryan, “Will More Drilling Mean Cheaper Gas?”, TIME, 6/18/8,
http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1815884,00.html)//SJF
But there's a flaw in that logic: even
if tomorrow we opened up every square mile of the
outer continental shelf to offshore rigs, even if we drilled the entire state of Alaska and pulled new
refineries out of thin air, the impact on gas prices would be minimal and delayed at
best. A 2004 study by the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that drilling in
ANWR would trim the price of gas by 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027. (If oil prices
continue to skyrocket, the savings would be greater, but not by much.) Opening up offshore areas to oil
exploration — currently all coastal areas save a section of the Gulf of Mexico are off-limits, thanks to a
congressional ban enacted in 1982 and supplemented by an executive order from the first President Bush — might
cut the price of gas by 3 to 4 cents a gallon at most, according to the Natural
Resources Defense Council. And the relief at the pump, such as it is, wouldn't be
immediate — it would take several years, at least, for the oil to begin to flow,
which is time enough for increased demand from China, India and the rest
of the world to outpace those relatively meager savings. "Right now the price of
oil is set on the global market," says Kevin Lindemer, executive managing director of the energy
markets group for the research firm Global Insight. President Bush's move "would not have an impact."
The reason is simple: the U.S. has an estimated 3% of global petroleum
reserves but consumes 24% of the world's oil. Offshore territories and public lands like ANWR
that don't allow drilling may contain up to 75 billion barrels of oil, according to the EIA. That may sound like a lot, but
it's not enough to make a significant difference in a world where global oil
demand is expected to rise 30% by 2030, to nearly 120 million barrels a day.
At best, greatly expanding domestic drilling might eventually lower the proportion of oil the U.S. imports — currently
about 60% of its total supply — but petroleum is a global commodity, and the world
market would soak up any additional American production. "This is a drop
in the bucket," says Gernot Wagner, an economist with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Too long term – extraction can’t effect global markets
Kahn, 10 – Energy Writer for the Associated Press (Chris, “The Impact of More
Offshore Drilling: It could take years for oil to flow, affect prices at the pump”, NBC
News, Oil & Energy, Associated Press,
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36121239/ns/business-oil_and_energy/t/impact-moreoffshore-drilling/#.U6sUMPldW7Y)//SJF
By opening parts of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling, the
Obama administration wants to tap a huge energy resource that could keep fuel
costs in check.
But don't expect gasoline pump prices to fall anytime soon because of the new drilling.
The offshore areas are located along relatively pristine parts of the U.S. Outer
Continental Shelf, a new frontier for oil companies. It could take years before drillers will
know how much oil can be pumped from these areas, and when.
A report by the federal Minerals Management Service noted that most of the seismic data used to
evaluate oil and natural gas resources there are more than 25 years old. So the
information "may not be adequate" to build maps or develop leases for drilling operations.
Where will companies be allowed to drill?
President Obama said Wednesday he'll push for opening offshore
areas in the Gulf of
Mexico and off the mid and southern Atlantic coast. Oil and gas resources would be
developed about 50 miles off the Virginia coast and more than 125 miles
from Florida's coast in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The government also will
allow oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean. The President doesn't support drilling at Bristol Bay in
Alaska because of environmental concerns. He said proposed leases in that area would be canceled.
It's always tough to say exactly how much oil and gas lies under the ocean. But if drillers are
able to tap as
much as the government estimates, they could pump enough to cover a 15year supply of oil and a 23-year supply of natural gas for the nation.
In the Gulf, there's anywhere from 36 billion to 41.5 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil and 161 trillion to 207
trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas, according to the Minerals Management Service.
There's another 39 billion to 63 billion barrels of oil and 168 trillion to 294 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in eight
planning areas in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans that are under consideration for leases between 2012 and 2017.
When will drilling begin, and when will we see oil flowing to U.S. refineries?
Exploratory drilling could begin as early as this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic. That is only for a
preliminary study to determine if those areas are suitable for future leases. Elsewhere, the Department of the Interior
plans to hold sales for leases in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Virginia coast and in the Cook Inlet in Alaska by 2012.
It will take years for oil companies to find the right pockets of oil and gas,
build deepwater platforms and begin pumping crude to onshore refineries.
Which companies will be most interested in the new areas?
Offshore drilling is expensive, and analysts expect the new leases to be filled by oil giants such as Exxon Mobil, BP and
Shell. BP, which already has numerous drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico, welcomed Obama's announcement on
Wednesday. But a company spokesman wouldn't say whether the company planned to bid for any of the new leases.
Will this affect gasoline prices?
Don't hold your breath. Even if oil exploration in these areas goes exactly as
planned, "you're looking at seven or eight years down the road" before that
oil can be pumped in large quantities for U.S. refiners, said Mark Gilman, an oil and gas
analyst for The Benchmark Company.
--big oil
US oil can’t compete internationally – big oil won’t make it
profitable
Hoffman and Lyon, 8 – *Holcim (US) Professor at the University of Michigan,
holding joint appointments in the Ross School of Business and the School of Natural
Resources & Environment, Associate Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable
Enterprise **Dow Professor of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce;
Professor of Business Economics; Professor of Natural Resources; and Director, of the
Erb Institute (Andy, Tom, “The Simple Economics of Offshore Drilling”, Perspective:
Sustainability Blog from the Erb Institute, University of Michigan, 10/31/8,
http://erbsustainability.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/the-simple-economics-of-offshoredrilling-by-andrew-j-hoffman-thomas-p-lyon/)//SJF
There is much talk today about offshore oil drilling as a way to lower gas
prices and reduce the strains on American consumers. But, much like the gasoline tax holiday
proposed in the spring, the public debate is full of lots of political gimmickry
and little sound economics. Let’s consider the facts and be honest about the ultimate
results of offshore drilling. It will not lower gasoline prices. It will transfer
wealth from oil producers like Chavez, Putin and the Saudis to the oil
companies that develop these offshore assets. This can have some benefits. It may help us reduce the flow of funds
to terrorist organizations and it will certainly help investors in the oil companies that exploit our domestic oil resources.
But American consumers will never see benefits at the pump.
Consider the simple economics of oil pricing. If
Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, Total or
some other oil company is given the rights to drill oil off the coast of California or the Gulf of
Mexico, does anyone really believe they will sell that oil at a discount to the American
consumer? No, that oil will be sold at the prevailing price on global markets. Oil
drilled in US waters is indistinguishable from Saudi or Russian oil of
comparable quality. Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, and there is a single marketclearing price for oil of a given quality. There simply is not enough domestic oil offshore to
make a meaningful dent in oil prices. The U.S. Department of Energy issued a report on offshore
drilling last year, which found that “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant
impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012,
and production would not be expected to start before 2017.” It concluded, “Because oil prices are determined on the
international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”
Although offshore drilling won’t bring down gas prices, it would at least allow us to divert some oil dollars away from
OPEC and into the pockets of investors who own shares of western oil companies. (Since most American retirement
portfolios include oil stocks, this benefit is widely shared.) In addition, to the extent that OPEC countries are financing the
teaching of virulent anti-Western ideas, this could have a small positive effect in reducing the risk of terrorism and
enhancing national security. Strangely, these benefits have been largely omitted from the political debate.
Whether these financial gains are worth the environmental (and aesthetic) costs of offshore drilling has also been largely
omitted from the debate. Oil spills happen, and they cause real environmental and economic harm. Just last month, over
400,000 gallons of oil were spilled in the Mississippi river, forcing a closure of 100 miles of the river. Of course, much
bigger spills have occurred in American waters. In 1969, the blowout of a Unocal rig off the coast of Santa Barbara spilled
3 million gallons, and in 1989 the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons off the coast of Alaska in 1989. We find it ironic
that the environmental and aesthetic impacts can be ignored in the push to place oil rigs off our coasts while opposition to
offshore wind mills occupying similar real estate remains strong. Windmills have no similar environmental impacts and
the aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder. One reason for this opposition may be that wind has the annoying habit of
showing up off the coast line of wealthier Americans in places like Nantucket Sound and the West Coast of Michigan.
Rational people can disagree about whether offshore drilling is a good idea, but let’s get the debate focused on the true
issues. At heart, this is an issue that pits environmental protection against financial gain. And it is a tired contest, one that
has been paraded in front of the American people since the 1970 OPEC oil embargo in order to protect oil company
interests. It will have at most a trivial impact on gasoline prices for the
consumer.
In the end, oil prices will fall in one of two ways. The first is if supply
increases in a significant way. The world consumed 43 billion barrels of crude oil in 2006, and the
US Department of Energy estimates that increased offshore drilling in the
US might increase total global supplies by 18 billion barrels of oil, spread out
over a period of decades. Overall, it is just a drop in the bucket.
--eia report
Their evidence is political posturing – it’s never going to affect
prices
McAuliff, 11 – Senior Congressional reporter for the Huffington Post (Michael, “More
U.S. Oil Drilling Won't Lower Gas Prices, Experts Say”, Huffington Post Green, 5/6/11,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/more-us-oil-drilling-wont-help-gasprices_n_858473.html)//SJF
Republicans used the politically potent argument about the cost of gas Thursday to pass a bill expanding offshore oil and
gas exploration. But analysts say there's a major flaw in their case: More drilling will barely budge
prices.
The Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, which passed 266 to 144 with 33
Democrats buying into the scheme, orders the Department of the Interior to move quickly
to offer three leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of
Virginia. The bill demands that the leases be executed by next year.
But the legislation won't reduce the price at the pump, experts said. Nor
would a vastly more ambitious effort have much impact.
"It's not going to change the price of oil overnight, and it's probably not going to have a huge
impact on the price of oil ever," said Mike Lynch of Strategic Energy and
Economic Research, Inc. referring not just to those four leases, but to expanding all U.S.
drilling.
Yet House Republicans -- backed by nearly three dozen Democrats -- held out their push for exploitation of the four tracts
as a panacea for the weak economy and high gas prices.
"Republicans are standing with the American people, who want us to increase the supply of American energy that will
lower costs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs here in America," House Speaker John Boehner (ROhio) proudly declared. "And I’m certain –- with $4 per gallon gas -– the American people will remember who listened to
them, and who didn’t."
"I think high gas prices and high energy costs are crushing jobs and are just unnecessary," Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.)
told The Huffington Post. "When we have access to domestic resources, gas prices go down. That’s what happened in 2008
when Bush opened up the outer-continental shelf."
Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the bill's lead sponsor, made the same argument Wednesday.
"If we send a signal to the markets that we’re going to go after the resources that we have in this country," he told bloggers
on a conference call, "I think that will have a positive impact on driving the price of gasoline down. As a matter of fact, that
happened in 2008."
But people who study oil markets for a living say they are wrong.
"I would really doubt that that [2008 price drop] would have been because
we committed to more drilling," said Phyllis Martin, an analyst with the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA), which just released its detailed, annual outlook on energy supply and prices.
"It was most likely the recession," Martin explained. "When demand cuts
back, the
production cuts back and the prices fall."
As for opening four new drilling leases, that's not even a drop in the bucket.
US doesn’t have enough petroleum reserves
McAuliff, 11 – Senior Congressional reporter for the Huffington Post (Michael, “More
U.S. Oil Drilling Won't Lower Gas Prices, Experts Say”, Huffington Post Green, 5/6/11,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/more-us-oil-drilling-wont-help-gasprices_n_858473.html)//SJF
"You might, under really optimistic scenarios, over five or six years, add 2 million barrels a day of production," said Lynch,
who favors more drilling, even if he rejects the politicians' arguments. "On a global scale, it's
significant. But we would still be big importers -- we would still be
dependent on foreign oil."
And prices would not move much because of it, the analysts explained. Oil is
traded on a world market, and the United States does not have enough
petroleum to increase the global supply, which would reduce demand -- and
thus the price -- for fuel.
"In 2009, the U.S. produced about 7 percent of what was produced in the
entire world, so increasing the oil production in the U.S. is not going to
make much of a difference in world markets and world prices," said the
EIA's Martin. "It just gets lost. It's not that much."
And boosting drilling in the outer continental shelf?
"What comes out of the OCS is about
1 percent of the world total, and that's not
enough to affect world prices," Martin said, even noting that she believes there are even more untapped
reserves than officials can estimate at the moment.
Republicans are right about some things, the experts agreed. More drilling would mean more jobs and more tax revenue, if
the industry's subsidies and tax breaks were revoked. It could also reduce oil imports -- even if gas prices wouldn't drop.
More offshore drilling, in fact, would be a huge boon for the oil and gas companies that could do it.
"It would be a lot of money for a lot people, but it's not going to make us
energy independent," said Lynch, the analyst.
The oil and gas industry has poured $8.8 million into the campaigns of the
drilling bill's lead sponsors.
Lynch wouldn't rule out the idea of the United States becoming energy independent, someday, but rated the odds as slim.
"On
a scale of Osama bin Laden going to church with Pat Robertson -- it's
close to that," he said.
What would bring down prices? In the short term, much broader market forces, such
as those that prompted Thursday's huge oil sell-off.
Since the United States remains the largest consumer of petroleum, greater efficiency at home will help in the longer term.
Lynch noted that President Barack Obama's past campaign suggestion for Americans to keep their tires properly inflated
actually had merit.
"It sounds stupid, but he was right," said Lynch, noting only half-jokingly that it might have paid during the recession to
employ all the out-of-work lawyers as tire pressure readers at gas stations.
The biggest factor that would drive down gas prices, though, would be more drilling around the world.
"If you said, 'let's take the equipment and send it to Iraq, and build pipelines,' that's going to flood the market. The easiest
oil is in Iraq," Lynch said. He added that other rich supplies could be tapped "in a number of other places like Colombia or
Argentina or Brazil."
And what would happen to world prices if America went all out on drilling?
"It would not make the Saudi king stay up at night worrying about his
revenue," said Lynch.
--middle east o/w
Perry, 11 – concurrently a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at
the University of Michigan's Flint campus, best known as the creator and editor of the
popular economics blog Carpe Diem, writes about economic and financial issues for
American.com and the AEIdeas blog (Mark J, “Big Oil has Little to do with Pump
Prices”, 6/9/11, http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/conventionalenergy/big-oil-has-little-to-do-with-pump-prices/)//SJF
Every time the price of gasoline shoots up, the U.S. finds itself in the same plight, yet we
never learn from it.
Before we make the mistake of blaming oil companies for high prices, we should
consider who the real culprits are.
If ever there was a time for an honest look at oil and gasoline prices, it's now. And what
that inquiry concludes is that the American oil industry is not the instigator of higher
prices.
The spike in gasoline prices is the latest reminder of the cost to America of not having a
comprehensive energy policy. By relying so heavily on imported oil, we are held hostage
to events halfway around the world.
Part of what lies behind soaring prices is turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East
which has been spreading. After demonstrators took to the streets in Egypt, protests
broke out in Tunisia, Kuwait, Yemen and Libya. Oil-rich Libya sends only a small
fraction of its oil to the United States, but because oil is a world commodity, Americans
are not immune to the shock waves.
Are other oil-producing countries like Bahrain and Oman next? Is even Saudi Arabia at
risk? Saudi Arabia alone sits on a quarter of the world's oil reserves.
This uncertainty about tomorrow is reflected in oil prices today. Call it the fear factor.
Investors are worried about the situation because no one knows where the turmoil will
end. The risk is geopolitical instability in the Persian Gulf that has widespread effects.
Another problem: oil supplies are getting harder to replace once they've been consumedand the demand for oil keeps growing, particularly in China, India and Brazil. In 2009,
the last year for which figures are available, the world consumed 11 percent more oil than
a decade earlier.
Oil imports now cost Americans $1 million a minute. Crude oil prices, which are set on
the world market based on market forces, fluctuate substantially and unpredictably.
It's time for the administration to realize the urgency and to set the country on a clear
strategy of boosting oil production at home. President Obama's recently announced steps
to lease some new areas, while worthwhile, fall short of what needs to be done. Congress
should lift the moratorium on oil development in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of
Mexico now.
This would make it more difficult for foreign countries to cut production to force up
prices. The potentially unreliable countries of North Africa and the Persian Gulf,
Venezuela and Nigeria supply a combined total of 5 million barrels a day-about a quarter
of U.S. consumption. That is the amount we ought to replace with an increase in our own
domestic production.
Fortunately, geologists say there is still plenty of oil in the ground and beneath the sea in
the United States. According to the federal government, an estimated 67 percent of
undiscovered oil resources are located on federal lands, a good part of which are offlimits to exploration and drilling.
But Obama and many Democrats in Congress have other plans, which directly contradict
all their talk about achieving energy independence. The administration's moratorium on
exploratory drilling in new offshore areas has locked away billions of barrels of oil. Oil
production in Alaska, which has been in decline for decades, could be doubled by
opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Arctic waters that are currently
closed to drilling.
Combine these restrictions on drilling with instability in the Middle East and it's no
wonder consumers are gritting their teeth at the price of gasoline. But we shouldn't
blame oil companies for soaring prices, when they have nothing to do with the
restrictions on domestic energy sources or the geopolitical events elsewhere that are the
real culprits for higher gas prices.
--recoverability
It’s too costly and difficult – much larger disruptions in the
supply chain control global price
Gertz, 8 – Journalist, author, editor: environment, tech, science (Emily, “Can Offshore
Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent?”, Scientific American, 9/12/8,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-offshore-drilling-make-usindependent/)//SJF
[] added by saulito
Oil companies would commission their own more precise seismic surveys after
they were awarded leases, says Judy Penniman of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's
Washington, D.C.–based trade association, and test drill the most promising oil deposits. If test drilling revealed
recoverable oil reserves, she says that a company would have to plunk down another $2 billion for an oil rig. But even
if Congress were to lift its 16-year ban on offshore drilling tomorrow, she
agrees with the EIA that it would take at least five years before an oil
company awarded a lease could pump its first drop of oil.
What's more, industry experts say no matter how much oil there may be offshore,
only some of it will be "recoverable," that is, able to be removed at a cost that's cheap
enough to guarantee oil companies enough profit on their investment.
Current shortages of both oil rigs and skilled [hu]manpower to operate them could
also bottleneck such efforts.
According to Phyllis Martin, a senior EIA energy analyst, Atlantic and Pacific oil
fields tend to be smaller on average than those in the Gulf of Mexico, but it is
just as costly to drill them, making the economics of drilling these areas especially tough to justify.
In fact, oil companies have yet to take advantage of the nearly 86 billion barrels
of offshore oil in areas already available for leasing and development. So why are
they chomping at the drill bit to open up the moratorium waters and survey them anew?
"Oil company stocks are valued in large part based on how
much proved
reserves they have," says Robert Kaufman, an expert on world oil markets and director of Boston University's
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Translation: just having more promising leases in
hand would be worth billions of dollars.
So are promises of U.S. oil independence real—or rhetoric? The issue is not whether the U.S. can significantly reduce its
reliance on oil imports with domestic, offshore oil, say both Kaufman and Nathan, but whether there is enough that is
recoverable to significantly lower the price of a barrel of oil on the global market.
Even by 2030, offshore drilling would not have a significant impact on oil
prices, according to Martin, because oil prices are determined on the global
market. "The amount of total production anticipated—around 200,000
barrels a day—would be less than 1 percent of the total projected
international consumption."
And disruptions to the global supply affect the price of every barrel of oil the U.S.
purchases, whether it be from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or off the New Jersey coast. "Suppose the U.S. got all its oil
domestically, and the price was $100 a barrel.
Then the Saudi family was deposed," disrupting that country's oil exports,
Kaufman says. "The Saudis produce about 10 million barrels a day of the world's
85 million, so clearly prices would go up, because now there is this big
shortfall of oil."
"Do you think oil companies are going to sell [U.S. oil] to U.S. consumers for anything
less than top price?," he asks. "The answer is no."
What if Congress mandated that the offshore oil could not be exported? "The question of how much of that product that
comes out, where it goes, I don't think Congress can dictate," industry rep Penniman says. "It goes onto the market. It's a
free market system…but it is up to Congress [to pass] the laws on what they will and won't open."
Such a move could in fact increase the nation's energy costs. "Any time you impose a constraint, like 'oil from Alaska
cannot go to Japan,'" Kaufman notes, "you're saying, 'don't do the cheapest thing, do something more expensive.' So
everybody pays a little more. Where the free market does work very efficiently is to minimize transportation costs" for oil—
which are determined by many factors, including the location of the nearest refinery that can handle the particular
characteristics of the crude oil being shipped.
Kaufman dismisses as "nonsense" any promises that offshore drilling could
make the U.S. "oil independent." Even if it could somehow insulate itself from
the ups and downs of the global oil market, he notes, the U.S. would have to make a
huge leap in domestic oil production to replace what it buys from overseas.
--us too small
Smart people same to the same conclusion – US can’t sway
global output – best case scenario prices drop by 10 percent
AP, 12 (Associated Press, “U.S. drilling won't lower gas prices, study shows”, 3/22/12,
http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/U-S-drilling-won-t-lower-gas-prices-studyshows-3425776.php)//SJF
It's the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more
U.S. drilling has not
changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, according to an
Associated Press statistical analysis of 36 years of data.
Political rhetoric about the blame over gas prices and the power to change them - whether Republican claims
now or Democrats' charges four years ago - is not supported by cold, hard figures. And that's
especially true about oil drilling in the United States. More oil production in
the United States does not mean consistently lower prices at the pump.
That's because oil is a global commodity and U.S. production has only a tiny
influence on supply. Factors far beyond the control of a nation or a president
dictate the price of gasoline.
When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers
sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines
on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between
the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.
"Drill, baby, drill has nothing to do with it," said Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist at ITG investment research. Two
other energy economists said the same thing and experts in the field have been making that observation for decades.
The statistics directly contradict the title of GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's 2008 book "Drill Here, Drill Now,
Pay Less," as well as the campaign-trail claims from the GOP presidential candidates.
Earlier this month, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney said of his solution to higher gas prices: "I can cut through the baloney
... and just tell him, 'Mr. President, open up drilling in the gulf, open up drilling in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge). Open up drilling in continental shelf, drill in North Dakota, drill in Oklahoma and Texas.' "
On Wednesday, with President Obama traveling to oil and gas production fields on federal lands, Crossroads GPS, a
nonprofit arm of a super PAC supporting GOP candidates, released a new ad that accused Obama of restricting oil
development in America and concludes "Bad energy policies mean energy prices we can't afford."
The AP analysis used Energy Department figures for regular unleaded gas prices adjusted for inflation to 2012 dollars, oil
production and oil demand. Phil Hanser, an economist and statistician at the energy consulting firm the Brattle Group;
University of South Carolina statistics Professor John Grego; New York University statistics Professor Edward Melnick
and David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor, looked at the analysis, ran their
own calculations, including several complicated formulas , and came to the
same conclusion.
When U.S. production goes up, the price of gas "is certainly not going down,"
Melnick said. "The data does not suggest that whatsoever."
The key, say economists, is that it's a world market.
American oil production is about 11 percent of the world's output, so even if
the United States were to increase its oil production by 50 percent - that is
more than drilling in the Arctic, increased public-lands and offshore
drilling, and the Canadian pipeline would provide - it would at most cut gas
prices by 10 percent.
Yes Price Change
1nc—price change
The perception of drilling alone is sufficient to drop prices
Medlock, 8 – fellow in Energy Studies at Rice University's James A Baker III Institute
for Public Policy and an adjunct assistant professor in the Economics Department at Rice
(Kenneth B, “Open outer continental shelf”, Houston Chronicle, Baker Institute at Rice
University, 7/13/8, http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Open-outercontinental-shelf-1597898.php)//SJF
AS the price of gasoline has risen to unprecedented highs, Americans have
begun to respond. In 2007, the United States saw the largest year-onyear decline in miles driven since the late
1970s, and the flood of SUVs into the used-car market is a testament to people altering their choices regarding fuel
efficiency. In addition, consumers are demanding that government provide some sort of
relief through direct policy action.
A confluence of factors is responsible for the recent price run-up at the
pump. One important factor behind the strength of oil prices is the
expectation of inadequate oil supply in the future. This has led to a debate regarding the
removal of drilling access restrictions in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
According to the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), the
OCS in the Lower 48
states currently under moratorium holds 19 billion barrels of technically
recoverable oil. Some analysts claim that opening the OCS will not matter that
much, as the quantity of oil is only about two years of U.S. consumption. But a more appropriate way
to look at the issue is this: If the OCS could provide additional production of
1 million barrels per day of oil, our import dependence on Persian Gulf
crude oil would be reduced by about 40 percent. Moreover, at 1 million barrels
per day, the currently blocked OCS resource would last about 50 years.
Of course, opening the OCS will not bring immediate supplies because it would take time to organize the lease sales and
then develop the supply delivery infrastructure.
However, as development progressed, the expected growth in supply would
have an effect on market sentiment and eventually prices. Thus, opening the OCS
should be viewed as a relevant part of a larger strategy to help ease prices over time because an increase in
activity in the OCS would generally improve expectations about future oil
supplies.
Lifting the current moratorium in the OCS would also provide almost 80
trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas that is currently offlimits. A recent study by the Baker Institute indicates that removing current
restrictions on resource development in the OCS would reduce future
liquefied natural gas import dependence of the United States and lessen the
influence of any future gas producers’ cartel.
There is currently drilling in certain areas of the OCS, in particular the western and central Gulf of
Mexico where the MMS reports more than 4,000 active platforms. This activity accounts for about
onethird of our nation’s oil supply and one quarter of our natural gas.
Oil companies currently hold undeveloped leases. It has been argued, therefore, that it is not worth offering new areas for
exploration. This is not a well-reasoned thesis.
Commercial quantities of oil do not exist everywhere a well is drilled. If a company’s assessment of the acreage under lease
indicates it will not bear commercial quantities of oil and gas, then it will not be developed. Moreover, some leases are
under study but drilling, which may happen eventually, has not yet begun.
Oil companies with leases cannot simply hoard acreage without
ramifications. In fact, they would be penalized by investors and shareholders
with lower company share values for doing so.
The most vehement objection to opening the areas currently off limits in the outer continental shelf is made on
environmental grounds. But, according to the MMS, the offshore drilling industry
is
one of the safest in the United States.
“A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences reports that in the last
15 years there were zero platform spills greater than 1,000 barrels.
Compared to worldwide tanker spill rates, outer continental shelf operations are more than
five times safer. Imports present an environmental risk of spills about 13
times greater than domestic production. In fact, annual natural seeps account
for 150-175 times more oil in the ocean than OCS oil and gas operations.”
(http://www.mms.gov/5-year/WhatIs5YearProgram.htm)
2nc—yes lowers price
Increasing OCS drilling allows for tapping of necessary energy
supplies and decreased price volatility
Lieberman, 8 – Senior Policy Analyst in Energy and the Environment in the Thomas
A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation (Ben, “Lifting
the Offshore Drilling Ban: A Positive Step in the Fight against High Energy Prices”,
Heritage Foundation, 7/14/8,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/07/lifting-the-offshore-drilling-ban-apositive-step-in-the-fight-against-high-energy-prices)//SJF
Washington must do something about the increasing price of gasoline, now
topping $4 per gallon. One important step would be to tap our own supplies
of oil. Yet for decades, overlapping congressional and presidential restrictions on
drilling for energy in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) have stood in the way of lower
prices for oil and natural gas.
The President took a positive step today by rescinding the executive moratorium on exploration and production in
American waters. However, Congress still needs to act in order to make this oil available.
Congressional Restrictions on Drilling
Many of America's offshore areas are off-limits to energy production. Beginning
in 1982, Congress restricted more and more offshore areas through annual Department of the Interior (DOI)
appropriations. The DOI has authority over the OCS, which includes most areas more than three miles offshore. Through
this annual process, Congress chose to deny DOI the funding necessary to conduct leasing of new offshore areas to oil and
natural gas companies.
These off-limits areas comprise 85 percent of the OCS-almost everywhere
except the central and western Gulf of Mexico-and the congressional
moratoria have become a standard feature of each year's DOI
appropriations bill. Until recent years, these restrictions were easily renewed with little controversy, but
with the dramatic rise in oil and natural gas prices, as well as the desire to
reduce oil imports from unfriendly foreign countries, there have been
several legislative efforts to roll them back. Thus far, none of these efforts has been successful.
Most recently, H.R. 6108, the Deep Ocean Energy Resources (DOER) Act, would allow each coastal state to decide
whether and where it wants drilling off its coast out to 100 miles. Beyond 100 miles from the coast, states would not have
veto power; thus, deepwater areas would be open to exploration and production. The bill also has provisions for revenue
sharing between the federal government and each state that allows drilling, similar to provisions that allow drilling on
federal lands. The bill is modeled after the 2006 DOER Act, which passed the House but was never considered in the
Senate.
In addition, H.R. 2784, the National Environment and Energy Development Act, would also open up much of America's
waters to energy production. Despite having 171 co-sponsors, it has yet to be allowed to come to a vote.
Lifting the White House Opposition to Drilling
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush issued a presidential directive restricting new offshore exploration and drilling. In
1998, President Bill Clinton extended these restrictions through 2012. For his first seven years in office, the current
President had not seen fit to lift the moratorium, and he was unhelpful during debate over the 2006 DOER Act.
Now the President has lifted the executive branch restrictions and said that he will support legislation opening the OCS.
If Congress is serious about addressing high energy costs, it should quickly
send legislation to the President that removes restrictions on these vital
energy reserves.
Tremendous Potential with Little Risk
These restrictions effectively banned new offshore energy production off the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts, parts of offshore Alaska, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Recent DOI estimates
put the amount of energy in these off-limits areas at 19.1 billion barrels of oil
and 83.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas-approximately 30 years' worth of imports from Saudi Arabia and enough natural
gas to power America's homes for 17 years. It should also be noted that these initial estimates tend to
be low.
OCS restrictions are a relic of the past. They were put in place at a time when
energy was cheap, the need for additional domestic supplies was not seen as
dire, and the political path of least resistance was to give in to
environmentalists. All that has changed, with more than a quadrupling of oil
and natural gas prices since the restrictions were first imposed. Extra
energy is badly needed, and the risk of producing it has been reduced. All
new drilling would be subject to strict safeguards and would require stateof-the-art technology with a proven track record for limiting the risk of
spills.
New domestic production is necessary for sufficient price
stabilizing security
Hayward, 11 – previously the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI, author of the Almanac
of Environmental Trends, and the author of many books on environmental topics
(Steven F, “The Troubled Outlook for Oil Markets”, Real Clear Markets, 5/25/11,
http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/the-troubled-outlook-for-oilmarkets/)//SJF
There was a nearly audible sigh of relief heard from the White House and motorists alike three weeks ago when oil prices,
along with several other leading commodity prices, suddenly collapsed by almost 10 percent in one day. It appeared to
signal the early end of a commodity bubble, and potentially reflected a new
equilibrium for oil around $100 a barrel. While high, this level could be considered
manageable given the exogenous factors, as economists call them, in play at the moment. Of
the current $100 price of oil, as much as $15 can be attributed to weakness
of the dollar, and another $10, according to a Goldman Sachs estimate,
represents the political risk premium because of the ongoing instability in
the Middle East. (Given the geopolitical ripples of our weak dollar, one might well regard Ben Bernanke as the de
facto secretary of state and secretary of energy, as well as chairman of the Fed.)
But underneath the "all clear" signs from the oil futures
market are new signs
of worry and trouble ahead. Last week the International Energy Agency in Paris warned that the price of
oil could strangle the global economic recovery, still in its fragile early phase, and went a step further in calling for
oil producing nations (meaning the Middle East) to increase oil production to stave off
renewed upward price pressure. Whether the leading OPEC nations will be
more receptive to our pleas than usual may be doubted.
The Middle Eastern Intrigue Meter is turned all the way up to 11 at the moment. The next OPEC meeting, scheduled for
June 8, will find Iran's whackadoodle President Ahmadinejad presiding. Ahmadinejad, along with his fellow
whackadoodle counterpart in Latin American, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, would like oil prices to be higher, not simply to
spite the hated Yankee devil, but also because they are desperate for more oil revenues at home. The Saudis, meanwhile,
just might go along with Iran. The Saudis are said to be furious at Obama for his lack of support for Egypt's Hosni
Mubarak, and might well decide that it can repay Obama on the eve of his re-election campaign with $5 gallon gasoline.
Thirty-one years ago taking 52 hostages sufficed to bring down an American president; imagine the effect taking every
American motorist hostage would have on President Obama's re-election.
This is perhaps why Obama made the surprise announcement last week that he was ordering his recalcitrant bureaucrats
to speed up issuing permits for more domestic oil exploration and
production. This move seems disingenuous and cynical at the same time. Obama
and other drilling critics are correct that even aggressive new domestic
drilling won't bring down gasoline prices any time soon, and perhaps not
ever, given the global dynamics driving oil prices today. The cynical aspect of the move
reflects that fact that domestic drilling activity is up sharply: the Baker Hughes rig count shows that the number of oil
drilling rigs recently passed up gas drilling rigs in the field for the first time in 16 years-a reflection of the low price of gas
and the high price of oil. (Don't Look Now, But We're Drilling, Baby) Domestic oil production has started to increase
already, reversing a steady 30-year declining trend. Obama's announcement will allow him to
take credit as more production increases come on line, and neuter
Republican demands for more drilling.
But most of the recent increase in drilling activity and production is taking place on private or state land beyond the
chokehold of federal regulators and environmental lawsuits. North Dakota's oil boom-their output has tripled over the last
two years (Brown Energy Brings Prosperity)-ends conspicuously at the Montana border, where federal jurisdiction takes
over. The U.S. remains inhospitable to a serious expansion of domestic
production. This didn't start with Obama and probably won't end with him
with him either. Stephen Eule of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy has
looked at the history of global oil production over the last 40 years and
discovered that there is a robust positive statistical correlation between
rising oil demand and rising output from virtually all oil producing nations
with one glaring exception-the United States. While China, Canada and Brazil's production
increase positively correlated with global demand at a level of 0.9 or better, the statistical figure for the U.S. is -0.97, a
nearly perfect negative correlation.
It is almost as if the United States deliberately wanted to be more dependent
on foreign oil. Consider that while the World Economic Forum rates the U.S. 4th in its ranking of the world's
most competitive economies, (Global Competitiveness), it would rank far down the list if the WEF were to look at the
competitiveness of the oil and gas industry in isolation. A proprietary ranking of political and investment risk for oil and
gas by IHS's Petroleum Economics and Policy Solutions unit places the U.S. 44th, below several African nations such as
Angola, which is ranked 18th. (IHS PEPS) As an IHS analyst observes, in the U.S. "there is the constant
threat of adverse contract or fiscal regime changes at both the state and
federal levels of government. None of these threats or business risks is
present in Angola."
Normally it is a political scandal for American policy to make it more attractive for a leading U.S. sector to invest overseas
than here at home-remember John Kerry's attack on "Benedict Arnold CEOs" back in 2004, for example? The fact
that there isn't more of an outcry about outsourcing our energy supply
shows how far we've gone down the road of environmental correctness. If
Obama is serious about wanting to increase domestic oil production, he'll
move to open up new areas for exploration, and ask Congress to amend
statutes that enable third party lawsuits to tie up drilling permits for years.
--production key
International volatility means domestic production is key
Perry, 13 – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of
economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan (Mark J, “World's
dependence on Persian Gulf oil can't be ignored”, 10/1/13,
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/100113-673299-america-mustdrill-for-its-own-energy.htm)
Turmoil brought on by the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack on
civilians has distracted the Obama administration and Congress from something else in the Middle East
that cannot be ignored: the world's growing dependence on Persian Gulf oil.
In spite of the boom in U.S. oil-shale production, the world has become more reliant on a
handful of Gulf oil producers whose resources are more stretched than at
any time since the 1970s. So it's no surprise that the price of crude oil is above $100 a
barrel, and that the average price of gasoline in the United States has
exceeded $3 a gallon for the past 1,000 consecutive days.
In August, according to the International Energy Agency, Saudi Arabia and two other Gulf
producers met a near-record 17.1% of world oil demand.
For the U.S., which is still the world's largest oil importer, the question is whether Gulf
producers have enough spare capacity to keep pumping at high levels — or
raise production to compensate for losses elsewhere in the event of a
sudden disruption like the one that occurred in 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sky-High Gas Prices
Should a serious cutoff in oil production occur anywhere in the world, the
price of gasoline and other petroleum products could skyrocket in the U.S.
Saudi Arabia is already the single largest supplier to many of the largest
importing countries like China and Japan, bringing on new production to
replace declining supplies from Libya, Iran and Venezuela.
In fact, Saudi Arabia is now taking in more than $1 billion a day in oil export
revenues.
Increased production is necessary to meet oil demand
Perry, 13 – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of
economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan (Mark J, “World's
dependence on Persian Gulf oil can't be ignored”, 10/1/13,
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/100113-673299-america-mustdrill-for-its-own-energy.htm)
For the United States, the very important task of crafting a sensible and viable
energy policy — one that ramps up oil and gas production — cannot be
ignored. Without decisive action to open up new areas to drilling for oil and
gas, both on land and offshore, there is a real danger that the drive to achieve
energy security will be stopped in its tracks and serious harm could be done
to our economy.
So it's time to pay attention — again — to the importance of having a balanced mix of energy sources. Time to recognize
that clean-coal technologies and nuclear power help to power our economy. Time to remember that the
availability of reliable and affordable energy is crucial to U.S.
manufacturing and the creation of jobs.
How Fast, How Cheap?
The issue is not a choice between oil and gas and alternatives but, rather, what
combination can be
ramped up the fastest at the lowest possible cost using available technology.
It's clearly time for the administration to recognize the urgency, to stop the
delaying and rationalizing. While the U.S. oil and gas industry has increased domestic production
significantly over the past five years, the administration has watched from the sidelines, as if energy independence is just
around the corner.
Instead, it should permit hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on public land,
opening up offshore areas in the Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico to
exploratory drilling, approve the Keystone XL pipeline and stop calling for additional taxes on the oil and gas
industry.
Keep in mind that the U.S.
currently consumes 19 million barrels of oil a day, of
which about 10 million barrels are imported. And oil demand is projected to
grow through 2020 and beyond.
The consequences of a sudden run-up in world oil prices are significant. One can only hope that the
tightness in the global oil market will ease. If we want to avoid being held
hostage to high world oil prices, we need to shift our focus away from the
Persian Gulf and develop more reliable energy sources here at home.
at: not big enough
The US OCS contains significant oil resources
Mason, 9 – Hermann Moyse, Jr./Louisiana Bankers Association Endowed Chair of
Banking, Russel B. Long Professorship in Finance, Professor at LSU Department of
Finance, PhD, University of Illinois (Joseph R, “The Economic Contribution of Increased
Offshore Oil Exploration and Production to Regional and National Economies”,
American Energy Alliance, February 2009)//SJF
To determine the economic effect of increased offshore oil and gas production on each state, it is first necessary to
determine each state’s recoverable resources. The most reliable estimates of total offshore recoverable resources are
provided by Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA estimates these data for each Outer Continental Shelf
Planning Area. Because several OCS Planning Areas adjoin more than one state, the EIA does not provide state-by-state
resource estimates. This paper takes a two-step approach to estimating state-by-state resources. First, OCS
Planning Areas are apportioned to the adjoining states by assuming that a
state’s share of oil and gas resources (and hence the benefits of utilizing those resources) is
proportional to its share of the U.S. coastline that adjoins an OCS Planning
Area. Then, the value of the state resources are estimated by applying the longrun average price of oil and gas to each resource state’s share.
A. Estimating State Offshore Oil and Gas Resources
Significant oil and gas resources lie under the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
According to the EIA, the OCS (including Alaskan OCS Planning Areas) contains
approximately 86 billion barrels of recoverable oil and approximately 420
trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.13 As noted by the White House, however, the OCS
estimates are conservative.14 Of the total OCS resources, a significant portion was
unavailable to exploration until recently. Specifically, Presidential and
Congressional mandates banned production from OCS Planning Areas
covering approximately 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 77.61
trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.15 These bans covered
approximately 31 percent of the total recoverable OCS oil resources and 25
percent of the total recoverable OCS natural gas resources. Figure 2, which was
originally produced by the EIA, visually demonstrates the areas (in blue) that were previously unavailable. As noted
previously, the estimated resources illustrated in Figure 2 should be considered very conservative lower bounds of
recoverable energy resources. To estimate the state-by-state impact of increased oil and
gas production in the OCS, the OCS Planning Area resources are
apportioned to each coastal state based on the local communities that
provide labor, materials, and support services for offshore production. The
analysis of economic impact therefore hypothesizes that the economic
benefits associated with offshore oil and gas production accrue onshore
firstly in the local communities that provide the most convenient labor,
materials, and support services for offshore production. In other words, if
distance is important, communities closer to the oil or gas field are more
likely to provide goods and services than are communities further away. Thus,
OCS Planning Area resources — and the local economic benefits associated
with exploiting those resources — are apportioned by each state’s share of
the ocean coastline bordering an OCS Planning Area. State coastline data is
available from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).16 Based on this apportionment,
the available and total offshore resources associated with each state are illustrated in Table 2. As previously noted, a large
portion of currently unavailable resources in Figure 2 lie off the coast of states — such as California and Florida — that
have been hard hit by the recent real estate crisis.
at: long term
Immediate benefits occur with vast reserves – prices decrease
before we even locate the oil
Mason, 9 – Hermann Moyse, Jr./Louisiana Bankers Association Endowed Chair of
Banking, Russel B. Long Professorship in Finance, Professor at LSU Department of
Finance, PhD, University of Illinois (Joseph R, “The Economic Contribution of Increased
Offshore Oil Exploration and Production to Regional and National Economies”,
American Energy Alliance, February 2009)//SJF
In contrast to other industries, the high fixed investment costs associated
with offshore oil and gas production produce large initial investments that
reverberate throughout the economy. Once oil or gas resources are located,
billions of additional dollars must be spent before the well produces even $1
of revenue. For example, oil exploration costs can amount to between $200,000
and $759,000 per day per site.17 Additional production in the U.S. will also
require a costly expansion in refining capacity as well. Taken together, the fixed
expenditures that precede actual offshore oil and gas production can amount to billions of dollars. For example, Chevron’s
“Tahiti” project in the Gulf of Mexico is representative of the large investments that firms must make before production is
achieved. In 2002, Chevron explored the Tahiti lease — which lies 100 miles off the U.S. coast at a depth of 4,000 feet —
and found “an estimated 400 million to 500 million barrels of recoverable resources.”18 Chevron estimates that it will
take seven years to build the necessary infrastructure required to begin production at Tahiti.19 The firm estimates that its
total development costs will amount to “$4.7 billion — before realizing $1 of return on our investment.”20 As a typical U.S.
offshore project, the Tahiti project provides a wealth of information regarding the up-front investment costs, length of
investment, and lifespan of future OCS fields. As noted above, the Tahiti field is estimated to hold between 400 million
and 500 million barrels of oil and oil equivalents (primarily natural gas) and is expected to require an initial fixed
investment of $4.7 billion. Using the mid-point resource estimate of 450 million barrels of oil equivalent, up-front
development costs amount to approximately $10.44 per barrel of oil resources or $1.86 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas
resources.21 These costs will be spread over 7 years, resulting in average up-front development expenditures equal to
$1.49 per barrel of oil and $0.27 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas.22 Chevron also estimates that the Tahiti project will
produce for “up to 30 years”.23 Although investment and production times vary
widely,24 the analysis that follows uses the Tahiti project numbers — an
average initial investment period of seven years followed by an average
production period of 30 years — as indicative of the “typical” offshore
project. I will thus assume an average initial investment period of seven years followed by an average production
period of 30 years. The speed of OCS development also factors into the analysis.
Because most areas of the U.S. OCS have been closed to new exploration and
production for almost forty years, it is unclear how quickly firms would
move to develop new offshore fields. Given its large potential resources,
however, the OCS is sure to attract significant investment . Without the benefit of government
data, a rough estimate suggests that annual total investment in OCS fields would be $9.09 billion per year.25 Assuming a
constant investment flow, the annual investment costs in each state’s OCS planning area share are illustrated in Table 3.
Recall that these annual expenditures are expected to last, on average, the full seven years of the development phase.
Notice in Table 2 that additional investment in states that already support significant production — Alabama, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Texas — are limited. Some of the greatest benefits accrue to areas that are
home to enormous — but unavailable — total resources: California and
Florida. While other states’ benefits appear small in comparison, that is only because of the sheer magnitude of the
benefits available to California and Florida. North Carolina would be associated with some half-billion dollars of
development expenditures per year for seven years, and Virginia some quarter-billion dollars of development
expenditures. In aggregate, the annual expenditures associated with developing
new offshore resources in the OCS amount to approximately $9.09 billion
per year for a seven-year development horizon.
Counterplans
Fuel Standard CP
1nc—fuel standard cp
All statistics are on our side – the counterplan is incredibly
more effective
Leonard, 9 – junior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Energy and Climate program,
currently working as a wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(Whitney Angell, “Five Alternatives that Make More Sense than Offshore Oil,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Energy and Climate Program, No. 103, October
2009, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/alternatives_offshore_oil.pdf)//SJF
There is already a wide range of alternatives that are both cheaper and
cleaner than offshore oil. The best options are ones that would begin to wean the
transportation sector off oil by increasing fuel efficiency and reducing the
amount of fuel needed. Both increasing the fuel economy of conventional cars
and also putting more hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) on the road will play an important role
in achieving this objective. Other technologies can reduce petroleum consumption and
emissions by replacing gasoline with cleaner or more efficient fuels, including
cellulosic ethanol and plug-in hybrids running on clean electricity. Finally, behavioral shifts such as
four-day workweeks, telecommuting, and greater use of public
transportation could also reduce transportation emissions if employers and
commuters prove willing to adopt these practices. It should be noted that smart growth
planning and compact development, though beyond the scope of this paper, can also significantly reduce petroleum
consumption by decreasing average commute distance.
Conventional Vehicle Fuel Economy
The easiest and cheapest way to reduce transportation fuel consumption is
simply to increase the efficiency of conventionally fueled passenger vehicles.
The average fuel economy of U.S. passenger vehicles currently hovers around
23 miles per gallon (mpg),26 among the lowest in the developed world. With 231 million
cars and light trucks on the road today,27 increasing average fuel economy to 35 mpg — to reach
the standard now mandated for 2016 — could reduce petroleum consumption by 1.2 billion
barrels per year.28 Easily achievable with existing technology, this change
would reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 35 percent and total U.S.
petroleum consumption by over 15 percent, equivalent to taking 84 million cars off the road for
an entire year (see Table 1).
These relatively simple changes would
do more to reduce our dependence on foreign
oil than would new offshore drilling, as the petroleum savings from
improved fuel economy surpass the amount of oil we could obtain by
expanding offshore drilling. Annual offshore oil production is predicted to increase by 514 million barrels
by 2030, less than half of the 1.2 billion barrels that could be saved through fuel efficiency. Even including
already existing capacity, total offshore oil production in 2030 falls just
short of the quantity of petroleum that could be saved through the 35 mpg
standard now mandated for 2016.29 Improving fuel economy is also the cheapest
option for American consumers.
Even at a modest $40 per barrel, the petroleum savings associated with a 35 mpg fuel economy standard would translate
into annual gas savings worth $48 billion for American consumers. At the higher prices of $130 per barrel predicted in the
long run,30 these fuel savings would add up to $156 billion per year. Fuel-
efficient vehicles would lessen the strain on consumers’ pockets by reducing
the amount of gas they have to purchase over the course of a year, whereas new
sources of offshore oil would do little to help consumers at the pump.
Reducing petroleum consumption through greater fuel efficiency would also
benefit the climate by reducing CO2 emissions. A fuel economy standard of 35 mpg could
reduce U.S. emissions by 532 million metric tons, or 27 percent of total transportation emissions.31
1nc—offshore drilling bad
Offshore drilling actually increases carbon emissions
Leonard, 9 – junior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Energy and Climate program,
currently working as a wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(Whitney Angell, “Five Alternatives that Make More Sense than Offshore Oil,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Energy and Climate Program, No. 103, October
2009, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/alternatives_offshore_oil.pdf)//SJF
Gas prices are determined in large part by the price of oil on the world market, and, according to experts in the U.S.
Energy Information Administration, newly authorized offshore areas would not produce
enough oil to have a significant impact on oil prices in the world market.21
Even by 2030, estimates of new production capacity on the U.S. outer continental
shelf range from less than 1 percent to 1.3 percent of global daily production,
or about 1.4 million barrels per day compared to the 105 million barrels
produced worldwide each day.22, 23 At best, offshore drilling would supply far
too little oil to reduce U.S. oil dependence or to bring down oil prices for
consumers.
Finally, the offshore drilling risks typically considered do not account for the
environmental and societal cost of the downstream emissions associated
with oil consumption. There is a wide range of estimates of the true cost of carbon, but it is
indisputable that carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere causes
damage that infl icts serious costs on the global society. Because emissions trading
schemes are heavily infl uenced by regulatory environments and auction conditions, the full societal cost of
global warming is actually much higher than these prices indicate; rigorous
analyses such as the Stern Review show that the true cost to society may be around $85 per metric ton of CO2.24
The United States is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, and fully 42 percent of our
emissions — 2.5 billion metric tons per year — come from petroleum consumption.25 This
means that petroleum use in the United States annually causes billions of dollars of damages, some of which are already
affecting our society, and some of which will affect us more in the coming years. If we attempt to replace
our imported oil with domestic offshore oil, we will continue to add to the
societal damages caused by carbon emissions. As the MMS evaluates petroleum exploration
and development projects, it could consider incorporating the cost of downstream emissions into the total costs and benefi
ts of each project. At the true societal cost of $85 per ton, CO2 emissions would add $35 to the true cost (though not
necessarily the price) of each barrel of oil produced, making offshore drilling a much less attractive option for our society.
Even at the far lower $30 per ton seen in some carbon markets, CO2 emissions could still add more than $12 to the true
cost of each barrel.
Offshore oil is not the only energy source that emits carbon, of course, and shunning offshore oil in favor of carbonintensive fuels like liquefi ed coal would be even more environmentally damaging. But the risk of climate
change helps to explain why, in looking to reduce U.S. dependence on
foreign oil, we should take advantage of this opportunity to replace foreign oil with clean
energy rather than with domestic offshore oil.
2nc—offshore drilling bad
There’s no price benefit – their studies are just political
posturing – counterplan’s the only viable option
Leonard, 9 – junior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Energy and Climate program,
currently working as a wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(Whitney Angell, “Five Alternatives that Make More Sense than Offshore Oil,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Energy and Climate Program, No. 103, October
2009, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/alternatives_offshore_oil.pdf)//SJF
The potential for rare but catastrophic spills is poorly represented in the
government’s current cost-benefit modeling, but there are other, better ways to represent risk.
Haimes (2004) proposes a more accurate conditional modeling approach, one which would incorporate the relatively rare
but devastating costs of huge spills like the Santa Barbara and Exxon-Valdez disasters. The government’s
model considers only “average” events, which are ten times smaller than
these disasters, and thus fails to quantify risks accurately.
Given that large spills can have catastrophic effects, this risk may be unacceptable for many
stakeholders and some policy makers. The question that sober analysts must ask is whether there are some
catastrophes that must be avoided at all costs, no matter how unlikely they are.
The philosophy of avoiding unacceptable risks has long dictated the construction of dams, bridges, and other necessary
structures whose failure would be catastrophic, and the formal literature on risk management increasingly supports this
approach.20 Policy makers now have the chance to apply this risk management
philosophy to offshore oil development. If they begin to see devastating oil spills like Santa
Barbara and Exxon-Valdez as an unacceptable catastrophic risk, policy makers can protect citizens’
safety and economic interests by declining to allow expanded drilling on the
OCS.
Moreover, the argument that we need offshore oil to protect Americans against
skyrocketing oil prices is unfounded. Contrary to popular belief, opening new areas of
the OCS to offshore drilling will do little to lower gas prices for consumers.
Quantitative estimates of OCS resources have varied widely and are
currently based on decades-old data. While the MMS estimates that there are 115 billion barrels of
oil and 634 trillion cubic feet of gas available in the OCS areas, only 25 percent of these oil resources
are actually in proven reserves. The other 75 percent are listed as “undiscovered resources.” Essentially,
no one really knows how much oil is available. In addition, not all of the technically
recoverable oil will prove to be economically recoverable, so the quantity of realistically
available resources is subject to even greater uncertainty.
2nc—solvency
Increasing the fuel standard is comparatively the greatest
solution to higher gas prices
Leonard, 9 – junior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Energy and Climate program,
currently working as a wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(Whitney Angell, “Five Alternatives that Make More Sense than Offshore Oil,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Energy and Climate Program, No. 103, October
2009, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/alternatives_offshore_oil.pdf)//SJF
The United States currently faces a dizzying array of energy options. As shown, some options are clearly better than
others, from an environmental and an economic standpoint. Consuming imported oil puts U.S. national security at risk,
but replacing foreign oil with domestic offshore oil is not the answer to this
problem. Continuing to depend on large volumes of petroleum imperils our
climate, with enormous consequences for our society. Offshore oil in particular
bears its own additional set of environmental costs. Learning from past catastrophes and
using modern risk analysis methods, it is clear that offshore drilling is environmentally
dangerous and costly, not only in the production process but also through downstream
emissions. Furthermore, our offshore oil reserves are too small to have a
significant effect on world oil prices and would provide little economic
benefit to consumers. Offshore drilling, therefore, is not the best solution to our
energy dilemma. Instead, we have an ample number of cheaper, cleaner —
better — alternatives. Highly fuel-efficient conventional vehicles and hybrid-electric
vehicles provide huge economic and environmental benefits, and they are
already commercially available on a large scale. These options are not only
cheaper than offshore oil but also have the potential to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil by a greater margin. As fuel efficiency and hybrid-electric
technologies continue to improve, and as their markets continue to expand, they have the potential to deliver ever greater
benefits to consumers and society as a whole.
The fuel standard works – it results in a 1/3 reduction of oil
consumption
Baker and Szembrot, 8 – *Co-Director and Nichole Szembrot is a Domestic Intern at
the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC., **Ph.D. candidate in
the field of Economics at Cornell University (Dean, Nichole, “Offshore Drilling and
Energy Conservation: The Relative Impact on Gas Prices”,
Senator McCain recently proposed
opening up environmentally sensitive offshore
zones to oil drilling in response to the recent jump in oil and gas prices. He
argues that increased offshore production will reduce dependence on foreign oil,
in addition to lowering gas prices.
However, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects that Senator McCain’s proposal would have
no impact in the near-term since it will be close to a decade before the first
oil can be extracted from the currently protected offshore areas. The EIA projects
that production will reach 200,000 barrels a day (0.2 percent of projected world production) at peak production in close
to twenty years. It describes this amount as too small to have any significant effect
on oil prices.1
By contrast, the United States barely changed its auto fuel efficiency standards from 1985 until 2005. This followed a 5year period in which the fuel efficiency standard for cars was raised by 7.5 miles per gallon (MPG) from 20.0 MPG in 1980
to 27.5 MPG in 1985, an increase of 1.5 MPG per year. The fuel efficiency standards for light trucks were increased by 5.5
MPG over this period, from 14.5 MPG in 1980 to 19.5 MPG in 1985, a rate of 1.1 MPG per year.
These standards were virtually unchanged over the next 22 years. In 2007, the standard
for cars was still 27.5 MPG. The standard for light trucks had been raised to 22.2 MPG, but almost all of the increase was
in the last 3 years. It is possible to imagine a counterfactual in which the country continued to increase Corporate Average
Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards after 1985.
If, instead of holding them constant, the government had increased mileage
standards after 1985 at the rate of 0.4 MPG per year for both cars and light trucks (a much slower pace of increase
than in the period from 1980 to 1985), then the standard for cars in 2007 would have been
36.8 MPG and the standard for light trucks would have been 28.3 MPG. The average for the current fleet of cars on
the road would be over 32 miles per gallon.2
If fuel efficiency had improved at this rate, then the
average car on the road would be more
than 50 percent more fuel efficient than is currently the case (32 miles per gallon
compared with 20.2 miles per gallon). If increased efficiency did not change the number of miles driven each year, then
this would imply a reduction of more than one-third in the amount of oil
used for the country gasoline needs. This savings would be equal to
approximately 3,300,000 barrels per day.3
Figure 1 compares the projected increase in oil production for 2027 compared with the 2027 baseline scenario, if the
country opens up protected offshore areas for drilling as Senator McCain has proposed. It also shows the reduction in oil
consumption that we would have seen in 2008 had the country continued to increase mileage standards at the rate of 0.4
miles per year in the 22 years following 1985.
In conclusion, if Congress had continued to increase fuel efficiency standards
over the last 22 years, we would currently have more than sixteen times the
savings in oil consumption than what Senator McCain’s plan promises to
accomplish in 20 years by drilling offshore in protected areas– and a
proportionately larger impact on gas prices.
Raising the fuel standard to 50 mpg would save four times as
much oil as the Aff
Leonard, 9 – junior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Energy and Climate program,
currently working as a wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(Whitney Angell, “Five Alternatives that Make More Sense than Offshore Oil,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Energy and Climate Program, No. 103, October
2009, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/alternatives_offshore_oil.pdf)//SJF
Yet this policy lasts for just fi ve years and does not set long-term targets. To build on this policy, Congress could
enact increasingly strict standards that would take effect after the
President’s program ends in 2016.
Even raising the standard to 50 mpg for a second phase of the program
would not be out of the question. Passenger vehicles in Europe have already reached an average of
nearly 45 mpg, and even China’s young automobile market has an average of around 37 mpg.35 As Table 1 shows, an
average fuel economy of 50 mpg would save 1.9 billion barrels of oil, which
is nearly twice the quantity of total offshore oil predicted for 2030, and
nearly four times the predicted quantity of new offshore production by that
date. A fuel economy standard of 50 mpg could also save $76 to $248 billion
for American consumers, as well as cut emissions by 846 million metric tons per year.
Raising fuel economy standards could therefore reduce our dependence on
foreign oil far more than drilling for more offshore oil would, and it would
be much cheaper. More ambitious fuel economy legislation in the United
States would ensure that our country continues on the path toward
increased efficiency, which is the most cost-effective way to improve our
energy security as well as our economic and environmental security.
Federal Lands CP
1nc – federal lands cp
Federal land shale oil reserves equal the world’s proven reserves
– domestic oil fracking solves dependency and their economy
internals
Hayward 2012
Steven F. Hayward is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at AEI. “Unconventional energy
meets conventional politics: Which will win?” May 16, 2012
http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/unconventional-energy-meetsconventional-politics-which-will-win/
The natural gas story appears to be merely a prelude to a full-scale renaissance
for domestic oil production. The same techniques that have spurred the
extraordinary surge in domestic gas-precise directional drilling and "fracking"-are
contributing to the soaring production of oil in North Dakota and Texas. Two
aspects of the gas story need to be kept in mind. First, most of the expanded production has occurred on
private land, and second, shale gas and coal bed methane are considered "unconventional" gas, though with so much coming online this designation
hardly seems sensible any more. What was once "unconventional" is now normal, sort of like gay marriages.¶ A similar story is starting to unfold with oil. Last
Anu Mittal, the director of natural resources and environment for the
Government Accountability Office, delivered a bombshell testimony to the House Committee on Science,
Space and Technology about the amount of "unconventional" oil resources in the U nited
States, chiefly oil shale in the Rocky Mountains. Mittal reiterated what has previously been
disclosed in government surveys: there are about 3 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in the
shale formations in the western U.S. About half of it, according to Mittal's testimony, is thought by public and private
analysts to be recoverable. With droll understatement, Mittal concluded: "This is an amount about equal to the
week,
entire world's proven oil reserves."¶
Read that over again slowly: "This is an amount about equal to the entire world's
proven oil reserves."¶ Think of it this way: Saudi Arabia is the America of oil reserves-except they only have half as much oil as we do. Why wasn't this above-thefold news in every newspaper last week? Simple: doesn't fit the liberal narrative that the U.S. has "only 2 percent" of "proven" world oil reserves. Any liberal who
now persists with this tired talking point should be labeled an anti-science ignoramus. (That would include the current President of United States.)¶ We've known
about these oil shale formations for decades, and gave them a hard look around the time of the first oil price shocks in the 1970s. But with the cost of producing oil
With world oil
demand rising, however, and oil prices seemingly at a new plateau of $75 or
better, suddenly oil shale looks very attractive. Like shale gas and Canadian oils sands, the
distinction between "conventional" and "unconventional" hydrocarbons will
diminish and finally disappear as the technology advances and production
costs inevitably fall. The number of high-paying jobs-and tax revenues from
royalties-would be substantial. Just take a look at North Dakota right now.
shale running about $30 - 50 a barrel, for most of the last 30 years oil shale appeared to be a highly uneconomic proposition.
2nc – solvency
Access to Federal offshore lands substantially increases
production
Institute for 21st Century Energy, 13 --- part of the US Chamber of
Commerce (2013, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy,
“Remove Barriers to Increased Domestic Oil & Natural Gas Production and Fuel
Manufacturing”, http://www.energyxxi.org/sites/default/files/energy-works-forus/OilNatGas.pdf, RE)
Despite this success, oil and gas production faces barriers that are holding back its full
potential, costing America jobs and government revenue. While oil and gas
production on state and private lands has increased dramatically,
production on federal lands has actually fallen. Furthermore, the vast majority of
federal offshore lands are closed to production, and the industry operates under the constant threat of
punitive taxes and ill-conceived, heavy-handed federal regulations. increase in Us crUde oil prodUction 48 since 2008. % increase in Us natUral gas prodUction 53
DOI must
commit to harnessing the nation’s oil and natural gas resources by enabling
substantially greater access to the lands and waters owned by Americans. – The
since 2008. % increased access to off-limits regions coUld create as many as new jobs by 2030. 690,000 Policy Recommendations
department should propose a new Leasing and Exploration Plan for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) that provides the opportunities for leasing on our oceans
The department must make significantly more onshore federal lands
available for energy development and remove the bias on leasing federal
lands for the production of advanced fuels like oil shale and oil sands.
and the Gulf. –
Reform is necessary to fully develop onshore oil resources
Artz 14 --- a freelance reporter for The Heartland Institute (Kenneth, “House Passes
Bill to Expedite Energy Production on Federal Lands”,
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2014/01/16/house-passes-bill-expediteenergy-production-federal-lands, RE)
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove obstacles to the
permitting process for oil and natural gas production on federal lands. The Senate has yet to
address the bill, and President Obama threatens to veto it if it passes the Senate. Cutting Red Tape The
Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act of 2013 would open more
federal land for energy production and require federal land management
officials to process permits in a timely manner. The legislation would also make it more
difficult for courts to overturn federal land managers’ approval of energy
production permits. The House passed the bill by a vote of 228-192. “The Federal Lands Jobs
and Energy Security Act is an essential part of the House Republicans’ all-of-theabove energy plan and would remove government hurdles and red tape that
block and delay development of our onshore oil, natural gas, and renewable resources,” said Rep.
Doug Lamborn, author of the bill, in a press statement. “In recent years we have seen a boom in energy jobs and economic
growth on state and private lands. I believe the only reason we haven’t seen that same dynamic growth on federal lands is
because of excess regulations,” said Lamborn. “My bill would reduce the federal red tape and frivolous lawsuits that act as
stumbling blocks to job creation and energy development. My bill would help American families with jobs and affordable
prices at the pump.”
Alt Energy CP
CP solves dependency better – Peak Oil and environmental
concerns make the affirmative inferior option
Reynolds 2010
Lewis Reynolds is author of America the Prisoner: The Implications of Foreign Oil
Addiction and a Realistic Plan to End It. He has spent years as a financial advisor and
consultant to a wide range of companies, particularly in the energy industry. “Seven
Dangerous (and Surprising) Side Effects of the U.S. Dependency on Foreign Oil” August
4, 2010
http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/7708/
Even the most optimistic projections of peak oil place it around the year 2023.
Some would argue that peak oil has already been reached, and world production
statistics are certainly not at odds with that conclusion. World oil production has been essentially flat
since 2004. Only the temporary abatement of pressure on demand growth caused by the global recession has kept prices from skyrocketing. With no viable
alternative in place, decreasing supply and increasing prices will culminate in a predicament where we the people still need oil to go about the business of daily
life—but can no longer afford it. ¶ One can certainly envision a world where few can afford transportation, even to go to work. Because transportation is a
component of virtually every consumer product, the increase in oil prices will mean an increase in all prices. If the problem became severe enough, movement of
goods vital to the economy could stop. Essentially, the American way of life as we know it would come to an end.¶ Yes, it’s a grim scenario. And one reason we’ve
managed to get to this point without insisting on change is that most Americans don’t understand just how grim it is. To set the record straight, I provide an
oil dependency has meant and continues to mean for the U.S. Read on for more information about why oil
is bad for America’s health:¶ It’s harmful to the environment. Oil spills, global
warming, carbon emissions, greenhouse gases—these are just a few of the
hazards connected to our dependency on oil. Fossil fuels are dirty, nasty, icky substances, and the
nature and scale of the international oil extraction effort guarantees that
overview of just what foreign
dependency
there will be accidents. Tankers leak, as was the case of the Exxon Valdez, and BP-style
explosions happen. As serious as all of these accidents are, they could be minor compared to the potential impact from what is not an
accident—the burning of fossil fuels.
Federal efforts to make alternative energy cost competitive solve
dependence
Reynolds 2010
Lewis Reynolds is author of America the Prisoner: The Implications of Foreign Oil
Addiction and a Realistic Plan to End It. He has spent years as a financial advisor and
consultant to a wide range of companies, particularly in the energy industry. “Seven
Dangerous (and Surprising) Side Effects of the U.S. Dependency on Foreign Oil” August
4, 2010
http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/7708/
Without question this is a terrible laundry list of problems. And yet the U.S. doesn’t have to continue its downward spiral. It doesn’t have to be beholden to foreign resources. Despite what you may
energy independence is possible. ¶ Yes, the U.S. is a country without a sound
energy policy and we’re presently being crushed by our own thirst for oil—but we’re still the greatest industrial power in history. By developing alternative
fuels, the U.S. can create millions of jobs and spur economic growth. We do not need a
“Manhattan Project” to create some technology from scratch. The technology already exists and has been used for other applications and in other
places for generations. Not only can America produce its own fuel from other resources, it
can do so economically. ¶ But make no mistake: Such a large and important undertaking will require the commitment of millions of Americans all working
hear from some misguided leaders in government and industry,
toward the same goal. It’s a daunting prospect. I just hope for the sake of our nation that we’ll find the will to make it happen.¶ America doesn’t have to depend on overseas sources for its vital
a move toward energy independence can begin the
process of rebuilding the U.S. industrial base. This would allow us to
provide one of the most stable and secure energy supplies in the world. Best of all, the
national interests. Aside from creating millions of jobs,
new domestic energy can be both renewable and sustainable. ¶ Here are a few possible solutions, excerpted from my book, America the Prisoner, that could help the U.S. break the chains of oil
There’s little dispute over the feasibility of
manufacturing liquid fuels from non-petroleum sources. Brazil is energy independent thanks, in no small
dependence:¶ Invest in new infrastructure to process alternative fuels.
part, to production of ethanol from sugarcane. Germany did it from coal during World War II. South Africa continues to do it from coal and natural gas using the technology they developed while
isolated because of apartheid. The same technology used in South Africa and Germany that has been around for nearly a century is capable of producing fuels here in the United States. The only
difference for us is that decades of research and the emergence of nanotechnology make fuel produced this way much more affordable and economically competitive with oil-based fuels.¶ The
technology is simple. Gasification, the process of taking an organic material (such as coal or biomass) and converting it to a mixture of gases, is the first step. There are already multiple competing
commercial technologies and at least 20 plants in operation or under construction in the United States alone, mostly in the chemical industry. Using a separate but related technology, the gases
manufactured using this process can be reacted to form a wide range of fuels—including those already most familiar to Americans and compatible with the existing vehicle fleet and infrastructure
like diesel, jet fuel, gasoline components, and ethanol. Even natural gas can be processed into liquid fuels using these technologies, and useful byproducts can be manufactured (such as plastics)
just like they are from petroleum refining.¶ Contrary to conventional wisdom, production of fuel in this manner can be economical and, therefore, profitable—highly profitable. While the level of
capital investment is indeed significant, higher than a comparably yielding oil refinery, capital cost is spread over a long useful life of a plant, and savings show up in other places. Even with the
cost of raw materials, energy inputs, and depreciation of the plant included, the break-even cost of producing fuel is around $1.25 per gallon, an amount notably lower than the current wholesale
Use existing biomass to ease our transition away from
petroleum use. While virtually any organic material (like coal, natural gas, and biomass) can be used to manufacture fuel, biomass offers a
distinct advantage—its use makes the entire fuel cycle carbon-neutral. A carbon-neutral
price of gasoline and other liquid fuels.¶
fuel cycle means that no matter how much fuel we consume, there will be no net increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.¶ The federal government has done significant research into
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of
Energy ascertained that annual national biomass potential “exceeds 1.3
billion dry tons annually—the equivalent of more than one-third of the
current demand for transportation fuels.” Of that amount, more than 300 million tons
per year are already available, currently unused or underused.¶ These resources are comprised
of: residues generated by traditional logging operations and clearing of timberlands; forest thinning for purposes of
fire suppression; processing wastes (including primary mills, secondary mills, and paper mills); and urban wood
residues (such as construction and demolition debris; yard wastes; and discarded furniture, cabinets, pallets, containers, and scrap wood). While each of these supplies is relatively
modest by itself, the combination is a formidable supply of biomass that could be
refined to supplant a portion of the petroleum the U.S. currently imports.¶ ¶
determining available biomass resources. An April 2005 joint report of
Grow “energy” crops. If the U.S. is to go beyond the fuel production capabilities from the country’s existing supply of biomass, we will need to make the production of fuel from biomass consistent
and sustainable, and that will require cultivating “energy crops.” The U.S. already produces ethanol from corn, making it the first crop grown in the U.S. specifically for the production of energy.
Unfortunately, the use of corn for ethanol has several distinct disadvantages, the most important of which is its relative land efficiency. For the U.S. to supplant all foreign oil using corn ethanol
(currently the most popular non-petroleum fuel, by far), a total of 561 million acres would need to be planted in corn, an amount of land that represents 29.7 percent of the 1,894-million-acre total
There are quite a few varieties of
grasses and a few types of trees that produce enough biomass material to
make their growth substantially more land-efficient than corn. Two examples
include switchgrass and arundo (a perennial grass). One argument against using energy crops for fuel is its effect on the world food supply. In
theory, the addition of arundo and switchgrass to the agricultural scheme should
have very little effect if energy crops are grown on land that is currently not used for other agricultural production. ¶ Implement government intervention wisely.
land area of the contiguous 48 states. ¶ The solution is finding alternative crops that have much higher yields.
Based on the capital cost of thermochemical fuel plants and cost of establishing high-yield energy crops, I estimate that infrastructure capable of supplanting all foreign oil would require $900
billion of investment, but any attempt for government to directly invest the amount needed to make energy independence a reality is not likely to yield ideal results. Still, to convince private
investors to pour billions of dollars into the cause of energy independence and the technologies necessary to achieve it, there will have to be some legislative action.¶ There are many steps that
government can take to grow and protect an alternative fuel industry. For starters, the greatest risk to a nascent alternative fuel industry is attack from powerful predators—oil exporters and multinational oil companies. It is essential to the long-term survival of the industry that it be protected from a reactionary drop in prices. ¶ One potential mechanism for protecting the energy industry is
establishment of a price floor for crude oil. The floor price could be set to ensure that
alternatives, including fuel produced from biomass, could compete with oil even in a falling market.
There are many ways to achieve this effect, I believe the best approach is an import tariff, which would help support not only
alternative fuels but also the domestic oil and gas industry that has higher extraction costs than its overseas competitors.
the
Biofuels CP
Algae Solves
Algae biofuels solve dependence and are feasible – new research
solves your disads
Parry, 11 - LiveScience Senior Writer (Wynne, “Algae: Biofuel of the Future?”,
livescience, http://www.livescience.com/13718-oil-algae-biofuels-water-renewableenergy.html)//AE
Oil produced by algae growing in an area roughly the size of South Carolina
could replace a sizable chunk of the oil the United States imports for
transportation, according to a new analysis that also contends that water use — a drawback to
algal biofuel — could be minimized. ¶ "Algae has been a hot topic of biofuel discussions recently, but
no one has taken such a detailed look at how much America could make, and
how much water and land it would require, until now," said Mark Wigmosta, a U.S.
Department of Energy hydrologist who was the lead researcher for the analysis. "This research provides
the groundwork and initial estimates needed to better inform renewable
energy decisions."¶ The researchers concluded that farmed algae could produce 21
billion gallons of oil , fulfilling a federal goal set for advanced biofuel
production in 2022. Growing algae domestically would help reduce the U.S.
dependence on foreign oil — in 2009, slightly more than half of the petroleum
used in the U.S. came from abroad.¶ Algae grown in freshwater ponds in the
country's most sunny and humid climates — the Gulf Coast, the southeastern seaboard and the
Great Lakes — would require the least water, the researchers said.¶ Algae have
some important advantages as a source of biofuel, which in this case would
be made by extracting and refining oils called lipids produced by the simple
plants. Algae can produce 80 times more oil than an equal area of corn does.
And unlike with corn, which is used to make ethanol, algae grown for biofuel
production wouldn't interfere with a food crop , since algae aren't a widespread food source.
Algae also consume carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, and can
grow in (and clean) municipal wastewater.¶ But algae, like other biofuels, require a lot
of water to produce. This is not an issue with conventional petroleum, which is extracted from the Earth, not
grown. [The Real Costs of Renewable Energy]¶ Wigmosta, who works at the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
and his colleagues set out to assess just how much algae-derived oil the United States could produce and how much water
that would require. Using geographic data, they identified areas suited for growing
algae in freshwater ponds. Using weather data to estimate amount of
sunlight (since algae rely on photosynthesis to grow) and temperature, the researchers
calculated the amount of algae that could be produced hourly at each
specific site. ¶ They also estimated how much water would need to be replaced due to evaporation over 30 years,
based on growing algae in open, outdoor, freshwater ponds using current technology.¶ They calculated that enough
algae to produce 21 billion gallons of oil — 17 percent of the petroleum that
the U.S. imported in 2008 for transportation fuels — could be grown on
lands roughly totaling the size of South Carolina, using 350 gallons of water per gallon of oil
produced. This amounts to a quarter of the water currently used for agriculture .¶
"Water is an important consideration when choosing a biofuel source,"
Wigmosta said. "And so are many other factors. Algae could be part of the solution
to the nation's energy puzzle if we're smart about where we place growth
ponds, and the technical challenges to achieving commercial-scale algal biofuel production are met."
Biofuels good
Renewable investment saves billions, increases nat’l security,
and undercuts oil monopolies – that's key
FAC, 13 – fuels America coalition (“Breaking the Oil Monopoly With Renewable Fuel“,
January 15, 2013, http://breakingenergy.com/2013/01/15/breaking-the-oil-monopolywith-renewable-fuel/)//AE
The oil industry has taken aim at the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in
a self-interested bid to
retain dominance over America’s transportation fuel sector. Our
dependence on oil is stifling consumer choice and jeopardizing our
national security . Fixing those issues means diversifying our fuel supply;
that means breaking the oil monopoly .¶ We are a nation addicted to oil and
until the RFS was created in 2005, we had no infrastructure to break that
addiction. The RFS increases consumer choice and energy security, while
simultaneously decreasing the overall negative impacts that oil dependence
has on our economy and environment. That benefit –consumer choice – is exactly
why the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which spent over $1.6 million
lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2012 alone, is funding efforts attacking the policy.¶ What does it
really mean to really address the needs of the American consumer and taxpayer? It means
making our country safer; saving people money and giving them choices; and
growing innovation and American investment. Renewable fuel delivers on those needs where
oil does not.¶ It’s time to realize the falsehoods the oil industry is peddling.¶ First and foremost, the RFS
costs nothing to taxpayers – it’s a policy requiring a certain amount of
renewable fuel be blended into gasoline, not a subsidy. That requirement is a
necessary one because from production to distribution, the oil industry has
had an unchallenged monopoly over our transportation fuel infrastructure
and supply. Without a policy to help new and innovative alternative renewable fuel companies access the market,
many would have been squeezed out by oil giants.¶ Meanwhile, the oil industry
itself is one of the biggest beneficiaries of government subsidies, raking in
$7 billion per year . Between the infrastructure advantage and the billions in subsidies, the fuel
market was far from “free” or balanced. The RFS was created in part to
correct this market imbalance, and it has worked, advancing oil alternatives
and giving customers access to more fuel choices.¶ When it comes to the broader
consequences of both fuels, oil is the cause of casualties abroad and economic volatility
at home that makes us vulnerable as a country. In just one example, protecting oil
supply lines requires more men and women in the field, and costs the
military approximately $150 billion each year . And there are many
unintended consequences of oil dependence, from rising carbon emissions
to environmental impacts.¶ Renewable fuel on the other hand enhances
national security. Since 2000, the RFS has helped decrease Persian Gulf oil
imports by 25%. Once again, we can see that the RFS is working: by enabling
the U.S. to import less oil, renewable fuels helped to save Americans roughly
$50 billion on imported fuel costs per year. To put that in perspective, that amount is
equal to nearly half of the spending cuts required by the looming sequester
process in Washington.¶ At the same time, blending ethanol into the fuel supply
lowers the cost of gasoline. According to a study from Iowa State University, the average gallon
was $1.09 cheaper than it would have been without ethanol. That’s
thousands of dollars in the pockets of consumers annually because of the policy.¶ The
RFS was created for good reason: to support fuel diversity, expand
consumer choice, increase national security and reduce the environmental
impacts of transportation fuel . The RFS is market based policy that costs the American tax payer $0
RFS is working.
per year and is achieving its objectives. The
RFS good
Renewable development is COMPARITEVELY better than oil,
and creates both economic momentum and national security –
NFS is key
Buis, 13 - former President of the American National Farmers Union and is current
CEO of Growth Energy (Tom, “Only Renewable Fuels Like Ethanol Can Keep U.S. From
Oil Dependence”, Oct. 25, 2013, Roll Call,
http://www.rollcall.com/news/only_renewable_fuels_like_ethanol_can_keep_us_fro
m_oil_dependence-228649-1.html)//AE
It’s been 40 years this month since the oil embargo of October 1973. What have we learned as a nation and what has
changed? Unfortunately, not much.¶ Four decades later we are still exposed to oil shocks,
disruption and price hikes — because even after 40 years, we still overwhelmingly rely
on one source of fuel: oil . During that time we’ve experienced price shock after
price shock due to unrest and instability in the Middle East. Egypt, Libya, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and now Syria — all unstable oil-producing nations in a region
where even the slightest disruptions can have a drastic ripple effect on the
supply and price of oil. Ultimately the American consumer is stuck footing the
bill for an antiquated energy policy that is reliant on others.¶ Wars have been
fought, trillions of dollars have been spent to protect the flow of oil, and
trillions more of our wealth has been transferred to foreign nations. But most
important is the number of precious lives of American soldiers lost because of our addiction to foreign oil.¶ In reflecting on
this anniversary,
we should recognize that it’s futile to put all of our eggs in one
basket — what we need is a diverse policy that helps shield us from the price
hikes, supply shortages, shocks and whims of foreign governments.¶ Currently
there is a massive gap in what Americans consume compared to what we
produce domestically. This leaves us no choice but to continue to throw
ourselves and our nation’s security interests at the mercy of those who are
frequently at odds with the policy interests and values of western society .¶ The
most recent data shows total U.S. oil consumption at a whopping 18.5 million barrels per day and domestic production at
6.48 million barrels per day. So, even during what has been described as a renaissance
of domestic energy production at home with new techniques, we are only
producing slightly more than one-third of what we consume each day. This
is simply not sustainable .¶ The price of oil continues to rise and, what’s more, oil is a global market, so
regardless of our domestic production there is nothing we can do to control the price domestically. At the end of the day
OPEC is still setting the price. Oil still costs more than $100 per barrel and
America still spends $1 billion per day for oil imports. As a result, gas prices
remain high and so do the profits of oil companies. ¶ There is a better way,
one that allows us to achieve energy independence while continuing to
produce energy domestically: renewable fuels.¶ However, just as we have found a way to
produce renewable fuel at home, now making up 10 percent of our gasoline supply, oil companies are doing
everything in their power to roll back any progress and repeal the
renewable-fuel standard. Their goal is to reduce the use of renewables and
maintain the status quo of our dependence on fossil fuels.¶ We must not let
the special interests of oil continue to hold our nation’s energy needs
hostage to the most unstable and hostile regions in the world. That is why Congress
to reduce our dependence on foreign
oil. And it’s doing just that.¶ Since the implementation of the RFS, renewable fuels have helped
lower oil imports from 60 percent to 40 percent. The potential to reduce
passed the RFS in 2005 — an energy policy designed
our nation’s import reliance is even greater if we increase our supply of
renewable fuels. ¶ Ethanol displaced 462 million barrels of foreign oil in
2012. That alone helped reduce our dependence on foreign imports by 12
percent, while supporting some 400,000 domestic jobs , reducing prices at the pump by as
much as $1.50 per gallon and contributing to the betterment of our economy and
environment.¶ With the RFS and continued development of renewable fuels, new technologies and
improved innovation, the United States can be truly energy independent .¶
The RFS already provides consumer savings of $8 billion annually. Furthermore,
with the support of the RFS, we can continue to produce up to 36 billion gallons of
homegrown fuel by 2022, giving consumers more choices at the pump.¶ Forty years ago we didn’t have the
choice of a better way. We couldn’t break free, and we suffered. Today we have a choice. But only if
we agree as a country to embrace renewable fuels and truly break free from
our reliance on foreign oil.¶ Let’s not let that choice go to waste.
2nc at: perm
Oil trades off with energy efficiency and green tech
Kevin, 12 – MIT Technology Review’s senior editor for energy (Bullis, “Could New Oil
Production Cause Oil Prices—and Energy Innovation—to Collapse?,” June 26, 2012,
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428343/could-new-oil-production-cause-oilprices%E2%80%94and-energy-innovation%E2%80%94tocollapse/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-27)
A new report out of Harvard suggests that a boom in oil exploration
and production—driven by a surge of
lead to a sharp drop in oil prices. If that happens,
could that kill development of alternatives to oil, as happened when oil prices hit bottom in
the 1990s? Will solar panels, electric cars, and advanced biofuels fade from view? Three decades ago, high
oil prices spurred investment in alternatives. But by the time oil prices had
bottomed-out in the 1990s, much of that research had been abandoned, and promising technologies didn’t
come to market or weren’t made cheap enough to catch on widely. With the surge in oil prices in
recent years, much of that research has been taken up again, and the trends
look good. Solar power is approaching the cost of conventional fossil-fuel
power, and advanced biofuels seem on the cusp of becoming commercial
reality. As new energy startups proliferated, many alternative energy
researchers and companies waved away suggestions that oil might plummet
again, causing these technologies to be abandoned once again. The conventional
investment starting in 2003—might
wisdom has been that high demand from fast-growing economies will keep oil prices high enough to drive innovation. And
concern about climate change will lead to a price on carbon that will drive new technologies even if oil prices drop. But
interest in climate change seems to have waned, and efforts to put a price on
carbon dioxide emissions have failed in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world. If oil prices also
drop due to overproduction, as the report suggests, what could that mean for technologies such as electric cars, advanced
internal combustion engines, and renewable electricity sources, such as solar power? Taking solar power first, things are a
bit different now than in the 1970s, at least in the United States. The oil crisis spurred investment in solar power in part
because oil was used to generate a substantial amount of electricity in the United States. Now the U.S. hardly
uses oil at all for generating electricity, and installing solar panels doesn’t
do anything to decrease oil consumption. Some people don’t know that, and
support solar as a way of reducing oil consumption—their support could
fade with high oil prices. Such public support is critical for the solar
industry now, since it relies heavily on subsidies. More importantly, while
the U.S. doesn’t use oil for electricity, much of the rest of the world does. At
current oil prices, solar power is cheaper than electricity from diesel
generators, and that’s creating a new markets for solar panels. A drop in oil
prices could hurt the solar industry. But solar panel prices have been dropping quickly, and some
solar companies, such as First Solar, are staking their business on the prospect that they can soon be competitive in
unsubsidized markets. There’s a race on. If the oil price drops within the next couple of
years, that could be a bad sign for the solar industry. If it drops later, the solar industry
may be able to survive on its own by then, even if it’s hurt some by lower prices. A drop in oil prices could
really hurt advanced biofuels companies, which are struggling to get prices
low enough to compete with even today’s relatively pricey oil. Low oil prices
could further deteriorate already strained support for advanced biofuels.
And low oil prices could also hurt attempts to sell electric cars, and cars with
costly efficiency improvements. Automakers have struggled to sell electric
cars even with relatively high gas prices. If oil prices drop, will new fuel economy standards that
are driving automakers to sell more efficient vehicles hold up?
Trades off with support for renewable energy
Levine, 12 – Future Tense Fellow @ the New America Foundation and writer at the
Atlantic Company about the geopolitics of energy and technology (Steve, “Would
becoming a petrostate change the American character?,” MARCH 27, 2012,
http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/27/will_becoming_a_petro_state
_change_the_american_character)
Yesterday I raised the potential for a U.S. political shakeout if the oil-abundant theorists are correct: If
the U.S.
truly does become effectively self-sufficient in oil, political support for
clean-energy would be seriously undermined. Today, the Obama
Administration imposed super-strict standards on the emissions from coalfired power plants, incentivizing the development of carbon-capture
technology, as well as the use of natural gas. This demonstrates that
aggressive public policy can keep the goals of the clean-tech edifice alive; but
it cannot be taken as a template, since policy ebbs and flows, and any future
Republican administration, for example, is unlikely to embrace the same
philosophy.
2nc at: food prices
High food prices benefits poor countries – their tributes would
win the hunger games
Green, 11 - strategic adviser for Oxfam GB (Duncan, “The Upside of High Food
Prices”, 18 Jan 2011, Oxfam GB, http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/the-upside-of-high-foodprices/)//AE
Nice pieces from agricultural economist Steve Wiggins on the ODI and Guardian blogs, which I quote at length, because I
think it’s an important correction to the discussion on the current food price spike.¶ ‘In 2008 developing
countries, and poor people within them, were hit hard by the price spike in
the international cereals market. Once again food prices are moving up, not that far short of the levels
seen three years ago, so does this mean another bout of hardship? Not quite: there’s a difference this time.¶ Why? It is
not just cereals prices, nor just food prices, that are rising, but almost all
agricultural prices – including those of the main tropical exports: cocoa, coffee and tea; cotton; palm oil; sugar;
and rubber. Most low income countries, leaving aside the few with minerals and
oil, depend heavily on these for their export earnings . Often, much of the
production comes from small farmers. Higher prices mean windfall gains
for them, gains that are likely to be spent on local goods and services, with
strong multipliers in additional jobs and incomes for others on low
incomes.¶ On the other hand, most of these countries are net importers of cereals and will suffer from higher prices
on these items.¶ So where will the balance between extra costs and windfall gains
fall? Let’s consider five countries: Burkina Faso; Ghana; Indonesia; Kenya; and Nicaragua; then see the likely impact
through changes in the value of their trade in 10 of the most commonly traded items – maize,
rice, wheat; palm oil; tea, coffee, cocoa; sugar; cotton, and rubber.¶ Look at
the data and it is clear that all five countries get a large boost to their export
revenues – by around 20% in two cases, by 40% in another two, and by more
than 100% in Burkina Faso – the latter thanks to it being so heavily dependent on cotton, the price
of which has risen dramatically over the past six months.¶ None of this will
provide much solace to those who are feeling the brunt of price increases.
We should focus efforts to ease the consequences of another price spike on
those we know are most prone to shocks. By identifying those countries with
the highest existing levels of hunger who are also major consumers of
cereals and dependent on cereal imports we can pinpoint the areas where
need is likely to be greatest. Overseas Development Institute studies show these countries are clustered in
West Africa, the Horn of Africa and South Central Asia.¶ When may prices come down from
current levels? Provided that the harvests of 2011 are not hit by bad weather,
then prices of cereals should come down substantially by the late summer:
from experience in 2008, farmers can be expected to produce large harvests in response to higher prices.Ӧ Net
impact of commodity windfall minus higher food import prices is shown
here.¶ Conclusion? An obvious point, but one that often gets lost – we need to consider the net
impact of price changes on both producers and consumers and on the
economy as a whole (eg are commodity exports properly taxed and the
proceeds spent progressively? To what extent do high prices reach small
farmers and landless labourers?). Reality is, as researchers and wonks love
to stress, complicated.
Oil Bad Environment
Environment DA – oil collapses ecosystems, is unsustainable,
and offshore drilling is too remote – renewables are key
EESI, 13 – study institute (“Oil Dependence Dilemma: Can’t Live With It; Can’t Live
Without It – Or Can We?”, October 18, 2013, Environment and Energy Study Institute,
http://www.eesi.org/articles/view/oil-dependence-dilemma-cant-live-with-it-cant-livewithout-it-or-can-we)//AE
It has been 40 years since the Arab members of the OPEC oil cartel first
jolted the United States awake to the true costs of oil dependence.
Petroleum prices more than tripled, with harmful shocks rippling across the
U.S. economy. In the years that followed, market fears and disruptions
surrounding the Iranian revolution and Persian Gulf War led to another
tripling of prices and more economic shocks. At the same time, worsening air pollution in the
United States and rising concerns about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions revealed other high costs of U.S. oil
dependence. Fuel economy and renewable fuel standards were among the many ways that Congress responded to these
challenges. Can we do better?¶ Can’t live with it. Petroleum dependence has wreaked havoc on the
U.S. economy, energy security, trade deficit, public health, and the environment. Since 1973, the economy has
been on a roller coaster. Global oil prices have spiked, plummeted and spiked again due to actions by cartels, wars and
threats of wars, overseas civil unrest and labor strikes, hurricanes, speculation, tight supplies, and steadily rising global
demand (see this EIA graph of oil prices and events 1970-2000) .¶ High prices and price volatility are still here and are not
expected to go away any time soon. Today’s retail gasoline prices are as high in real terms as they were in the early 1980s
when the Iran-Iraq war threatened oil supplies in the Persian Gulf (see this EIA graph of inflation-adjusted prices for
various petroleum-based fuels, 1976-2013) .¶ In terms of public health, the EPA estimates that mobile sources
burning petroleum-based fuels accounted for "47 percent of outdoor toxic
emissions, 50 percent of the cancer risk, and over 80 percent of the noncancer hazard. Benzene is the largest contributor to cancer risk of all . . .
and mobile sources were responsible for 59 percent of benzene emissions in
2002." Public health threats remain the greatest in urban areas near
transportation corridors .¶ With respect to climate change, the United States emitted 2.3
billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from petroleum in 2012, 43 percent of
total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from all energy sources. The United
States now emits more carbon dioxide from petroleum than from coal or
natural gas.¶ The environmental and climate change costs of oil dependence
will only grow in the decades ahead if current trends continue. Conventional oil
reserves are declining. Enhanced oil recovery technologies will help extract
additional oil from those reserves, but this will require more climatepolluting energy and resource inputs. The United States has large,
undeveloped unconventional sources of oil, such as oil shale or oil sand
deposits. But these will require large amounts of energy to develop, as well
as water resources (which are already under stress across many parts of the country). Development
can inflict large scale damage across landscapes and ecosystems. And the quality of
the oil produced is often poor, requiring more energy to refine. Other new sources of oil are in
remote locations ( e.g. off shore, in the Arctic, or in the deep sea ). In short, the
environmental risks, energy intensity, and GHG-intensity of developing new
petroleum resources will only increase over time. Consider the horrendous
effects of the recent Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and
the recent oil pipeline ruptures in North Dakota, Arkansas, and Michigan.
Environmental concerns about fracking and oil sands production remain
unresolved.¶ Can’t live without it. Clearly, ending the U.S. addiction to oil is no easy
challenge. Oil is in many ways an ideal energy source – high energy density, transportable,
perfect for long distance transportation. Through most of the 20th century, it was also
abundant and cheap. It fueled the rapid rise of the United States as a global power, as well as the nation’s high
material standard of living. We became hooked. Today, the United States is consuming 14
percent more petroleum than in 1975 . The transportation sector accounts for 71 percent of
petroleum demand, and 93 percent of the transportation sector runs on petroleum. Thus, car commuters,
freight haulers, airlines, businesses that rely on shipping, and - the largest
oil consumer of all - the Department of Defense, remain the most
vulnerable to oil supply disruptions and price spikes.¶ Or CAN we live without it? Maybe
we can. The United States economy is much less dependent on petroleum today
than it used to be. It is a much smaller share of the economy. Power plants and other
industries that were once heavily dependent on cheap oil either shifted away
from oil, shut down, or adapted new technologies that improved fuel
efficiency. Although car-commuting households and the transportation sector remain highly dependent on oil today,
they travel much further on a gallon of gas on average than they did 40 years ago. Also, the federal
government established a large strategic petroleum reserve to serve as a
temporary buffer against supply disruptions. Oil price shocks are therefore somewhat less
disruptive and damaging to the overall economy than they once were.¶ Fuel economy standards and the
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) have helped reduce the vulnerability of the
transportation sector, as well. The EIA reports fuel economy for new vehicles has
more than doubled since the 1970s. Fuel standards have saved consumers
and businesses billions of dollars, reduced U.S. petroleum demand by billions of barrels, and thus,
reduced air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions proportionally. Recent
new standards will do even more. The EIA estimates the new standards for light vehicles will increase
fuel economy by more than 50% by 2040. The DOE estimates these standards will reduce
U.S. petroleum demand by 2.2 million barrels per day (about 12 percent of
current demand) in 2025 (based on an average fuel economy in 2025 of 54.5
MPG), save $8,200 on average in fuel costs over the life of a new vehicle
purchased in 2025, and reduce GHG emissions by 6 billion metric tons.¶
Thanks to the RFS, today the United States meets almost ten percent (by
volume) of gasoline demand with domestically-produced, renewable
ethanol. From 2008 through 2012, the United States used 59 billion gallons of ethanol,
enough to displace about one billion barrels of gasoline on an energy
equivalent basis. Substituting biofuels today reduces fuel costs for
consumers and businesses, replaces a finite fossil fuel with a renewable
fuel, and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 34 percent on a
life cycle basis compared to gasoline. In addition, biodiesel, which emits at least
50 percent fewer carbon emissions than petroleum-based diesel, displaced
about 1.5 percent (almost one billion gallons) of diesel demand in 2012.¶ Renewable
biofuels can help the United States reduce its oil dependence even more in
the future. The DOE estimates the United States can meet at least 30 percent of its
liquid fuel demand with renewable biomass resources other than corn . The
first two commercial scale cellulosic biofuel plants ( INEOS Bio (Florida) and KiOR (Mississippi) ) have come on line this
year and are starting to produce biofuels. They are expected to achieve life cycle GHG
emission reductions greater than 80 percent compared to petroleum-based
fuels.¶ Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) reports there are 160 commercial-scale, advanced
biofuel projects now planned, under construction or completed, representing
almost $5 billion in private investment since 2007 and additional billions in
public investment. For example, civilian airlines and the Department of Defense are developing advanced
aviation biofuels and other renewable, low carbon, next generation drop-in fuels. By 2016, E2 predicts the
United States will have an additional 0.6 to 1.1 billion gallons of new
advanced biofuel capacity installed – if current trends and policies continue.
The United States soon will be well on its way toward meeting the RFS goal of producing at least 36 billion gallons per year
of low carbon, renewable biofuels.¶
Fuel economy standards and renewable fuel
standards are key to ending America's dangerous dependence on oil . They
are essential instruments in a toolkit that also includes increasing prices on
fossil fuels, increasing tolls and vehicle user fees, increasing investment and
participation in public and alternative transportation, designing smarter
cities, developing and deploying affordable renewable electric drive systems,
increasing the number of people who choose resource-conserving lifestyles, and many other actions. The United
States will need to use all of these tools together if we are to truly end our
oil dependence .
Russia Oil Prices DA
1nc—russia econ
US production would destroy Putin’s budget reserves and
credibility – collapse the economy
O’Sullivan, 14 – Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs,
Harvard Kennedy School (Meghan L, “A Better Energy Weapon to Stop Putin”, Harvard
Belfer Center, 3/11/14,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23994/better_energy_weapon_to_sto
p_putin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%25
3A+belfer%252Fpublications+(Belfer+Center+for+Science+and+International+Affairs+
-+Latest+Publications)//SJF
Russia’s real vulnerability lies in the price of oil, not in the realm of gas.
Revenue from gas sales abroad make up 8 percent to 9 percent of the Russian budget, while oil revenue
accounts for a much heftier 37 percent to 38 percent. It was not that long ago that a
prolonged collapse in the price of oil undermined the foundations of the
Soviet Union, according to former Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. The U.S., by adding 2.5
million barrels of oil to global markets in the last three years, has prevented
the price of oil from edging higher in the face of disruptions in Libya, Iran
and elsewhere. Should the U.S. continue to increase its oil production, as is
widely assumed, it could create pressure to further lower the price.
It would not take a huge price collapse to harm Putin’s regime; already, the
Russian economy is struggling, and the government has made across-theboard cuts. Plus, Putin's power comes in large measure from extensive
patronage networks made possible by high oil prices. To balance its budget,
Russia needs oil prices of about $110 (the current price is about $108). A further dip in oil
prices is the largest challenge on the horizon to Putin.
If damaging Putin’s power base is the objective, then lifting the U.S. ban on crude exports would have more appreciable
effects than expediting LNG exports, although in truth they would also be modest. Lifting this ban would not—as many
expect—lead to U.S. oil substituting for Russian oil in European markets (unless refineries dictated this trade). In a global
market, “strategic” direction of exports by the government makes little sense.
Lifting the ban on crude exports could, however, work alongside other factors contributing to the downward
price on oil prices that Putin (and other leaders of producing countries) fears. It would
probably increase domestic U.S. production somewhat, as there no longer would be a
discount on American crudes that have no other market to serve. And it would release further
quantities of U.S. crude on to global markets. This would, at least on the margins,
contribute to growing global supply, increasing the chance of a global price
dip. One may be concerned about the other geopolitical ramifications of such a strategy, but it would at least be
consistent with other policies, such as sanctions, to ratchet up pressure on Putin.
2nc—russia econ
Extremely high priced oil is necessary for Putin’s credibility
Schuman, 12 – American author and journalist who specializes in Asian economics,
politics and history, currently the Asia business correspondent for TIME Magazine
(Michael, “Why Vladimir Putin Needs Higher Oil Prices: as oil prices sink, so do the
prospects for the Russian economy”, Time, 7/5/12,
http://business.time.com/2012/07/05/why-vladimir-putin-needs-higher-oilprices/)//SJF
But Vladimir Putin is not one of them. The
economy that the Russian President has built
not only runs on oil, but runs on oil priced extremely high. Falling oil prices
means rising problems for Russia – both for the strength of its economic
performance, and possibly, the strength of Putin himself.
Despite the fact that Russia has been labeled one of the world’s most promising emerging markets, often mentioned in the
same breath as China and India, the Russian economy is actually quite different from the
others. While India gains growth benefits from an expanding population, Russia, like much of Europe, is
aging; while economists fret over China’s excessive dependence on
investment, Russia badly needs more of it. Most of all, Russia is little more than
an oil state in disguise. The country is the largest producer of oil in the world (yes,
bigger even than Saudi Arabia), and Russia’s dependence on crude has been increasing.
About a decade ago, oil and gas accounted for less than half of Russia’s exports; in
recent years, that share has risen to two-thirds. Most of all, oil provides more than
half of the federal government’s revenues.
What’s more, the economic model Putin has designed in Russia relies heavily not
just on oil, but high oil prices. Oil lubricates the Russian economy by making
possible the increases in government largesse that have fueled Russian
consumption. Budget spending reached 23.6% of GDP in the first quarter of
2012, up from 15.2% four years earlier. What that means is Putin requires a higher
oil price to meet his spending requirements today than he did just a few
years ago.
Research firm Capital Economics figures that the government budget balanced at an oil price of $55 a barrel in 2008, but
that now it balances at close to $120. Oil prices today have fallen far below that, with Brent near $100 and U.S. crude less
than $90. The farther oil prices fall, the more pressure is placed on Putin’s
budget, and the harder it is for him to keep spreading oil wealth to the
greater population through the government. With a large swath of the populace angered by his
re-election to the nation’s presidency in March, and protests erupting on the streets of Moscow, Putin can illafford a significant blow to the economy, or his ability to use government
resources to firm up his popularity.
That’s why Putin hasn’t been scaling back even as oil prices fall. His
government is earmarking $40 billion to support the economy, if necessary,
over the next two years. He does have financial wiggle room, even with oil prices falling. Moscow has wisely
stashed away petrodollars into a rainy day fund it can tap to fill its budget
needs. But Putin doesn’t have the flexibility he used to have. The fund has
shrunk, from almost 8% of GDP in 2008 to a touch more than 3% today. The package, says Capital
Economics, simply highlights the weaknesses of Russia’s economy:
This cuts to the heart of a problem we have highlighted before – namely that Russia
is now much more
dependent on high and rising oil prices than in the past… The fact that the
share of ‘permanent’ spending (e.g. on salaries and pensions) has increased…creates
additional problems should oil prices drop back (and is also a concern from the perspective of
medium-term growth)…The present growth model looks unsustainable unless oil prices remain at or above $120pb.
Dependence is guaranteed – diversification is no longer an
option – high prices are key
Meyer and Lovasz, 12 – Bloomberg reporter based in Moscow, where he covers
politics in Russia and more broadly, the political and economic landscape of Eastern
Europe (Henry, “Russia Faces Economy Trap as Oil Decline Looms, EBRD Says”,
Bloomberg, 12/14/12, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/russia-at-riskfrom-dwindling-oil-reserves-european-bank-says.html)//SJF
Russia, the world’s largest energy exporter, is becoming increasingly dependent on
commodities and failing to prepare for falling oil output in 20 years, the
European Bank for Reconstruction & Development said.
Corruption, poor education, immigration barriers and state dominance in
the economy, which curbs private innovation, all hinder diversification, which is Russia’s key
challenge, the London-based EBRD said in a report published today.
Oil and natural gas account for almost 70 percent of exports and about half
of budget revenue. The economy’s dependence on energy is greater today than in
the mid-1990s, when it represented less than half of exports, according to the EBRD. The non-commodity share
of exports fell to as little as 8 percent in 2011 from 15 percent in 1997.
“If you look at all the talk, all the effort, over the last 10 years, very little
has happened and you can
argue that it has got worse,” Erik Berglof, the EBRD’s chief economist, said at a presentation today in
Moscow. “Even Brezhnev talked about the need to diversify,” he said, referring to Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, a period characterized as an era of
stagnation that paved the way for the country’s 1991 collapse.
Price Swings
President Vladimir Putin, who extended his 12-year rule this year after enduring
the biggest unrest since he came to power, said in his annual state-of-the-nation address on
Dec. 12 that Russia needs to reduce its vulnerability to sudden swings in
commodity prices.
Under current estimates, Russia’s known oil reserves, including fields in the Arctic,
are enough to sustain the current rate of production for just 20 years, according
to the EBRD. Kazakhstan, by comparison, can sustain current output for 60 years,
Saudi Arabia for more than 70 years and the United Arab Emirates for more
than 90 years, the EBRD said.
Russia’s government doesn’t publish its own estimate of oil reserves, which are considered a state secret. The EBRD cited
BP Plc data in its calculations. Russian crude oil and condensate production climbed to
a post-Soviet record of 10.503 million barrels a day in November, a post-Soviet
high, according to preliminary estimates from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit.
Russia’s completely dependent on oil – prices are the key
variable
Wharton, 7 (Wharton School of Business, “Russia: ‘Floating on an Enormous Pool of
Petrodollars’”, University of Pennsylvania Finance Department,
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/russia-floating-on-an-enormous-pool-ofpetrodollars/)//SJF
Is Russia on its way to becoming a “petrostate,” consigned by its oil-and-natural-gas riches to
a future of political corruption and underdevelopment? That’s a question raised by many economists who have followed
the country’s recent boom.
No one disputes that oil has fueled Russia’s return to international
prominence. The country has the world’s second biggest oil reserves, behind
Saudi Arabia, and its largest natural gas reserves. Since 2003, oil’s price has more than doubled, rising from about $25 a
barrel to about $60 a barrel today. In 2006, it soared even higher, hitting a record of nearly $80 a barrel.
Each uptick in the price pumps billions of additional dollars into the
Russian economy. “They’re floating on an enormous pool of petrodollars,”
says Harley Balzer, a professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University. The
money
courses through the economy in myriad ways: in surging consumer
spending, in a growing middle class, in soaring Moscow real-estate prices, in
a burly group of Russian energy companies with international ambitions
and in the country’s reborn assertiveness on the international stage.
The problem is that oil-rich nations seldom transform their resource endowments
into the sort of innovative market systems that characterize the world’s
most developed places. “Countries with a high level of dependence on natural
resources tend to perform poorly no matter how you measure it — stability,
corruption, human-capital development,” says Serguei Netessine, a Wharton professor of
operations and information management. Oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Iran, on the one hand, and Venezuela and
Nigeria, on the other, are known more for repression and political unrest than for their economic diversity and
entrepreneurial culture. With a few exceptions — Norway is most often cited — petrostates don’t take steps to prepare for
the day when their wells run dry.
For now, Russia’s leaders and corporate chiefs are enjoying their country’s new
wealth and power. “They feel that oil gives them some cards to play,” says Valery
Yakubovich, a Wharton management professor. “They want the West to feel like it needs
something from Russia. Think about where countries’ power tends to come from. Today, it’s usually
intellectual capital and high technology. But Russia doesn’t have those. It
has oil.”
It’s necessary for Putin’s credibility and industry development
Wharton, 7 (Wharton School of Business, “Russia: ‘Floating on an Enormous Pool of
Petrodollars’”, University of Pennsylvania Finance Department,
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/russia-floating-on-an-enormous-pool-ofpetrodollars/)//SJF
Russian President Vladimir Putin
has made it clear that he sees his country’s resource
riches as the key to re-establishing the “Great Power” status that it enjoyed during the
Cold War. To that end, he has rapidly ramped up the state’s ownership in the oil
sector. If the government ends up taking half of the assets of Yukos, an oil firm that’s being dismantled after a tax
dispute that put its CEO in prison, its stake in the industry could climb to 40%, says a report
from the Paris-based Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Putin’s government also has forced the renegotiation of several high-profile
development deals with Western companies. State-owned Gazprom, the world’s largest
gas producer, last year stunned such giants as Conoco-Phillips and Chevron by saying
that it would scrap the bidding process for the right to co-develop the
Shtokman field — situated in the Barents Sea, near Russia and Norway — and proceed alone. As of early March,
Gazprom had softened its stance, saying it might invite in foreign companies but wouldn’t give them ownership in
Shtokman,
The government likewise pressured Royal Dutch Shell to relinquish its
controlling stake in the Sakhalin II oil-and-gas field. Regulators had accused Shell of
environmental violations and suspended its permits, thereby freezing development. Earlier this year, Shell agreed to sell
half of its stake, dropping its ownership from 55% to 27.5% and enabling Gazprom to step in as the controlling partner.
These sorts of moves have aided Putin’s push to create “national champions” in key
industries and reassert control of his country’s strategic resources. But one
Wharton scholar wonders whether they will undercut not only the fields’ productivity, but also Russia’s long-term
economic strength.
“You have to wonder about Russia’s capacity to develop these fields without
Western help,” says Wharton management professor Witold Henisz. “You’re talking about tens of
billions of dollars. The Russians have the capital now, but is it enough for a
decade of investment? And do they have the managerial and technical capacity to invest in a way to get the
highest returns? They’re maximizing control, but they’re giving up some of the opportunity to get Western capital and
technology.”
Yet Russia may be able to have it both ways, maintaining control and getting the money and know-how it needs. Many
of the world’s oil companies are desperate for new reserves, and Russia is
one of the few politically stable countries that can offer them. “Say you’re a vice
president at Exxon Mobil,” says Georgetown’s Balzer. “Where can you go to look for hydrocarbons? Nigeria? Venezuela?
Compared with those places, Russia doesn’t look so scary.”
In addition, some scholars are sympathetic to the Putin government’s position, pointing out that Shell had originally
negotiated a one-sided deal at Sakhalin when oil prices had sagged to about $20 a barrel. “Back then, Russia got
the best deal it could,” says James R. Millar, an emeritus professor of economics and international affairs at
George Washington University. “Now the price of oil is in the 50s, and the government
looks at it and says, ‘We got screwed.’ It’s common to renegotiate deals like
this when prices go up.”
But doing so isn’t without risk, Millar points out. Oil companies may be accustomed to
operating in hurly-burly markets. But other industry leaders like, say, Microsoft,
General Electric or Johnson & Johnson might be reluctant to make big bets in a place
where the government appears to act arbitrarily. “You have to ask, ‘Will this
discourage foreign direct investment in other parts of the economy by the most
proficient producers in the world?’” Millar says.
--consumption
High oil prices stimulate domestic demand and investment,
which jumpstarts the economy
Tabata, 9 – Professor, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University (Shinichiro, “The
Influence of High Oil Prices on the Russian Economy: A Comparison with Saudi Arabia”,
Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2009, pp. 75-92,
http://www.geocities.jp/shinshinkotoni/pdf/EG_50_01_075-092_5.pdf)//SJF
The major findings presented in this paper about the influence of oil price
increases on the Russian economy can be summarized as follows:
1. The impact of oil price increases on GDP growth has been ambiguous in Russia for two reasons. First, the growth of the
oil and gas sector has had less of a direct impact on GDP growth in Russia than with Saudi Arabia because of the smaller
share of the sector in the Russian economy. Second, GDP indicators do not fully account for the growth of national
income caused by increases in the prices of exported commodities, unless these price increases precipitate an increase in
their production. In Russia, the rise in the price of oil seems to have stimulated all
sectors of the economy through improvement in the terms of trade or
expansion in trade gains.
2. It is considerably more evident in Russia than in Saudi Arabia that economic growth has been
driven by increasing household consumption, mostly resulting from oil
price increases. Statistically, it can be explained in part by the larger share of personal consumption due to
appreciation of the national currency. In the context of domestic policy, it has been promoted by the
liberalization policies of exchange markets, which caused the appreciation
of
the ruble and, in turn, the rapid expansion of imports of consumer goods.
3. The oil price increases have resulted in significant increases in state budget
revenues from expanding oil and gas exports. Russia has clearly succeeded
in creating a mechanism that enables the absorption of a considerable part
of oil and gas export revenues by the state budget and the accumulation of
the ensuing surpluses in a sovereign wealth fund. The magnitudes of state
budget surpluses and their accumulation were approximately the same in
Russia and Saudi Arabia. As for Russia, the considerable increase in money supply caused
by increases in interventions in the exchange markets by monetary
authorities, as well as the rapid inflation that the growing supply has
fueled, may be regarded as inevitable, at least to a degree, within the
framework of liberalized exchange markets.
--investment
High oil prices are necessary for overall diversification
Rapoza, 12 – Forbes contributor covering Russian and Brazilian economics (Kenneth,
“Oil A Problem For Russian Economy, Official Says”, Forbes, 4/312,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/04/03/oil-a-problem-for-russianeconomy-official-says/)//SJF
Russia, awash in oil and natural gas. It’s the reason why the economy has a
budget surplus, and for some it is the reason why Vladimir Putin and United
Russia are still in power. Follow the rising price of oil over the last seven years and you will see the
rising GDP of the Russian economy right along with it. It’s national icon, Gazprom,
is a multi-billion dollar, football sponsoring natural gas behemoth. The biggest in
the world. And companies like it, from Rosneft to the privately held Lukoil oil are bad news for the Russians in the not-sodistant future. Combined they and others in the oil and gas biz account for 75% of
Russia’s exports.
“Economic growth will promptly fall to two or three percent a year in case of
further dominance of the raw materials and fuel sector in the economy as it
is now,” Russian Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina told a forum in Moscow on Tuesday.
The country’s economic development may get stuck at the level of Japan she
warned, something no decent developing nation would wish on their worst enemy. Japan is lucky if it grows 1% a year on
average over the course of a five year stretch. Russia’s economy grew 4.3% last year, and is forecast by the government to
grow at 3.7% if Urals oil price averages are $100 per barrel.
She warned that a fall in GDP growth rates by 0.7-1.7% will cause “a rapid loss of
(Russia’s) share of the global market and, what is most important, will
reduce opportunities for increasing incomes and living standards.”
As an investment story, Russia is known as an oil and gas play. Like the country or not, where oil goes, Russia’s economy
will go right along with it. That’s great when Brent crude and its accompanying cheaper oil, Urals, is well over $80 a
barrel. High oil prices is helping finance the new skyline of Moscow. Across from the
Moscow River, near where Stalin built his great architectural works in honor of the Russian peoples’ success in World War
II, are shiny silver and gold skyscrapers with Sberbank and VTB Capital logos on them. Moscow wants to be a miniFrankfurt. Better yet, bigger than Frankfurt. It wants to be one of the biggest financial
markets in the emerging world. Brazil and China have it beat. Russia’s one
trick pony economy is why.
Last October, Alexei Kudrin, then Finance Minister of Russia, said that the economy would be okay if
Urals priced at $60. Below that and you get budget deficits and credit
contraction. That’s no way to build for the future, especially in Moscow,
which at first glance is aching to modernize and doing so as fast as Russia
can.
Overall innovation can’t last without high prices
Rapoza, 12 – Forbes contributor covering Russian and Brazilian economics (Kenneth,
“Oil A Problem For Russian Economy, Official Says”, Forbes, 4/312,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/04/03/oil-a-problem-for-russianeconomy-official-says/)//SJF
Russia might not have to worry about oil prices this year, and maybe not even next year. But Russia
will be
around for many years after that and oil prices are not expected to rise
forever. At some point, China growth will stabilize. That is actually happening now. India will stabilize. Europe will
continue its move away from oil, as will the U.S. It’s demand will stabilize. That might not be the case for another five to 10
years, but Russia will still be on God’s green Earth and if the good Minister is correct in her assessment, and everyone who
watches Russia closely knows she is, then Russia will be in for a long, cold winter despite its
collection of cheap Gazprom gas.
It’s not that Russia doesn’t have the brain power to get over its oil addiction.
The government is investing millions in backing start-up entrepreneurs out
of the newly created Skolkovo Iniative, a mini-Silicon Valley, or so it hopes, in the suburbs of
Москва (that’s Moscow). It’s got the brain power and the tech talents to build a more
innovative economy, but moves to do so are still in their infancy. Only very
recently has Russian venture capital started to discover Russian
entrepreneurs. Only recently have Russia’s biggest funds like Troika Dialog tried to tap the rich U.S. market to
convince American institutional investors that Russian financial markets are worth investing in.
Last year, one of the biggest IPOs in the U.S. was a Russian search engine called Yandex (YNDX). One of the world’s
leading internet security companies is based in Moscow, run by Formula-1 sponsoring, Hawaiian shirt wearing, Stuxnet
busting Eugene Kaspersky and his Kaspersky Lab team.
Russian has the know-how and probably the political will if one can trust
what Putin has said on the matter, to reform and innovate the Russian
economy. As it is, preservation of the oil and gas model is an inhibitor to
Russian growth in the next few years. Nabiullina agrees.
--rouble deval
Oil prices directly control the value of the rouble and cause
economic crisis
Harding, 8 – award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian (Luke, “Russia
close to economic collapse as oil price falls, experts predict”, The Guardian, 11/20/8,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/20/oil-russia-economy-putinmedvedev)//SJF
Russia is now lurching towards a major economic crisis, experts predicted
today, following news that the price of oil had slumped to under $50 a
barrel.
The collapse in the value of oil was likely to have several catastrophic
consequences for Russia including a possible devaluation of the rouble and
a severe drop in living standards next year, they warned.
With oil prices tumbling, and his own credibility at stake, Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin today insisted that the
country's economy was still robust.
Speaking at a meeting of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, Putin told delegates in Moscow the country would survive
the current global financial turmoil - which he blamed on the US.
But the Kremlin is acutely aware that any loss of confidence in the Russian
economy could lead to a loss of confidence in Putin and his ally Dmitry Medvedev, who took
over from Putin as Russia's president in May.
Medvedev's biggest initiative so far has been to float an extension in the presidential term from four to six years - a
proposal that entrenches the current Kremlin's grip on power, and which Russia's loyal Duma is likely to approve on
Saturday.
Putin today said his administration would do everything it could to prevent a recurrence of Russia's last oil-related
financial crash in 1998 - which saw the savings of many ordinary Russians wiped out. But the plummeting oil
price leaves him little room for manoeuvre. Experts suggest that Russia's
economy is now facing profound difficulties, despite two massive
stabilisation funds accumulated during the booming oil years.
The fall in oil prices from $147 this July to below $50 today has blown a gaping hole in the
government's budget calculations. It is now facing a $150bn shortfall in its
spending plans - and will have to slash expenditure in 2009.
The combination of low prices and weak institutional structure
will collapse the regime
Harding, 8 – award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian (Luke, “Russia
close to economic collapse as oil price falls, experts predict”, The Guardian, 11/20/8,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/20/oil-russia-economy-putinmedvedev)//SJF
The oil slump, however, exacerbates Russia's already severe economic
problems. Since May Russian markets have lost 70% of their value. Russia's central bank, meanwhile,
has been spent $57.5bn in two months trying to prop up the country's ailing
currency.
"If the current trend continues with the government supporting the rouble,
oil prices falling and a slowing economy we are going to have a major crisis,"
said Chris Weafer, an analyst with the Moscow brokerage Uralsib.
He added: "There will be more pressure on the
rouble and an extremely difficult
first quarter next year." Russia was more vulnerable than other countries
because it was still an oil state, and had failed to diversify its economy , Weafer
added.
Both Putin and Medvedev have blamed the Bush administration for the current financial mess. Putin today accused the
US of recklessness. "Cheap money and mortgage troubles in the US have caused a real chain reaction, [and] paralyzed the
global financial market," he complained.
Russia's state-controlled TV has also sought to portray the crisis as an American problem, largely ignoring its impact at
home. This strategy was not very sensible, analysts suggested today, since job losses and salary cuts in Russia were
beginning to mount.
"In terms of the trigger Putin is correct. The bomb came from the US," Weafer said. He added, however: "The
shockwaves have hit a much weaker structure than the [Russian]
government has acknowledged. The economy is going to hell in a handcart."
--income
Lowered oil prices would wreck the Russian economy – destroys
valuable income
Woodhill, 14 – economics columnist at Forbes.com (Louis, “It's Time To Drive Russia
Bankrupt – Again”, Forbes, 3/3/14,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/03/03/its-time-to-drive-russiabankrupt-again/)//SJF
A reliable maxim of geopolitics is, “When
the treasury is empty, the regime falls.” This is
exactly what happened to the U.S.S.R. It is also what will happen to Vladimir
Putin if we simply stabilize the dollar, something that we should be doing anyway.
It wasn’t Reagan’s massive defense build-up, or his Star Wars program, that drove the Soviet Union to the wall; it was
the decline in real oil prices caused by the Reagan/Volcker/Greenspan
strengthening of the U.S. dollar.
On an end-of-year basis, real crude oil prices averaged $17.66/bbl (in 4Q2013 dollars) from 1950 to 1972. By the time that
Reagan took office, they had almost quintupled, to $85.98. It was this oil price windfall that fueled
Soviet expansionism in the 1970s.
The high oil prices of 1980 were not real, and Reagan knew it. They were
being caused by the weakness of the U.S. dollar, which had lost 94% of its value in terms of
gold between 1969 and 1980.
Reagan immediately decontrolled U.S. oil prices, to unleash the supply side
of the U.S. economy. Even more importantly, Reagan backed Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker’s
campaign to strengthen and stabilize the U.S. dollar.
By the end of Reagan’s two terms in office, real oil
prices had plunged to $27.88/bbl. As
Russia does today, the old USSR depended upon oil exports for most of its
foreign exchange earnings, and much of its government revenue. The 68%
reduction in real oil prices during the Reagan years drove the USSR
bankrupt.
In May 1990, Gorbachev called German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and begged him for a loan of $12 billion to stave off
financial disaster. Kohl advanced only $3 billion. By August of 1990, Gorbachev was back, pleading for more loans. In
December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.
President Bill Clinton’s “strong dollar” policy (implemented via Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Wayne Angell’s secret
commodity price rule system) kept real oil prices low during the 1990s, despite rising world oil demand. Real crude oil
prices during Clinton’s time in office averaged only $27.16/bbl. At real oil price levels like this, Russia is financially
incapable of causing much trouble.
It was George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s feckless “weak dollar” policy that let the Russian geopolitical genie out of the
bottle. From the end of 2000 to the end of 2013, the gold value of the dollar fell by 77%, and real oil prices tripled, to
$111.76/bbl. It is these artificially high oil prices that are fueling Putin’s mischief machine.
The Russian government has approved a 2014 budget calling for revenues of $409.6 billion, spending of $419.6 billion,
and a deficit of $10.0 billion, or 0.4% of expected GDP of $2.5 trillion.
Unlike the U.S., which has deep financial markets and prints the world’s reserve currency, Russia cannot run
large fiscal deficits without creating hyperinflation. Given that Russia
expects to get about half of its revenue from taxes on its oil and gas industry,
it is clear that it would not take much of a decline in world oil prices to
create financial difficulties for Russia.
Assuming year-end 2013 prices for crude oil ($111.76/bbl) and natural gas ($66.00/FOE* bbl) the total revenue
of Russia’s petroleum industry is $662.3 billion (26.5% of GDP), and Russian’s oil
and gas export earnings are $362.2 billion, or 14.5% of GDP. Obviously, a
decline in world oil prices would cause the Russian economy and the
Russian government significant financial pain.
Over the past 64 years, real gold prices have averaged $544.91/oz (in 4Q2013 dollars), and real crude oil prices have
averaged $38.85 bbl. This means that an ounce of gold will typically buy about 14 barrels of oil.
If we fully stabilized the dollar today, we could expect gold prices to fall toward $550/oz, and oil prices to fall toward
$40.00/bbl. The huge dollar premiums that gold and oil currently command reflect
the value that these easy-to-store commodities have as hedges against dollar
instability. If we reformed our monetary control system to guarantee the real value of the dollar, we would
eliminate this risk. The risk premiums currently enjoyed by oil and gold would then decline toward zero, as the new
monetary system gained credibility.
Interestingly enough, even a decline in world oil prices to $40/bbl would not stop the U.S. “fracking” boom (although it
would slow it down).
If crude oil were at $40/bbl, residual fuel oil would sell for about $32/bbl. Right now, spot natural gas prices are only
$4.49/MCF, or about $27.00/FOE bbl. In other words, U.S. natural gas prices could rise by 19% from where they are now,
before they would hit a price ceiling imposed by crude oil at $40/bbl.
It would not take $40/bbl oil to put an end to Russian adventurism. Even assuming no change in natural gas prices, a
decline in world oil prices to $80/bbl would cost the Russian oil industry $120 billion in sales, most of which would have
to come out of the Russian government’s fiscal hide. Russia’s foreign exchange earnings would fall by $83 billion/year.
To deal with a fall in world oil prices to $80/bbl (much less $40/bbl), Russia would
have to retrench on all fronts. If the Russian government were to resort to
printing rubles to try to close the yawning fiscal gap, they would make a
difficult situation much, much worse. Capital would flee the country, and
their economy would be disorganized by rampant inflation.
--world bank
High prices key to investment and fast growth – World Bank
report proves
RT, 12 (Russia Today, “Oil prices: The make or break of the Russian economy - World
Bank”, 3/27/12, http://rt.com/business/world-bank-report-russia-543/)//SJF
Russia has to thank high oil prices for the better state of its economy. A
World Bank report says it has the edge over other emerging countries and the
EU, but the rosy picture will become bleaker unless the country deals with a
number of challenges.
The growth rose from 3.8% year-on-year in the first half to 4.8% in the second
half of 2011 and in September was 0.3% better than predicted in the
previous Russian Economic Report.
Restocking and growing consumptions were the most important growth drivers in 2011 after the sharp decline in 2009.
Private consumption was supported by growing employment, solid wage
growth, lower inflation, and a strong rouble in the first half of the year.
Although the Russian economy returned to pre-crisis level by the end of 2011, the recovery from the crisis was slower than
that in 1998. By comparison, GDP took 7 quarters to recover to pre-crisis level after
1998 crisis, yet twice as long after the 2008 crisis. However consumption held up better in
2008 than in 1998 partly due to stronger fiscal policy. Imports recovered faster in 2008.
The capital investment showed slowest recovery in 2011. Overall investment
reached 22% of GDP in the third quarter of 2011, some 4.4% of GDP below the pre-crisis level
in the second quarter of 2008.
“It is going to be very
important for the Russian government to make sure
that investors want to put money in Russia,” said Kaspar Richter, World Bank's Lead Economist
and Country Sector Coordinator for Russia. “Macroeconomic policy should emphasize
stability; all buffers have to be rebuilt. So when the next crisis comes Russia
is a good place to address this crisis”.
The lower inflation rate is among the major achievements of Russian
economy, according to the World Bank. CPI inflation fell for 10 months in a row from 9.7% in April 2011 to 3.8% in
February 2012, the lowest level since the early 1990s.
Russia’s labor market improved in 2011, as unemployment was 6.5 % in July, and remained
around this level through to the end of the year, according to the report. Though real income growth was 1.1% in 2011, the
lowest rate in many years, real wages increased 4.2%, although only 2% for the public sector.
at: lng o/w
Lack of infrastructure means oil is the key export
O’Sullivan, 14 – Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs,
Harvard Kennedy School (Meghan L, “A Better Energy Weapon to Stop Putin”, Harvard
Belfer Center, 3/11/14,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23994/better_energy_weapon_to_sto
p_putin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%25
3A+belfer%252Fpublications+(Belfer+Center+for+Science+and+International+Affairs+
-+Latest+Publications)//SJF
Advocating for American LNG exports is not a serious response to the
current crisis, for the simple reason that the U.S. is currently far from being in a
position to alleviate Russian energy pressure on Ukraine and Europe with exports of its own.
Although American gas is plentiful, it will be years before there are
terminals ready to export it. The necessary infrastructure—to liquefy the gas
on one end and to re-gasify it on the other—is costly and takes time to build.
Over time, these challenges are not insurmountable. And in a future crisis—if, say, Russia halted gas exports to Europe—
U.S. LNG would flow to Europe, providing an important cushion to our allies. But these volumes would not
be under the direction of the American government. Instead, they would be a
market response to a situation in which the price of gas would increase
significantly, attracting more LNG from the U.S. and elsewhere. (And, if Europe’s
recent behavior is any indication, the continent would also switch to burning more coal.)
However, in more normal periods, there are constraints on America’s
ability to directly
wield gas exports as a geopolitical tool.
For starters, there is the reality that neither the U.S. government nor European
ones are in the business of buying and selling natural gas cargoes. LNG trade is
conducted by commercial entities. Let’s pretend that U.S. LNG terminals were ready to export today: Would there be a
robust LNG trade with Europe? Probably not. At least under the current system, the economics do not appear to support a
significant amount of U.S. natural gas exports to Europe, where the price of gas is substantially higher than in the U.S., but
much lower than in Asia. When U.S. terminals do begin to export, the gas will most
likely move across the Pacific, not the Atlantic.
Gas pressure points can’t be manipulated to allow for
geopolitical influence
O’Sullivan, 14 – Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs,
Harvard Kennedy School (Meghan L, “A Better Energy Weapon to Stop Putin”, Harvard
Belfer Center, 3/11/14,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23994/better_energy_weapon_to_sto
p_putin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%25
3A+belfer%252Fpublications+(Belfer+Center+for+Science+and+International+Affairs+
-+Latest+Publications)//SJF
Moreover, there
are limits on how much U.S. LNG will eventually be sold and
transported. This, too, is a commercial consideration. Although projections vary, most
energy analysts agree that—with the surge in global LNG expected to occur over the next few years—the world will
only be able to absorb a finite amount of American gas at the prices U.S.
entities would find commercially justifiable. Washington could approve all
the applications currently in the queue (as some have called for), but market realities will mean
that only a fraction of those exports will be realized. The exact volume would primarily
depend on the price, not U.S. policy.
All this is not to say that America’s gas boom has had no geopolitical benefits—quite the opposite. By no longer consuming
vast quantities of global LNG exports itself, the U.S. has freed up substantial amounts of gas
for non-American markets. In 2010 and 2011, that LNG flowed to Europe, significantly increasing the
liquidity of the European market and giving European utilities leverage to renegotiate long-term contracts with their
Russian suppliers. Future U.S. exports to Asia will likely displace other producers, forcing more non-Russian gas to
Europe, again creating more space for European buyers. But these are pressure points that build
over time and are hard to manipulate in a crisis.
at: resource curse
It’s too late, but high oil prices obviate the need for
diversification – solve the resource curse
Meyer and Lovasz, 12 – Bloomberg reporter based in Moscow, where he covers
politics in Russia and more broadly, the political and economic landscape of Eastern
Europe (Henry, “Russia Faces Economy Trap as Oil Decline Looms, EBRD Says”,
Bloomberg, 12/14/12, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/russia-at-riskfrom-dwindling-oil-reserves-european-bank-says.html)//SJF
“The
problem of being a petro-state is that natural resource trends corrupt
the institutions,” Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School in Moscow and a government adviser who
contributed to the EBRD report, said in an interview. “This is what is called the resource curse.
This is a trap, where democratic political and economic institutions do not
develop because rents coming from natural resources provide incentives to
the elite not to develop institutions.”
Russia’s economy grew at 7 percent a year on average during Putin’s 2000-2008
presidencies then contracted almost 8 percent in 2009 after crude prices plunged
to $34 a barrel from $147. The current resource-based economy can’t deliver
the growth rate of 5 percent to 6 percent that Russia needs over the next few
decades, Putin said in his Dec. 12 address.
‘Non-State Capitalism’
Russia is facing a fourth-straight quarter of slowing growth as weakening demand from China and Europe hurts exports
and a surge in inflation saps consumer purchasing power. Gross domestic product will advance
3.5 percent in 2012, according to the government, slowing from last year’s
4.3 percent expansion. GDP will expand 3.5 percent next year, according to
the median estimates of 35 economists in a Bloomberg survey last month.
“A real change in the structure of the economy, the creation of new
industrial sectors and the restoration of our leadership in traditional ones,
the development of small and medium-sized businesses -- these are key
issues,” Putin said. “I am sure that at the center of the new economic model should be economic freedom, private
property and non-state capitalism.”
Russian’s investment in promoting high-tech industries -- with public money accounting
for 75 percent of research and development funding -- has yielded only limited results, the EBRD said.
‘Vicious Circle’
While China and India have both “dramatically” increased the percentage of exports of goods and services accounted for
by information and communications technology, Russia still has barely 20 percent of
manufacturing exports with a high skill content, the bank said.
A survey carried out by the EBRD and the World Bank in 2011-2012 in 37 of Russia’s 83 regions found that most
of
the 4,000 manufacturing and services companies that took part saw
corruption, skilled-labor shortages and a lack of funding as the main
obstacles to doing business. Only 3 percent of Russian companies exported in 2008-2009, compared with
15 percent to 17 percent in France and the U.S.
“Non-resource sectors need property-rights
protection, courts and good
financial markets,” said Guriev. “All of those require good political institutions
and so it’s a vicious circle.”
High prices don’t control Putin’s effectiveness – last election
proves
Wharton, 7 (Wharton School of Business, “No Going Back: Russia Today Suggests
Stability Instead of Chaos”, University of Pennsylvania: Finance Department, 4/24/7,
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/no-going-back-russia-today-suggestsstability-instead-of-chaos/)//SJF
If Putin has shown himself to be a political authoritarian, he has
demonstrated far more openmindedness and flexibility when it comes to economics (a subject in which he earned a
doctorate). “He’s created a situation where my investors have made 25 times
their money,” says Bill Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, a leading investor in Russia.
“He’s played a big part in creating economic stability. He’s a human being with human
flaws, but it’s hard to argue about what he’s done for the economy.”
Putin has made fiscal responsibility a hallmark of his presidency. As oil revenues have flooded in, he
has paid off the country’s debts to foreign creditors. And he has husbanded
much of the rest of the government’s oil windfalls into a special reserve
fund, which has grown to about $80 billion.
The OECD credits Putin’s economic management with containing inflation,
despite the gush of oil money. Over the last five years, the inflation rate has dropped down from 15% to 9%,
which is low by Russian standards.
His fiscal restraint has some
investors fretting about the country’s next
presidential election, which is scheduled for early next year. While Russian law bars Putin from seeking a
third term, he is so popular at home that many Russians would relax the rules to allow him to seek a third term. He has
said that he intends to step down, though Russia watchers speculate that he will land in a position that keeps him close to
the center of power.
The leading candidates to replace him appear to be two of his protégés: Dmitri Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, who both
hold the title of first deputy prime minister. Medvedev, a lawyer by training, leads Putin’s special reform projects in areas
like health care and education and is seen as more economically liberal. Ivanov, a former KGB agent, was, until his recent
promotion, defense minister. He’s seen as hawkish on foreign policy and more conservative economically.
“I think the Russian people would support Putin staying in power indefinitely,”
says Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Moscow Center. “If
you
look at the way people live today compared with when he came to power,
they will say that living standards are twice as high. More importantly, there’s a sense of
stability that has replaced the chaos of the 1990s. They will also say that Putin has restored some pride and respect for
Russia abroad.”
at: russia econ
High prices correct for any external environmental issues
RT, 12 (Russia Today, “Oil prices: The make or break of the Russian economy - World
Bank”, 3/27/12, http://rt.com/business/world-bank-report-russia-543/)//SJF
In 2011 the Russian budget turned in a surplus thanks to surging oil prices and moderate spending. But the
World
Bank expects the budget to turn to a deficit in 2012 as spending on extrabudgetary funds and social policy is projected to jump from 5.8% of GDP in 2011 to 7.5%
of GDP in 2013.
World Bank also warns against increasing reliance on resources exports as
oil and gas revenues grew to 10.4% of GDP from 7.6% in 2009. “Even a
moderate correction in the oil prices could reverse improvements on the
revenue side achieved in 2011,” experts say.
At the same time, higher oil prices would lead to price pressures and increase the
risk of overheating in the economy.
To deal with upcoming budget challenges the Russian Government should gradually broaden
the non-oil revenue such as include increasing taxes on alcohol and tobacco and cut non-priority spending.
Russia should also rebuild fiscal policy and provide structural reforms such as privatization while oil prices are still high.
Joining the WTO will also significantly contribute to the Russian economy,
according to the World Bank. In the medium term Russia
is expected gain about 3.3% per year
or about $49 billion per year based on 2010 GDP at market exchange rates.
The World Bank estimates Russia’s economy will slowdown from 4.3% growth in 2011
to 3.5% in 2012 amid recession in Europe and elsewhere, before picking up
again in 2013. But the growth in 2013 is likely to be 3.9% weighted by a correction in oil prices ant tightening of
the labor market.
“The fact the
euro-zone is in recession means the external environment is
more difficult for Russia,” says Mr Richter. “And that’s one factor why we think the
growth would ease somewhat comparing it to last year in Russia”.
nvestments there.
Environment DA
uniqueness -- GOM recovery now
BP spill did substantial damage but recovery now
Valentine 4-20 (Katie, “Four Years After The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, The Gulf Is
Still Suffering,” Climate Progress,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/20/3428269/bp-oil-spill-four-yearanniversary/)//ER
In his 34 years living in Louisiana, Ryan Lambert can’t remember ever seeing young,
dead dolphins on his trips out in the Gulf. In just the last few months, however, he says
he’s seen two. Lambert, who owns a charter fishing company in Louisiana, told
ThinkProgress he’s worried that the dying dolphins he’s still seeing point to lingering
effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which four years ago killed 11 people and
spewed 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. “We still see little telltale
signs,” he said. “There’s crabs with holes in their shells we’re seeing that we haven’t seen
before, and I’ve never seen baby dolphins die.” One study has linked the spill to dolphin
deaths in the Gulf, finding that dolphins’ diseases in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay are rare
but consistent with oil exposure. BP, however, has disputed that ongoing deaths and
strandings are a result of the spill. Still, in the four years since the BP oil spill, it’s clear
some places in the Gulf are still reeling from the effects of the millions of gallons of oil
and chemical dispersants that doused the water. On Cat Island in Baratria Bay, a habitat
that was once thick with mangroves and hosted hundreds of pairs of nesting nesting
pelicans, all that’s left now is “bones of black mangrove stumps” as the Times-Picayune
reports. The island is also quickly eroding, a process sped up by the oil, which still lingers
in the island’s marshy soil and has killed off the trees that help bind the soil together.
“We’re in a system in Barataria Bay that’s already facing severe erosion, but it was clear
that as this oil came ashore, and it stressed or killed plants, it was entirely predictable
that we would see a higher rate of erosion on those shorelines that got oil,” David Muth,
Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Mississippi River Delta Restoration
campaign, told ThinkProgress. “So you’re compounding a problem that already existed.”
Muth’s team at NWF has been monitoring Cat Island carefully since the spill. Last year,
he said, the island’s mangroves appeared to be dying, but there were still birds nesting
on the island. But this year, there were no birds, and all the mangroves had died. But
Muth said he’s most worried about the characteristics of the oil that are among the
hardest to measure. These volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — the compounds that
form the sheen on the water during an oil spill and contribute to the spilled oil’s abrasive
smell — wash up on shore and spread through the marine and land ecosystem,
accumulating in plants and animals. The amounts of the VOCs accumulate as you go up
the food chain, until you get to top predators, which may have significant levels of the
compounds. Muth said scientists likely won’t know the effects of the compounds for
years, but in higher concentrations, the VOCs can lead to reproductive issues and
possibly mortality in wildlife. The NWF released a report this month that documented
how the spill was still affecting Gulf wildlife, including dolphins, sea turtles, bluefin tuna
and sea birds, a report BP disputed. But NWF scientists made clear that much of the
research on the spill’s effects hasn’t yet been published due to the ongoing trials related
to the spill, making accurate documentation of the spill’s effects difficult. Other research
is still ongoing. Samantha Joye, a professor at the University of Georgia who studied the
effects the spill had on the seafloor and water column immediately after the spill, is
staying in the Gulf for the month of April to look at whether the seafloor near the
blowout site still show signs of degradation. “No one has visited these sites in a humanoccupied submersible since 2010, so we are very eager to evaluate the health of these
locations firsthand,” Joye said in a release. “Populations of many organisms living in the
water and on the ocean floor were seriously damaged by the blowout, so we want to
know how things have changed since December 2010.” Despite the ongoing impacts of
the spill, Lambert is hopeful that the resiliency of the Gulf ecosystem will allow it to
recover from the impacts of the spill. Muth said he thinks some of the land — like Cat
Island — is likely too degraded to recover, but he wants Louisiana to rethink the way it
manages the lower Mississippi River, so that the river can start building deltas again. It’s
something he says the state is coming around to, but the NWF is still trying to find the
funding and political will to implement some marsh restoration projects. Some of that
funding, he said, could come from BP’s contribution to the Natural Resource Damage
Assessment. “We can’t say what’s going to wash away, but we can start building new
marsh and start helping to sustain the existing marsh by putting river water and
sediments into it,” he said. “It’s too late to go in and patch up this piece of shoreline and
that piece of shoreline that got damaged, because it’s already a declining system. Instead,
we need to find a way to get the system healthy again.”
Recovery now but on the brink
University of South Carolina ’12 (ScienceDaily, 4-17-12, “BP oil spill, two years later:
Natural recovery far greater than expected,”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417152648.htm)//ER
But despite the size of the spill, "the natural recovery is far greater than what anybody
hoped when it happened," said James Morris, a professor of biology at the University of
South Carolina. "The fears of most people -- that there would be a catastrophic collapse
of the ecosystem in the Gulf -- never materialized." Morris is the director of USC's Belle
W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, which has a field laboratory on the
South Carolina coast in what is widely recognized as the most pristine estuary in the
United States -- North Inlet. A wetland essentially untouched by development, it serves
as an invaluable resource for understanding the effects of climate change. More than 40
years of daily data -- temperature, sea level, salinity changes, and the like -- augment the
hundreds of research papers based on studies in the area that have been published since
the institute was created in 1969. For the past year and a half, Morris has served on a
National Research Council committee tasked by Congress to assess the effects of the spill
on the Gulf's ecosystem. He's been impressed with the recovery of the area's ecology.
"The fisheries have come back like gangbusters," he said. "One of the interesting findings
was that after the oil spill, bait fish populations collapsed, and predator populations
boomed. The reason was that there was no fishing pressure on the top predators because
people stopped fishing after the spill. So the predator fish populations rebounded, and
they grazed down their prey." "The marshes that I saw actually looked very good," he
added. "And I was taken to the worst by officials who wanted to impress us that the
damage was really significant, and that you could still find oil in the marshes. And you
can still find oil in the marshes, but the greatest damage to the place where they took us
was from the trampling by the reporters, scientists, and agency people tromping around
out there looking for damage." "There's some evidence that perhaps there are some
lingering problems, but it's not entirely clear," Morris said. "For example, there's
ambiguity about whether there's been an effect on species like dolphins. Some people
will remain forever convinced that dolphins are washing up because of this spill, but in a
recent report that NOAA just released, the dolphin mortality was unexplainably high
leading up to the spill. So before the spill, the dolphin mortality was higher than normal,
and it's been higher than normal since the spill." In the face of dire predictions since the
early days after the oil spill, Morris has been measured in his response. "There was a
time when a simulation model of the currents was released, showing how a loop current
in the Gulf got caught up in the Gulfstream, and how the Gulfstream carried whatever
was in the loop current all the way up the East Coast," Morris said. "And people here just
started to panic. It was crazy." Interviewed by TV reporters at the time, Morris said "they
showed me this model, and asked me why I wasn't concerned about it. And I told them
that the stuff was going to degrade long before it got here."
Environment recovering after BP oil spill, but on the brink
Sherwell ’11 (“BP oil spill: Dramatic recovery of Gulf of Mexico one year on,” 4-10-11,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8423173/BP-oilspill-Dramatic-recovery-of-Gulf-of-Mexico-one-year-on.html)//ER
It was one of the defining images of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill - thick cloying chocolate
brown slime coating the marshes clumped around the mouth of the mighty Mississippi
river. But a year after a devastating series of explosions ripped apart BP’s Deepwater
Horizon rig, killing 11 workers on board, the same wetlands looked dramatically different
last week. The Sunday Telegraph accompanied an assessment team scouring low-lying
fingers of mud and marsh grasses along a 20 mile stretch of bayou where the river pours
into the sea, the nearest point on land to the disaster site. The phragamites reeds
surveyed by the team leader Ivor van Heerden and scientists from the parish, state and
federal governments took a direct hit last year. But last week they found not even
residual traces as the captain negotiated through the marshes on a flatbed airboat
designed for swamps. New shoots were bursting out of the reeds, wading birds were
nesting, molluscs clung to the stems and the air was thick with greenflies. And further
along the Gulf coast, the white sand beaches of the panhandle that were soiled by tar
balls last summer look back to their pristine best, packed in recent weeks by college
students enjoying the raucous annual institution of spring break. “The spill was a
disaster, but it was not the catastrophe that many people were portraying,” said Mr van
Heerden, a marine scientist who once headed the Louisiana coastal restoration
programme for the state’s fragile eco-system of wetlands. It was his intervention last July
that first challenged the assumed wisdom in America that the spill was an apocalyptic
environmental catastrophe. “A lot of people, and that includes politicians and
journalists, did not want to hear the message that it was really not that bad,” he said.
“But I went public as fishermen were committing suicide because they were being told
that this was end of their way of life, that things would never recover. It simply was not
the end of the world.” That the explosion was a tragedy is not in doubt - not least, for the
families of the 11 men killed when the rig erupted 50 miles out at sea on the evening of
April 20. But the spill was rapidly transformed into a political fire storm that also
engulfed the Obama administration and tarnished transatlantic relations as denigration
of BP verged on “Brit-bashing”. The energy giant’s share price slumped amid
condemnation of its role running the rig and its subsequent inept and at times
misleading handling of the aftermath. Verbal gaffes by Tony Hayward, the then British
chief executive, earned him the soubriquet of “the most hated man in America” in one
US tabloid. Under fire for a tardy federal response, President Barack Obama solemnly
declared it “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced”, saying it would
take years to combat. In numbers, that was true as more than four million barrels of light
crude gushed out of the ruptured well-head a mile beneath the surface. Swaths of the
Gulf were closed to fishing and over the next six months, nearly 7,000 dead animals were
collected from the area - mostly birds but also 700 sea turtles and 100 dolphins although in many cases the cause of death has not been determined. But volume can be a
misleading measure of a spill’s impact. In 1989 the Exxon Valdez tanker lost just five per
cent of the oil that escaped into Gulf last year, but damage to the Alaskan coastline,
wildlife and environment was much more devastating. “This was no Exxon Valdez, not
even close,” said Ed Owens, a British marine geologist and oil spill veteran who
developed the industry standard for clean-up and monitoring after he worked on the
chaotic response to that disaster. His company, Polaris Applied Sciences, has been hired
by BP to map the oil and oversee the clean-up but he denies that compromises his
independence. “We are simply observing and reporting the facts as we find them,” he
said. And in its most recent analysis, of 3,210 miles of shoreline surveyed, there was oil
on 293 miles but only 20 miles were heavily oiled (more than 50 per cent coverage) while
232 miles were defined as having light, very light or trace surface oiling. There is
certainly still oil clinging to marshes and staining sands here. But that so little reached
the shore has a variety of explanations, Mr Owens said. The offshore operations to skim,
burn and, most controversially, disperse with chemicals had a major impact, although
the long-term environmental impact is still being studied. Much of the oil was consumed
by microbes in the ocean or evaporated as it was kept at bay by the outflow of freshwater
from the Mississippi. The type of oil - a light crude - also helped, and luck played its part
as the unpredictable weather patterns of the Gulf co-operated, churning the slicks
around at sea rather than driving them ashore. “We mapped the oil and made repeat
visits to sites and it didn’t take long to realise that it either wasn’t coming ashore or when
it did it was not hanging around,” said Mr van Heerden, who is contracted by Polaris.
Even after the world’s media descended on the region seeking heart-rending images of
birds, beaches and marches coated in thick black gunk, it was the same pictures, closelycropped, that were repeatedly shown precisely because the contamination was so
limited. Mr van Heerden is something of a celebrity in New Orleans, where he had long
warned of the kind of damage caused when Hurricane Katrina swept ashore in 2005.
Appointed to head of the state’s investigation into what went wrong, his scathing report
earned him powerful foes and culminated with the loss of his university teaching post.
He is no apologist for the oil and gas companies and indeed blames the industry for
decades of degradation of Louisiana’s wetlands. But when he finally found a platform to
relay the message that the last year’s spill was not cataclysmic, he was treated by many as
though he was a BP lackey, uttering a treacherous heresy. Billy Nungesser, the tubthumping president of Plaquemines parish, one of the worst-affected areas, had no
problems finding an outlet for emotional orations that became a television staple. He
struck a calmer tone in an interview last week, but denied having fuelled the hyperbole
around the spill. “We were getting slammed down here,” he said. “If we hadn’t yelled and
screamed, then the impact would have been way worse. I got no joy in crucifying BP or
the Coast Guard, I just wanted them to do the right thing.” Mr Nungesser acknowledged
however that he walked a “fine line” between raising the alarm and scare tactics - and
some, like Haley Barbour, the governor of neighbouring Mississippi, noted at the time
that the doomsday coverage of the spill might do more harm to his state’s economy than
the oil itself. Although the longer-term damage inflicted on the wildlife, marshes and
waters of the Gulf is still being assessed, the fishing grounds and oyster beds are open
again. But traditional fishing communities on the slivers of land that poke into the sea
south of New Orleans are still reeling from the impact, economically and mentally. At a
roadside seafood stand that his mother opened 32 years ago, Sean Maise has discounted
the juicy four-inch long jumbo shrimps in his iceboxes to $3.50 a pound in an effort to
woo custom. “It’s bad, real bad,” he lamented. “These shrimps should be selling for $4.50
or $5.50 a pound. People used to associate Louisiana with the best fresh seafood in the
world. Now they just think of the spill and presume it’s all contaminated.” And in New
Orleans, Drago’s restaurant is famous for its charbroiled oysters, but owner Tommy
Cvitanovich is doing battle with similar problems of perception. “We have probably the
most rigorous testing in the world here and there has not been a single case of
contaminated seafood found since the spill,” he said. “Nobody’s got sick from eating
Louisiana seafood, but still people are nervous.” At the city’s visitors and convention
bureau, deputy head Steve Pettus, another New Orleans restaurateur, is leading efforts to
win back business. “This inevitably got over-hyped at the time,” he said. “People really
needed to look at the size of the spill relative to the volume of water in the Gulf. In those
terms, it was a negligible amount.” It will be little comfort to BP’s Mr Hayward that when
he made the same point last summer, he was pilloried across the US. While politicians
from Mr Obama down focused their fire on BP, the rig was actually owned and operated
by Transocean, a predominantly American business based in Switzerland for tax reasons.
And the cementing that ruptured around the well, causing the April 20 explosions, was
conducted by Halliburton, the US conglomerate. In January, the White House oil spill
commission’s final report detailed faults by all three companies that led to the disaster.
Yet Transocean, which has consistently denied blame, last week awarded its top
executives for “best year in safety performance”. Only after an outraged reaction did the
directors say they would donate the money to charity. BP and its shareholders have
meanwhile paid a high financial price for the spill, even before the assessment of civil
fines. It footed the bill for plugging the leak and the clean-up operation and was forced
by the US government to establish a $20 billion compensation fund. So far, $3.6 billion
has been paid out by independent administrators who have also been weeding out
exaggerated, spurious and bogus claims. But the liability may not end there. Justice
department officials recently briefed that BP employees could face criminal prosecution
for perjury over their testimony to investigators or even manslaughter charges over the
deaths of the 11 rig workers. It was a stark reminder that despite the placid scene at the
mouth of the Mississippi, the fall-out from the largest oil spill in history is far from over.
Recovery now after BP oil spill, but the environment won’t be
able to withstand more harm – Lake Michigan proves
Keagle and Pete 3-26 (Lauri Harvey Keagle and Joseph S. Pete, “BP says majority of
surface oil recovered after spill,” nwi.com,
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/whiting/bp-says-majority-of-surface-oilrecovered-after-spill/article_f33200d9-2a62-5dc4-ae8b-a358415aa0e3.html)//ER
WHITING | After the second day of cleanup, crews have removed the "vast majority" of
surface oil floating in a Lake Michigan cove after BP Whiting Refinery discharged as
much as 756 gallons of crude into the Great Lake. BP estimates that between 9 and 18
barrels were released after a mechanical glitch expelled cooling water mixed with
unprocessed crude oil through an outflow pipe Monday afternoon, according to a U.S.
Coast Guard news release. A barrel contains 42 gallons of oil. More than 2,000 feet of
boom confined the oil to a cove on the southeast side of the refinery, between the
refinery's wastewater treatment plant and the ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor steel mill.
Tarballs washed up on about a half mile of sandy and rocky beach at the refinery.
Officials have not determined the exact amount of oil that was discharged, but came up
with a preliminary estimate Wednesday so that environmental modeling could begin. A
more accurate calculation will involve engineers ascertaining how much oil got into the
refinery's cooling water system before it was ultimately released into the lake. BP
employees cleaned up more of the crude oil Wednesday, under the supervision of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and Indiana Department
Environmental Management. "Crews have recovered the vast majority of oil that had
been visible on the surface of a cove-like area of Lake Michigan and on the shoreline
between the refinery and a nearby steel mill," spokesman Scott Dean said. "They have
used vacuum trucks and absorbent boom to contain and clean up the surface oil.
Responders also manually collected oil that had reached the shore." Federal officials
monitored the second day of cleanup operations Wednesday and assessed the shoreline
to figure out what further steps are required in the response. An eight-member shoreline
cleanup assessment team scanned the beach for crude oil and recommended cleanup
techniques. After three hours, they saw minimal oiling along the refinery's shoreline,
which is inaccessible to the public. Crews manually removed the crude oil, which had
included scattered tarballs. The little blobs of semi-solid oil, each less than 1 centimeter
in diameter, are the smallest form of congealed oil that can wash up on shore after a spill,
said U.S. Coast Guard Marine Science Technician 1st Class Jeremy Thomas, a federal onscene coordinator. EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman said Tuesday the federal
agency was reviewing whether to pursue fines or penalties against BP. She said she was
not aware of any previous spills at the 413,000-barrel-a-day refinery, which just received
a $4 billion upgrade so it could process more heavy crude oil from Canada's oil sands
region. U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk, of Illinois, talked to EPA officials about
the spill and said they want BP to be held liable. They said in a joint statement Tuesday
that protecting Lake Michigan is a priority, because it is the primary source of drinking
water for millions of people in and around Chicago. They said they were encouraged the
oil had been contained and that the impact was expected to be minimal. "However, three
weeks ago, BP announced a plan to nearly double its processing of heavy crude oil at its
BP Whiting Refinery," they said in the statement. "Given today's events and BP's
decision to increase production, we are extremely concerned about the possibility of a
future spill that may not be so easily contained. We plan to hold BP accountable for this
spill and will ask for a thorough report about the cause of this spill; what the impact of
the Whiting Refinery's production increase on Lake Michigan will be and what steps are
being taken to prevent any future spill."
Oil drilling in the gulf is decreasing
Zacks Equity Research, 6/30 --- reporting service (6/30/14, “U.S. Rig Count
Jumps on Oil, Gas Drilling Improvement”,
http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/138545/us-rig-count-jumps-on-oil-gas-drillingimprovement, RE)
Gulf of Mexico (GoM): The GoM rig count was down by 3 to 54. Oil drilling
fell by 4 units to 41 rigs, while gas rigs increased from their week-ago level by 1 to 13.
links
Drilling destroys habitats and kills biodiversity – gulf proves
Laskow ’10 (Sarah, The Media Consortium, 6-4-10, “Weekly Mulch: Oil Spill Could
Bring Mass Extinction to the Gulf Coast,” Truth Out, http://truthout.org/archive/component/k2/item/89965:weekly-mulch-oil-spill-could-bring-massextinction-to-the-gulf-coast)//ER
A cap placed over a severed pipe is siphoning some oil from the broken BP well in the
Gulf Coast, the company said today. The company's CEO said this morning on CBS that
it was possible that this fix could capture up to 90% of the oil, but that it will take 24 to
48 hours to understand how well this solution is working. Adm. Thad Allen, the former
Coast Guard chief and oil spill incident commander, called the cap "only a temporary
and partial fix." Despite the capping procedure, it became clear this week that the onrush
of oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon rig will not cease any time soon. Even in the best
case scenario, thousands of barrels of oil will still flow into the ocean. Destruction is
already spreading along the Gulf Coast, and before the oil stops leaking, species might be
extinct and industries destroyed. In the coming months—it’s not clear how many—oil
will continue to pollute the Gulf of Mexico. BP and the Obama administration are talking
about August as the end of this crisis, but other experts have projected that the spill
could last until Christmas. As Justin Elliott reports for TPMMuckraker, BP told the
government it could handle a spill much larger than this one. In the initial exploration
plan for the well, BP claimed "it was prepared to respond to a blowout flowing at
300,000 barrels per day -- as much as 25 times the rate of the current spill," Elliott
writes. BP cannot, it turns out, respond to a blowout flowing less than 20,000 barrels per
day, and the consequences for the Gulf communities are only beginning to emerge. The
first casualty will be Gulf ecosystem and its inhabitants. The second casualty will be the
livelihood of Gulf communities that have depended on fish, shrimp, and oysters for
survival. How Long? In 1979, another company released torrents of oil in the Gulf of
Mexico, in much shallower waters than where BP was drilling. As Rachel Slajda writes
for TPMMuckeraker, the clean-up methods the oil industry relied on three decades ago
are similar to the technology BP is trying now. The Ixtoc spill was comparatively easy to
address; yet it still took 10 months to stop. During that spill, the nearest state, Texas, had
two months to prepare for the oil to hit shore, and still “1,421 birds were found with oiled
feathers and feet,” Slajda writes. The fishing industry escaped much damage, but the
tourism industry lost 7-10% of its business. Dead Fish In Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida,
and other states affected by this spill, fish, fowl, restaurateurs, and oystermen won't get
off easy. As Care2 reports, the National Wildlife Federation has already documented the
deaths of more than 150 threatened or endangered sea turtles and of 316 seabirds
(“mostly brown pelicans and northern gannets”). And BP is trying to keep images of the
animal victims away from the public. Julia Whitty, reporting from Louisiana, writes for
Mother Jones: All up and down this shoreline angry and scared people told me some
scary and infuriating stories in the past few days. I heard about the the dead and dying
wildlife we're never going to see because the victims are being carted away to early
responder ships and to inaccessible buildings onshore. I've seen some of those
photographs which can't be shown (according to BP's new orders) of dolphins swimming
through thick gunky oil, struggling sperm whales trailing wakes a mile long in thick
gunky oil, dead jellyfish in gunky oil. Extinction The impact of the oil spill goes beyond
those individual bodies, though. As Inter Press Service reports, environmentalists and
scientists “are beginning to reckon with the reality of a massive annihilation of sea
creatures and wildlife.” “You could potentially lose whole species, have extinction
events,” Michael Blum, a Tulane ecology professor told IPS. “Brown pelicans were just
taken off the endangered species list. On this threshold, a big dieback and mortality
event, they would be pushed back into a situation where they could be endangered.” Also
at Care2, Jay Holcomb, Executive Director of the International Bird Rescue Research
Center, demonstrates a brown pelican being de-oiled, her feathers shampooed with
Dawn detergent, her head and pouch cleaned with Q-tips. Livelihoods Destroyed For
generations, Gulf Coast residents made their living by fishing. Their fishing grounds are
now off-limits. Some have found short-term work with BP fighting the oil. But those jobs
come with new hazards. Some clean-up workers have reported dizziness, nausea, and
shortness of breath that they think comes from exposure to chemical dispersants. BP is
not providing safety gear that would clean the air workers breathe and has threatened to
fire clean-up workers who bring their own, Colorlines reports. In the long-term, Gulf
Coast fishermen may have no source of income and will have to abandon their homes
and professions. “It’s a way of life,” shrimper Dean Blachard told Democracy Now!’s Amy
Goodman this week. “They destroyed a way of life, a way of life that if you take it away
too long, you can’t learn this in a school. This is passed from generation to generation, so
the daddy teaches the son, and the son teaches his son. And, you know, once the chain is
broke, you’re never going to get it back.” It’s understandable that the residents of the
Gulf Coast might want BP to pay for the damage. At The Nation, Chris Hayes reveals that
BP could be on the hook for mitigation, the cash value of injured property, and for
punitive damages–all beyond the cost of cleanup itself. But, as Zygmunt J. B. Plater, a
law professor who chaired a legal task force on the Exxon Valdez spill, explains: “In
Alaska, most of the damage was suffered by communities who had their quality of life
destroyed, and there’s no way to put a dollar value on that.”
Drilling kills the environment –
Ecology
TEEIC ‘5 (Tribal Energy and Environmental Information, “Oil and Gas
Drilling/Development Impacts,”
http://teeic.indianaffairs.gov/er/oilgas/impact/drilldev/index.htm)//ER
Ecological Resources Impacts to ecological resources would be proportional to the
amount of surface disturbance and habitat fragmentation. Vegetation and topsoil would
be removed for the development of well pads, access roads, pipelines, and other ancillary
facilities. This would lead to a loss of wildlife habitat, reduction in plant diversity,
potential for increased erosion, and potential for the introduction of invasive or noxious
weeds. The recovery of vegetation following interim and final reclamation would vary by
community (e.g., grasslands would recover before sagebrush or forest habitats). Indirect
impacts to vegetation would include increased deposition of dust, spread of invasive and
noxious weeds, and the increased potential for wildfires. Dust settling on vegetation may
alter or limit plants' abilities to photosynthesize and/or reproduce. Over time, a
composition of native and/or invasive vegetation would become established in areas
disturbed by wildfire. Although oil and gas field development would likely increase the
spread of invasive and noxious weeds by increasing traffic and human activity, the
potential impacts could be partially reduced by interim reclamation and implementation
of mitigation measures. Adverse impacts to fish and wildlife could occur during the
drilling/development phase from: Erosion and runoff; Dust; Noise; Introduction and
spread of invasive nonnative vegetation; Modification, fragmentation, and reduction of
habitat; Mortality of biota; Exposure to contaminants; Interference with behavioral
activities; and Increased harassment and/or poaching. Depletion of surface waters from
perennial streams could result in a reduction of water flow, which could lead to habitat
loss and/or degradation for aquatic species.
Hazardous materials and waste products
TEEIC ‘5 (Tribal Energy and Environmental Information, “Oil and Gas
Drilling/Development Impacts,”
http://teeic.indianaffairs.gov/er/oilgas/impact/drilldev/index.htm)//ER
Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Solid and industrial waste would be
generated during development and drilling activities. Much of the solid wastes would be
expected to be nonhazardous; consisting of containers and packaging materials,
miscellaneous wastes from equipment assembly and presence of construction crews
(food wrappers and scraps), and woody vegetation. Industrial wastes would include
minor amounts of paints, coatings, and spent solvents. Most of these materials would
likely be transported off-site for disposal. In forested areas, commercial-grade timber
could be sold, while slash may be spread or burned near the well site. Drilling wastes
include hydraulic fluids, pipe dope, used oils and oil filters, rigwash, spilled fuel, drill
cuttings, drums and containers, spent and unused solvents, paint and paint washes,
sandblast media, scrap metal, solid waste, and garbage. Wastes associated with drilling
fluids include oil derivatives (e.g., such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
spilled chemicals, suspended and dissolved solids, phenols, cadmium, chromium,
copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and drilling mud additives (including potentially harmful
contaminants such as chromate and barite). Adverse impacts could result if hazardous
wastes are not properly handled and are released to the environment. Produced water
(water that coexists with oil and gas in the formation and is recovered during well
development) generation can be an issue during the drilling/development phase,
although it usually becomes a greater waste management concern over the long-term
operation of an oil or gas field because water production typically increases with the age
of the production well. One exception to this is the drilling and development of coalbed
methane reserves; produced water is generated at high volumes during the initial
completion and development of coalbed methane wells and then declines considerably as
methane production increases. Regulations govern the disposal of this produced water;
the majority of it is disposed of by underground injection either in disposal wells or, in
mature producing fields, in enhanced oil recovery wells (i.e., wells by which produced
water and other materials are injected into a producing formation in order to increase
formation pressure and production). In some locations, produced water may carry
naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) to the surface. Typically, the NORM
radionuclides (primarily radium-226, radium-228, and their progeny) are dissolved in
the produced water but a portion of the NORM can precipitate into solid form in scales
and sludges that collect in pipelines and storage vessels. Proper management of NORMbearing produced water and solid wastes is critical to prevent both occupational and
public human health risks and environmental contamination. NORM wastes are a
problem generally associated with long-term operation of an oil or gas field, but can also
be associated with the drilling/development phase. The NORM Technology Connection
Web site provides information about the regulation of NORM bearing wastes generated
by the petroleum industry.
Water
TEEIC ‘5 (Tribal Energy and Environmental Information, “Oil and Gas
Drilling/Development Impacts,”
http://teeic.indianaffairs.gov/er/oilgas/impact/drilldev/index.htm)//ER
Water Resources (Surface Water and Groundwater) Impacts to water resources could
occur due to water quality degradation from increases in turbidity, sedimentation, and
salinity; spills; cross-aquifer mixing; and water quantity depletion. During the
drilling/development phase, water would be required for dust control, making concrete,
consumptive use by the construction crew, and in drilling of wells. Depending on
availability, it may be trucked in from off-site or obtained from local groundwater wells
or nearby surface water bodies. Where surface waters are used to meet drilling and
development needs, depletion of stream flows could occur. Drilling and well
development often remove enormous amounts of groundwater, referred to as produced
water. The generation of produced water can create several problems: water may be
depleted from nearby aquifers; and produced groundwater that is saline or contaminated
with drilling fluids can contaminate soils or surface waters, if brought to the surface and
not reinjected to a suitable subsurface unit. Produced water also may contain organic
acids, alkalis, diesel oil, crankcase oils, and acidic stimulation fluids (e.g., hydrochloric
and hydrofluoric acids). Drilling activities may affect surface and groundwater flows. If a
well is completed improperly such that subsurface formations are not sealed off by the
well casing and cement, aquifers can be impacted by other non-potable formation
waters. The interaction between surface water and groundwater may also be affected if
the two are hydrologically connected, potentially resulting in unwanted dewatering or
recharging. Soils compacted on existing roads, new access roads, and well pads generate
more runoff than undisturbed sites. The increased runoff could lead to slightly higher
peak storm flows into streams, potentially increasing erosion of the channel banks. The
increased runoff could also lead to more efficient sediment delivery and increase
turbidity during storm events. During development, water quality can be affected by:
Activities that cause soil erosion or dust that can be washed into water bodies;
Weathering of newly exposed soils, causing leaching and oxidation that can release
chemicals into the water; Discharges of waste or sanitary water; Use of herbicide and
dust suppressants (e.g., magnesium chloride); and Contaminant spills. Also, increased
sediment loading could potentially increase salinity levels. Primary waste during
production is produced water, which can comprise 98% of material brought to the
surface. Conventional natural gas wells typically produce less water than oil wells.
Substances found in high concentrations in produced water include chloride, sodium,
calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Other contaminants can include PAHs, lead,
arsenic, barium, antimony, sulfur, zinc, and NORM. Other wastes include residual
wastes that remain after separation of the oil and natural gas.
Kills the environment and leads to climate change
Oceana, no date (Oceana, “Impacts of Offshore Drilling,” http://oceana.org/en/ourwork/stop-ocean-pollution/oil-pollution/learn-act/impacts-of-offshore-drilling)//ER
Offshore drilling operations create various forms of pollution that have considerable
negative effects on marine and other wildlife. These include drilling muds, brine wastes,
deck runoff water and flowline and pipeline leaks. Catastrophic spills and blowouts are
also a threat from offshore drilling operations. These operations also pose a threat to
human health, especially to oil platform workers themselves. Drilling muds and
produced water are disposed of daily by offshore rigs. Offshore rigs can dump tons of
drilling fluid, metal cuttings, including toxic metals, such as lead chromium and
mercury, as well as carcinogens, such as benzene, into the ocean. Effects of Drilling Muds
Drilling muds are used for the lubrication and cooling of the drill bit and pipe. The muds
also remove the cuttings that come from the bottom of the oil well and help prevent
blowouts by acting as a sealant. There are different types of drilling muds used in oil
drilling operations, but all release toxic chemicals that can affect marine life. One drilling
platform normally drills between seventy and one hundred wells and discharges more
than 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluids and metal cuttings into the ocean. Effects of
Produced Water Produced water is fluid trapped underground and brought up with oil
and gas. It makes up about 20 percent of the waste associated with offshore drilling.
Produced waters usually have an oil content of 30 to 40 parts per million. As a result, the
nearly 2 billion gallons of produced water released into the Cook Inlet in Alaska each
year contain about 70,000 gallons of oil. Effects of Exploration Factors other than
pollutants can affect marine wildlife as well. Exploration for offshore oil involves firing
air guns which send a strong shock across the seabed that can decrease fish catch,
damage the hearing capacity of various marine species and may lead to marine mammal
strandings. More drilling muds and fluids are discharged into the ocean during
exploratory drilling than in developmental drilling because exploratory wells are
generally deeper, drilled slower and are larger in diameter. The drilling waste, including
metal cuttings, from exploratory drilling are generally dumped in the ocean, rather than
being brought back up to the platform. Effects of Offshore Oil Rigs Offshore oil rigs may
also attract seabirds at night due to their lighting and flaring and because fish aggregate
near them. Bird mortality has been associated with physical collisions with the rigs, as
well as incineration by the flare and oil from leaks. This process of flaring involves the
burning off of fossil fuels which produces black carbon. Black carbon contributes to
climate change as it is a potent warmer both in the atmosphere and when deposited on
snow and ice. Drilling activity around oil rigs is suspected of contributing to elevated
levels of mercury in Gulf of Mexico fish.
Offshore drilling still an environmental risk despite reforms
Gronewold, 6/5 --- E&E reporter (6/5/14, Nathanial, “Gulf operations still unsafe
despite reforms -- CSB probe”, http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060000793, RE)
HOUSTON -- Four years after the deadly Macondo offshore well blowout and explosion, o il drilling in the
Gulf of Mexico remains unsafe despite scores of reform efforts, an
independent federal investigative team warns in a report released here
today. The accident at the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and seriously injured 17 sparked a widereaching reform initiative for offshore drilling regulations with authorities dissolving one federal agency and creating
three new ones in its place. And a chastened industry responded by creating two offshore-blowout response teams and
promising to double down on safety and assurance systems. But in a new investigation of the 2010
oil spill that could spark fresh debate over offshore oil and gas exploration
in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
concludes that all these changes aren't enough. Deepwater drilling remains
a risky proposition despite the new safety regulations , including the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE) requirement for all offshore drillers to have in place independently audited safety
and environmental management systems, or SEMS, says the panel that probes major chemical accidents. BSEE is one of
two agencies formed from the pieces of the now-defunct Minerals Management Service. The Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management now handles lease sales and permitting, while the Office of Natural Resources Revenue collects royalty
payments. BSEE's response in the wake of one of the worst environmental
disasters in U.S. history was a bid to strengthen the safety culture in the
offshore drilling industry by imposing strict new SEMS guidelines and
enhancing safety systems and inspections. Major oil and gas companies responded by founding
the Marine Well Containment Co. and the Helix Well Containment Group to pre-mobilize assets for offshore leak
response, including capping stacks and response vessels. And three major Texas universities collaborated to form the
Ocean Energy Safety Institute using a federal seed grant. The Chemical Safety Board's findings largely overlook those
efforts and focus attention on what it considers the most important element in accident prevention: the blowout preventer
-- the final device that stands between a loss of well control and a catastrophic offshore blowout. These key
pieces of safety-critical equipment the industry relies on as the final
backstop to preventing blowouts still contain dangerous design flaws, CSB
found. In a two-volume report on its investigation, CSB offers a new theory on why the Transocean Ltd. rig's blowout
preventer failed. CSB investigators believe the drilling pipe in the well at the time of the loss of well control "buckled due
to a phenomenon called effective compression" and prevented the blowout preventer (BOP) from effectively sealing the
well. CSB issued its findings at a press conference in downtown Houston today and will discuss its investigation at a public
gathering this afternoon. Investigation team leader Cheryl MacKenzie said that the buckling of drill pipe could lead
operations to conclude that a BOP had succeeded in plugging a well when in fact it had not. She added that her team’s
findings differ from other investigations in that the CSB concludes that the blind shear ram in the BOP was activated
during the disaster, but the pipe deformation prevented it from working properly. Other investigations concluded that the
critical BOP component was activated several days after the spill began. Faulty wiring in the BOP
control system at Macondo further highlights the lack of serious attention to
these safety systems inherent during the drilling operations, CSB notes in its
report. Bad wiring in the controls that went undetected by inspectors could have
led to disaster, but the nature of the fault allowed the system to work
regardless of the flaw. Ironically the mis-wired controls subsequently caused a battery failure in part of the
system, permitting the Deepwater Horizon's last-ditch safety system to activate the shears and sealing anyway, despite the
misalignment of the electronics within the system. The board found that a mis-wiring of a solenoid valve in one of two
redundant controls for the Deepwater Horizon BOP's blind shear ram (BSR) used to cut and seal pipe led to controls
opposing each other rather than working together. But at the same time, the faulty wiring drained battery power from one.
Had that not been the case, the BSR would have also failed, further highlighting mechanical errors that were undetected
despite repeated checks of the entire BOP system used by the Deepwater Horizon's crew. The BSR was
activated. Nevertheless, the buckled pipe prevented the BOP from doing its
job, leaving the well exposed and sending 5 million barrels of oil spilling into
the Gulf's waters, CSB says. And it could happen again, investigators warn.
"Had both coils been successfully energized on the day of the incident, the solenoid valve would have remained closed and
unable to initiate closure of the BSR," investigators write. "However, a drained battery likely rendered one of these coils
inoperable. This would have allowed the other coil to activate alone and initiate closure of the BSR, but buckled off-center
drillpipe in the BOP prohibited the BSR from fully closing and sealing the well." CSB argues that this design flaw -- the
inability of BOPs to seal a well due to buckled or misaligned drill pipe -- likely exists in other offshore operations' BOPs
and could be going undetected in offshore drilling and oil and gas production throughout the Gulf of Mexico. CSB
investigators found another oversight: The BSR in the Deepwater Horizon's BOP wasn't designed to cut and seal the
drilling pipe used for almost all of the Macondo well's development, save for the very end of the process when the accident
occurred. Macondo's blowout happened while the crew was attempting to temporarily plug and abandon the well, paving
the way for a production platform to later come in and complete it.
Arctic impact
Kills the arctic environment
Mathiesen ’13 (Karl, “Drilling in the Arctic - what is the environmental impact?,” 10-213, the guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/02/drillingarctic-environmental-impact-greenpeace-piracy)//ER
Greenpeace identifies two distinct threats posed by drilling in the Arctic. One is the
immediate threat of an oil spill. Greenpeace claims oil companies do not have
appropriate risk mitigation against this kind of accident. The indirect threat to the Arctic
ecosystem posed by climate change and the fossil fuel industry's contribution to carbon
emissions is the underpinning motivation for Greenpeace's actions. Diminishing Arctic
sea ice poses a direct threat to the Arctic's biodiversity and eventually to the planet, say
Greenpeace. Their website says Arctic oil exploration is being assisted by the melting ice:
The fragile Arctic is under threat from both climate change and oil drilling. As climate
change melts the Arctic ice, oil companies are moving in to extract more of the fossil
fuels that caused the melt in the first place. But above the Arctic circle, freezing
temperatures, a narrow drilling window and a remote location mean that an oil spill
would be almost impossible to deal with. It's a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Greenpeace is working to halt climate change and to stop this new oil rush at the top of
the world. Shell has been a particular target of Greenpeace. To examine some of
Greenpeace's claims against the Dutch and British-owned company you can read a list of
their charges against them. Mostly Greenpeace says it is concerned about the company's
unpreparedness to contain any accident. "The Arctic is the air conditioner and the
refrigerator of the planet and what happens here affect all of us," says Kumi Naidoo in
this interview with Bill Moyers.
Oil drilling puts arctic biodiversity at risk
Steiner ’11 (Rick, “Why Arctic Ocean oil drilling is a risky choice,” 10-19-11, Ecologist,
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/1
096998/why_arctic_ocean_oil_drilling_is_a_risky_choice.html)//ER
It's not a question of ‘if' a major spill will occur in the Arctic, but ‘when and where', says
conservation biologist and oil industry expert Rick Steiner As we enter the end of the age
of oil, it is clear that most of the world's easily accessible oil has already been produced.
Oil companies are now moving offshore into the last hydrocarbon frontiers - deepwater
and the Arctic Ocean. The dangers of deepwater drilling came into sharp focus in 2010
with the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, where 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the
Gulf of Mexico over a 3-month period. Another high-risk environment is the Arctic
Ocean, which geologists suggest may be the last significant oil and gas frontier left. As
decisions are made on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean, we need to understand
and acknowledge the risks. First, even if nothing goes wrong, there would be unavoidable
impacts from each phase of oil development in the Arctic Ocean - seismic exploration,
exploratory drilling, production platforms, pipelines, offshore and onshore terminals,
and tankers. Offshore oil development will include airplanes, helicopters, support ships,
drill ships, platforms, artificial islands, icebreakers, waste streams from ships and rigs,
lights and noise, extensive coastal infrastructure construction (ports, roads, causeways,
staging areas), subsea pipelines, geotechnical coring, and noise from underwater seismic
surveys. These industrial activities will add significant disturbance in an Arctic
ecosystems already suffering terribly from warming. The acoustic disturbance to marine
mammals from offshore oil development is of particular concern, as underwater noise
can affect communication, migration, feeding, mating, and other important functions in
whales, seals, and walrus. As well, noise can affect bird and fish migration, feeding and
reproduction, and can displace populations from essential habitat areas. Some of these
impacts can be reduced or mitigated with lease stipulations, but most cannot. And of
course, beyond these unavoidable operational impacts, there is the very real risk of a
large oil spill from exploration drilling, production, pipelines, terminals, and tankers.
While government and industry ritually understate the risk of oil spills and overstate
their preparedness, for high-risk environments such as the Arctic Ocean, we should
assume that a large marine oil spill will occur. In fact, for development off Alaska's Arctic
coast, U.S. government authorities project the risk of a major spill at about 30 - 50 per
cent, and that a worst-case blowout could release some 1.3 million barrels (58 million
gallons) of oil. So if drilling proceeds in the Arctic Ocean, then everything possible to
reduce risk should be required. The risk reduction standard for the Arctic should go well
beyond industry's preferred standard of ‘As Low As Reasonably Practicable' (ALARP), to
‘As Low As Possible' (ALAP), regardless of cost. This highest safety standard would
include best available and safest technology for all components of an offshore drilling
program - blowout preventers with redundant shear rams, well design and integrity
verification, proven seabed well capping equipment, independent well control experts on
rigs, rigorous cementing and pressure testing procedures, dual well control barriers,
immediate relief well capability on stand-by, state-of-the-art seabed pipeline design and
monitoring, tanker traffic monitoring, strict seasonal drilling windows allowing
sufficient time for response to late-season spills, robust spill response plans, rigorous
government permitting and inspection, and Citizens Advisory Councils to provide
effective citizen oversight. As well, financial liability for offshore oil spills in the Arctic
should be unlimited, thereby motivating companies to incorporate the highest safety
standards possible. Not "if" but "when" a spill will occur But regardless how safe we
make offshore drilling in the Arctic, there will still be a significant risk of a major oil spill,
and policy makers and industry need to be honest about this. People will make mistakes,
and equipment will fail. It's not a question of ‘if' a major spill will occur, but ‘when and
where.' A major spill will travel with currents, in and under sea ice during ice season, and
it would be virtually impossible to contain or recover. Even with robust oil spill response
capability, in most scenarios far less than 10 per cent will be recovered, and a major spill
could easily become a transnational event. A large spill would undoubtedly cause
extensive acute mortality in plankton, fish, birds, and marine mammals. As well, there
would be significant chronic, sub-lethal injury to organisms - physiological damage,
altered feeding behavior and reproduction, genetic injury, etc. - that would reduce the
overall viability of populations. There could be a permanent reduction in certain
populations, and for threatened or endangered species, a major spill could tip them into
extinction. With low temperatures and slow degradation rates, oil spilled in the Arctic
would persist for decades. And a major oil spill in the Arctic Ocean could severely
damage subsistence harvest opportunities, and forever change the lives of coastal
peoples. Put simply, oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean cannot be done without risk and
serious impact. There will be chronic degradation, and there will be spills. So the policy
question is whether we wish to expose the Arctic Ocean and its people to such risk.
Short-term profit motives To many, offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean represents
the classic fallacy of ‘suboptimisation': maximizing one component of a complex system
to the overall detriment of the system as a whole. For a few decades, there may be
billions of dollars in profits earned, and billions of barrels of oil and gas equivalent in
energy supplied. But the overall long-term cost to the region and global biosphere as a
whole could be exorbitant, far outweighing the short-term benefit. Regardless of how
safe we conduct offshore drilling in the Arctic, we would simply be doing in the best
possible way something that we shouldn't be doing at all. And therein lies society's
fundamental choice with the Arctic. Do we continue our industrial expansion into one of
the last wild and extreme areas of the world, extract and use the billions of tons of fossil
carbon energy here, further degrading the environment of the region and world, and
further delaying our necessary transition to a sustainable energy economy? Or, do we
choose another, kinder and sustainable future for this magnificent place? Our choice
here will tell us a lot about who we are, our selfless vs. selfish nature, and what our longterm future will be. Let's hope we choose wisely.
Aff kills the arctic – exacerbates warming, causes oil spills, and
is ineffective
Hossain et al, 14 - Senior Researcher at the Northern Institute for Environmental
and Minority Law in the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland (Kamrul Hossain,
Timo Koivurova, and Gerald Zojer (researchers), “Understanding Risks Associated with
Offshore Hydrocarbon Development”, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014,
springer)//AE
Risks Associated with Hydrocarbon Development in the Arctic¶ Hydrocarbon
development in the Arctic marine area could result in potentially
devastating damage to the environment, particularly were a serious
accident to occur at any stage of extraction activities, although normal
operational activities affect the environment as well. Pollution, such as from
oil discharges during drilling operations, releases of drilling mud and
chemicals used during the develop- ment and production phases, and
operational air emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, VOCs,
methane, black carbon) all have negative impacts on marine flora and fauna
abundance, health, and diversity (Casper 2009).¶ Oil spills are more dramatic
events and cause both short- and long-term adverse effects on the marine
environment. Oil spills and releases can occur as the result of blowouts
during exploration or production activities, from slow releases of oil from sub-sea
pipelines and on-land storage tanks or pipelines travelling to water, or from accidents
involving oil transportation vessels or vessels carrying fuel oil (Casper 2009). While
intermittent oil spills can occur quickly and remain in specific areas (such as from tanker
accidents), persistent oil spills occur mainly in the phase of exploration or production,
for example, by means of a blowout or through leak- ing pipelines. In the case of a
persistent oil spill, oil releases continuously and may spread over a larger area if it
cannot be embanked in time (Belanger et al. 2010). Spills from drilling platforms
normally last for longer periods of time, resulting in immediate and drastic
consequences to the environment and wildlife within the marine area, depending on
factors such as the type of crude oil spilled, environmen- tal conditions, time of year,
currents, and more (Belanger et al. 2010). The impacts of spilled oil, petroleum byproducts, and dispersants used for clean-up are of great concern for marine organisms
(Muhling et al. 2012).¶ While true that the Arctic has not experienced any major spills
from oil drill- ing activities to date, it is likewise true that extensive offshore development
in the Arctic has yet to commence and would increase the risk of spills. The 1989 Exxon¶
7 Understanding Risks Associated with Offshore Hydrocarbon Development 165¶ Valdez
spill, the largest sub-Arctic oil spill, occurred in significantly more accessi- ble and
favourable conditions, but nonetheless left a severe footprint in the region after a huge
amount of oil was released in a short time and gradually spread along the coastline (Pew
Environment Group n.d.). Following the (non-Arctic) 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident,
leaking of oil into water column continued persistently for over ninety days and an
estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil were discharged into the ocean environment
(Muhling et al. 2012), causing shocking consequences to a large marine area. The official
estimate suggests that despite clean-up opera- tion efforts––in conditions that were far
more accessible than in the Arctic and with greater infrastructure at hand––26 % of
residual oil remained in the seawater, whereas 24 % was naturally or chemically
dispersed (Maltrud et al. 2010). Should any such accident occur in the Arctic Ocean, the
potential impacts would presum- ably be much greater considering the fact that an
effective clean-up operation in Arctic conditions would face greater challenges, not to
mention high financial costs.¶ The main concerns related to offshore development in the
Arctic are the potential environmental impacts on its fragile ecosystems. The unique
environmental conditions in the Arctic include extended periods of darkness, reduced
visibility, ice-covered ocean areas, severe cold, high winds, and extreme storms (Casper
2009). The Arctic marine environment also has a unique seasonal shoreline and
oceanographic changes. The Arctic shore consists of ice shelves, glacier margins, ice foot
features, and tundra coast; the unique seasonal oceanographic and shoreline changes are
due to open water, freeze-up, frozen conditions, and break-up (EPPR 1998). If a largescale oil spill were to occur in the Arctic, the marine environment would undoubtedly
suffer serious adverse impacts and the impacts would be severe for the region’s species
and ecosys- tems, causing long-term contamination that would affect populations and
ecosystems for decades (Kaczynski and Brosnan 2008; AMAP 2007; Carpenter 2009).
For exam- ple, twelve years after the (sub-Arctic) Exxon Valdez accident, a survey found
sixty-one tons of undecayed oil in the subsurface sediments of Prince William Sound’s
intertidal shorelines and an almost equal amount of only minimally decayed subsurface
oil, rep- resenting only a 20–26 % per year decay rate. Direct exposure to oil, oil byproducts, and dispersants almost certainly results in increased rates of mortality for
many organ- isms. The effects of incorporation of oil into marine food webs are not yet
fully under- stood (Muhling et al. 2012), but would arguably cause contamination.
Moreover, increased infrastructure development in the Arctic to facilitate transportation
of poten- tial oil and gas, both on land and at sea, will further accelerate adverse
consequences on the Arctic environment, which is already vulnerable due to climate
change.10¶ The potential environmental impacts of oil and gas production are also
relevant for probable costs and insurance issues. Given the difficulty of handling an
accident, risk criteria will be set higher than in other offshore areas, such as the North
Sea, and thus managing and insuring risk in the offshore Arctic is likely to be costly.¶ 10
Climate change may allow for increased transport and greater access to Arctic resources
(par- ticularly fossil fuels) which would not only create potential environmental
consequences, but the burning of extracted fuels to meet global energy demand would
further accelerate climate change. See Koivurova T, Hossain K (2008).¶ ¶ Allowing
investors without sufficient funds for potential clean-up operations to drill in the Arctic
is essentially a risk transfer towards the public sector (Emmerson and Lahn 2012).
Even a small Arctic spill devastates marine ecosystem
Hossain et al, 14 - Senior Researcher at the Northern Institute for Environmental
and Minority Law in the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland (Kamrul Hossain,
Timo Koivurova, and Gerald Zojer (researchers), “Understanding Risks Associated with
Offshore Hydrocarbon Development”, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014,
springer)//AE
Oil Spill Impacts on Marine Living Resources¶ Unlike in ecosystems with less extreme
climatic conditions, most organisms in the fragile Arctic depend on limited sources of
food supply. The rates of biological factors––such as productive season lengths,
generational turnover time, and age of maturity––which determine how quickly an
ecosystem would recover from a spill are much slower in the Arctic. Therefore, a single
serious oil spill could destroy entire populations and greatly endanger unique species,
particularly were the event to overlap with the presence of migratory species, which often
congregate in relatively small areas. In addition, flora in Arctic terrestrial environments
tends to be much more susceptible than in less extreme environments (Kaczynski and
Brosnan 2008).¶ The living resources in the Arctic that would be most severely affected
by oil spills are fish stocks in the embryonic stage, and feathered and fur-bearing animals, which are harmed if they inhale or ingest oil (Carpenter 2009). Seasonal
aggregations of animals may be particularly vulnerable (e.g., marine mammals in open
water areas in sea ice, seabirds in breeding colonies or feeding sites, or fish at spawning
time). Near-coast species are affected by even small oil spills and ani- mals far offshore
are at risk if a spill moves out to sea rather than along the coast (Wolf 2007).¶ Oil spills
pollute seawater and adult fish readily take up oil components; how- ever, it is unlikely
that high concentrations of these components would accumu- late in the fish, which are
able to metabolize and excrete them. Massive fish kills caused by oil spills have not been
documented in the open sea, although this is largely because toxics concentrations in the
wider and deeper open seas seldom reached significant levels. Another reason for this
could be avoidance behaviour, whereby adult fish are mobile and can escape
contaminated areas, as is witnessed among salmon and cod (Mosbech 2002).
Nonetheless, oil spills do directly con- tribute to fish kills and lead to the gradual
reduction of fish stocks. Spawn and fish larvae are particularly sensitive to the effects of
petroleum products, as eggs and larvae cannot move to avoid spilled oil, unlike adult
fish, and even greater mortality may occur (Mosbech 2002). Hydrocarbons poison the
larvae of many aquatic organisms and can kill them during the initial days following an
oil spill (Lesikhina et al. 2007). Low levels of dissolved oil hydrocarbons may also slow
larval growth rates and affect swimming and feeding behaviours (Muhling et al. 2012).
An oil spill in spawning areas could severely reduce that year’s recruitment. The risk is
greater in the Arctic conditions where effective oil spill clean-up opera- tion is difficult.
Dispersants, if used for spill clean-up, could also expose fish eggs and larvae to harmful
concentrations of oil components, as dispersants’ low evapo- ration rate increases
aquatic exposure.¶ In ice-free waters, marine mammals may be able to avoid oil, but
frozen sea ice may limit open water areas on which marine mammals rely. White whales,
nar- whals, bowhead whales, ringed seals, walrus, and bearded seals are particularly at
risk from oil exposure, as these species’ primary habitat is ice-covered waters. Polar
bears, seals, and walrus are the most commonly occurring species in the Arctic waters
during the icy period. Marine mammals with fur, such as sea otters, polar bears and
seals, are more vulnerable to oil spills than other sea mammals, as fur contaminated with
oil mats and loses its ability to retain heat and repel water. Oiling may disrupt fur’s
insulating effect, which species like polar bears depend upon. Oil is, as for other marine
species, toxic to the bears and studies suggest that ingestion results in lethal poisoning
(Boertmann and Aastrup 2002). Oil can addi- tionally cause irritation to animals’ skin
and eyes and impede their normal ability to swim (AMAP 1997). Whales and most seals,
which rely on blubber rather than fur for insulation, are generally less vulnerable to
oiling, but ingested oil can still result in cause gastrointestinal bleeding, renal failure,
liver poisoning, and blood pressure disruption. Fumes resulting from the evaporation of
oil lead to problems in the respiratory organs of mammals near to, or in the immediate
vicinity of, large-scale oil spills. Moreover, oil spills and contamination result in loss of
the mammals’ food supply (OGP 2002).¶ Seabirds are among the immediate indicators of
wildlife and environmental damage during marine spill events and spilled oil
contaminates birds’ food sup- plies, eggs, and habitat (Montevecchi et al. 2012). Birds
that feed at sea through- out or for part of the year are considered sensitive to oil spills
(Mosbech 2002). Exposure to oil destroys plumage, mats feathers, and causes eye
irritation. Oily feathers hinder birds from flying and deprive them of their ability to
retain warmth, eventually causing death from hypothermia. Arctic seabirds, which live in
cold water, are especially vulnerable to the destruction of the insulating capacity of
plumage. Long-term exposure to toxic oil may also hamper bird’s reproductive capacity
(AMAP 2007).
Arctic implementation hurts the environment – laundry list
Hossain et al, 14 - Senior Researcher at the Northern Institute for Environmental
and Minority Law in the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland (Kamrul Hossain,
Timo Koivurova, and Gerald Zojer (researchers), “Understanding Risks Associated with
Offshore Hydrocarbon Development”, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014,
springer)//AE
Other Operational Impacts¶ Oil and gas activities have a number of other operational
impacts on the marine environment. For example, the construction of gravel islands and
causeways can impede fish migrations and near-shore water flow. Drill cutting piles
accumulating near rigs can disturb bottom-dwelling animals.¶ The use of ice-breakers can
affect ice habitats and also create considerable noise, as can air traffic noise that may
occur during transport of logistics supplies to the offshore installations and can frighten
animals, causing displacement and disrupting feeding schedules. Large increases in
ocean vessel traffic to support hydrocarbon development will raise the number of bird
and animal strikes and dis- turb wildlife (Wolf 2007). Fish and marine mammals both
are affected by noise, the effects of which can extend tens of kilometres from the source,
particularly by sounds generated from seismic exploration (NRC 2003). For instance, in
the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, bowhead whales have been observed to change swimming
direction in response to noise sources up to 30 kilometres away. Whale hunters in
northern Alaska report that they must travel farther offshore to find whales, a change
attributed to the displacement of whales from near-shore areas by indus- trial noise
(AMAP 2007). Species such as whales, walruses, and seals are sensitive to man-made
sounds and research shows they move away from industrial noises (AMAP 2007), even
though such avoidance behaviour is often temporary. Further, since marine mammals
rely on hearing to locate prey, seismic activities could drive animals away from
important feeding sites (Wolf 2007).¶ Hydrocarbon-related transportation and other
activities create pressures for improving infrastructure, which may cause fragmentation
of both maritime and terrestrial habitats. Many animals have dense seasonal
aggregations on breed- ing grounds, along migratory pathways, or along the ice edges
and in open water polynyas in the sea ice, making them temporarily vulnerable to even
localised incidents. Rigs, drill ships, and offshore pipelines also tend to impair migration
routes. Even without pollution or accidents, oil and gas activities can reduce the
wilderness character of a region (AMAP 2007).¶ Oil and gas development in the Arctic is
expected to exacerbate global climate change by increasing the availability of oil and gas
to be consumed, contributing to increased greenhouse gas emissions (see, e.g., Casper
2009). Offshore instal- lations and gravel islands, infrastructural development,
transportation facilities, and industrial activities related to offshore development will
lead to significant new emissions sources, perpetuating the impacts of climate change
and Arctic sea ice melt (Hossain 2010). A rough estimate suggests that a barrel of crude
oil pro- duces 300 kg of carbon dioxide after refining and combustion processes. If the
Arctic’s resources comprise 90 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil (based on the
USGS 2008 estimate), the region’s reserves could eventually produce 27 billion tons of
carbon dioxide emissions, an amount comparable to current world total annual
emissions, further hindering efforts to mitigate climate change (Greenpeace 2010).
Arctic drilling makes spills INEVITABLE – extraction methods
KILL the region
Steiner, 11 – retired prof @ U. Alaska, oil industry expert (Rick, “Why Arctic Ocean
Oil Drilling Is a Risky Choice”, The Ecologist, October 19, 2011, reference shelf
2014)//AE
It’s not a question of “if” a major spill will occur in the Arctic, but “when
and where” , says conservation biologist and oil industry expert Rick Steiner.¶ As we
enter the end of the age of oil, it is clear that most of the world’s easily accessible oil has
already been produced. Oil companies are now moving offshore into the last
hydrocarbon frontiers—deepwater and the Arctic Ocean.¶ The dangers of deepwater
drilling came into sharp focus in 2010 with the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, where
200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over a 3-month period. Another
high-risk environment is the Arctic Ocean, which geologists suggest may be the last
significant oil and gas frontier left. As deci- sions are made on oil and gas drilling in the
Arctic Ocean, we need to understand and acknowledge the risks.¶ First, even if nothing
goes wrong, there would be unavoidable impacts from each phase of oil development in
the Arctic Ocean—seismic exploration, exploratory drilling, production platforms,
pipelines, offshore and onshore terminals, and tank- ers.¶ Offshore oil development will
include airplanes, helicopters, support ships, drill ships, platforms, artificial islands,
icebreakers, waste streams from ships and rigs, lights and noise, extensive coastal
infrastructure construction (ports, roads, cause- ways, staging areas), subsea pipelines,
geotechnical coring, and noise from under- water seismic surveys. These industrial
activities will add significant disturbance in an Arctic ecosystems already suffering
terribly from warming.¶ The acoustic disturbance to marine mammals from offshore oil
development is of particular concern, as underwater noise can affect communication,
migration, feeding, mating, and other important functions in whales, seals, and walrus.
As well, noise can affect bird and fish migration, feeding and reproduction, and can
displace populations from essential habitat areas. Some of these impacts can be reduced
or mitigated with lease stipulations, but most cannot.¶ And of course, beyond these
unavoidable operational impacts, there is the very real risk of a large oil spill from
exploration drilling, production, pipelines, terminals, and tankers. While government
and industry ritually understate the risk of oil spills and overstate their preparedness, for
high-risk environments such as the Arctic Ocean, we should assume that a large marine
oil spill will occur.¶ In fact, for development off Alaska’s Arctic coast, U.S. government
authorities project the risk of a major spill at about 30–50 percent, and that a worst-case
blow- out could release some 1.3 million barrels (58 million gallons) of oil.¶ So if drilling
proceeds in the Arctic Ocean, then everything possible to re- duce risk should be
required. The risk reduction standard for the Arctic should go well beyond industry’s
preferred standard of “As Low As Reasonably Practicable” (ALARP), to “As Low As
Possible” (ALAP), regardless of cost.¶ This highest safety standard would include best
available and safest technology for all components of an offshore drilling program—
blowout preventers with redun- dant shear rams, well design and integrity verification,
proven seabed well capping equipment, independent well control experts on rigs,
rigorous cementing and pres- sure testing procedures, dual well control barriers,
immediate relief well capability on stand-by, state-of-the-art seabed pipeline design and
monitoring, tanker traffic monitoring, strict seasonal drilling windows allowing
sufficient time for response to late-season spills, robust spill response plans, rigorous
government permitting and inspection, and Citizens Advisory Councils to provide
effective citizen oversight. As well, financial liability for offshore oil spills in the Arctic
should be unlimited, thereby motivating companies to incorporate the highest safety
standards possible.¶ Not “If” but “When” a Spill Will Occur¶ But regardless how safe we
make offshore drilling in the Arctic, there will still be a significant risk of a major oil spill,
and policy makers and industry need to be honest about this. People will make mistakes,
and equipment will fail. It’s not a question of “if” a major spill will occur, but “when and
where.Ӧ A major spill will travel with currents, in and under sea ice during ice season,
and it would be virtually impossible to contain or recover. Even with robust oil spill
response capability, in most scenarios far less than 10 percent will be recovered, and a
major spill could easily become a transnational event.¶ A large spill would undoubtedly
cause extensive acute mortality in plankton, fish, birds, and marine mammals. As well,
there would be significant chronic, sub-lethal injury to organisms—physiological
damage, altered feeding behavior and reproduc- tion, genetic injury, etc.—that would
reduce the overall viability of populations.¶ There could be a permanent reduction in
certain populations, and for threat- ened or endangered species, a major spill could tip
them into extinction. With low temperatures and slow degradation rates, oil spilled in
the Arctic would persist for decades. And a major oil spill in the Arctic Ocean could
severely damage subsis- tence harvest opportunities, and forever change the lives of
coastal peoples.¶ Put simply, oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean cannot be done without risk
and seri- ous impact. There will be chronic degradation, and there will be spills. So the
policy question is whether we wish to expose the Arctic Ocean and its people to such risk.
Short-Term Profit Motives¶ To many, offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean represents
the classic fallacy of “suboptimization”: maximizing one component of a complex system
to the overall detriment of the system as a whole.¶ For a few decades, there may be
billions of dollars in profits earned, and billions of barrels of oil and gas equivalent in
energy supplied. But the overall long-term cost to the region and global biosphere as a
whole could be exorbitant, far outweigh- ing the short-term benefit. Regardless of how
safe we conduct offshore drilling in the Arctic, we would simply be doing in the best
possible way something that we shouldn’t be doing at all.¶ And therein lies society’s
fundamental choice with the Arctic. Do we continue our industrial expansion into one of
the last wild and extreme areas of the world, ex- tract and use the billions of tons of fossil
carbon energy here, further degrading the environment of the region and world, and
further delaying our necessary transition to a sustainable energy economy? Or, do we
choose another, kinder and sustainable future for this magnificent place? Our choice
here will tell us a lot about who we are, our selfless vs. selfish nature, and what our longterm future will be. Let’s hope we choose wisely.
Right whale recovery
Right whale population increasing
Kirby, 6/17 --- reporter for takepart (6/17/14, David, “The Rarest Whale on Earth is
Bouncing Back From the Brink”, http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/06/17/rarestwhale-earth-bouncing-back, RE)
Amid all the depressing news about the declining state of the world’s oceans, here’s a genuine feel-good story: The
critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population, once decimated
by ship collisions, has rebounded to more than 500 individuals. That’s the
highest level since researchers began studying the whale three decades ago.
News of the whales’ recovery was first reported Monday in the Yarmouth County Vanguard, a Nova Scotia newspaper.
According to the article, the right whale population in Canada’s Bay of
Fundy has added more than 300 calves since 1998. Every summer and fall, a
scientific survey is conducted to count and study the right whale population
in the Bay, a critical habitat area. The rebound was the result of a multiyear
effort led by the Irving Oil company of Saint John, New Brunswick, in partnership with researchers,
mariner organizations, environmental groups, the Canadian government,
and the International Maritime Organization. In 2003 the coalition
successfully pushed for the rerouting of shipping traffic in the Bay of Fundy, which lies
between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and is an important feeding ground and nursery area for the North Atlantic right
whale population.
It was the first time that shipping lanes were changed to
protect an endangered species , according to the Vanguard. The rerouting reduced the risk of ships
striking the whales by 90 percent, the Vanguard reported. Irving Oil began working with the New England Aquarium in
1997 to protect the right whales, and has contributed more than $1 million for right whale research, conservation, and
education. The right whale, the rarest of large whales, is distinguished by its
massive head and jaws, which comprise up to one-third of its body.
Northern right whales are the most endangered whales on earth. Right
whales were almost hunted to extinction by whalers, who named the animal for its valuable
amount of blubber, oil, and baleen, thus making it the “right” whale to hunt and kill ,
according to National Geographic. “Since our partnership began 17 years ago, there hasn't been a recorded ship-whale
collision in the Bay of Fundy shipping lanes,” Paul Browning, chief executive of Irving Oil, told the Vanguard. Regina
Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of the North American office of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, acknowledged that
the right whale population has increased dramatically. But “survivorship is still an issue,” she said in an email. “There has
been a small recovery in the species, but 500 is still a tiny population.” Equally concerning, Asmutis-Silvia noted, is the
small number of new calves this year. Only 10 were born, about half the number as in 2013. One of the 10 did not
survive.
“The bottom line is it’s okay to be cautiously optimistic and acknowledge that we are moving in the right
direction, but I don’t think we are quite yet to the point where we can take our eye off the ball,” Asmutis-Silvia said. “It
doesn’t take long to decimate a species, but it can take generations to help
them recover. It’ll be a while before it’s time to pop the champagne cork.”
Right whales – link
Kills right whales
Maynard 3-1 (James, “Atlantic oil drilling using seismic airgun may wipe out
endangered right whales,” 3-1-14,
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/3912/20140301/atlantic-oil-drilling-using-seismicairgun-may-wipe-out-endangered-right-whales.htm)//ER
Oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean may drive North Atlantic right whales to extinction,
warn environmentalists. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recently issued new
guidelines that could affect the search for oil off the coasts of America. Officials there are
concerned about planned seismic testing, used in the search for gas and oil reserves.
Leases to drill in offshore locations were set to allow drilling, beginning in 2011. After the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the Obama Administration delayed drilling until
2017. Oil industry officials want to use modern seismic techniques to recheck areas
explored decades ago using older technologies. Seismic guns deliver powerful blasts of
compressed air that travel through water, striking the ocean floor. When these waves of
pressure propagate through bedrock, they bend as they move from one type of material
to another. By measuring the degree by which the wave is reflected, it is possible to
determine the make-up, and location, of oil deposits. Proponents of seismic exploration
believe they may be able to discover new reserves of fuel. In addition, they could also
avoid costly drilling in areas where oil is not likely to be found. The Interior Department
recently recommended exploration using seismic guns. Wildlife conservation groups,
however, are fighting this technique, saying animals in the marine environment should
not be exposed to the effects of the blasts. Whales, dolphins, and many other animals
depend on sound for navigation and communication. The seismic testing, which would
continue for at least one year, could put the marine animals in danger. "Seismic airgun
testing isn't simply a method of surveying a coastal area for its energy potential. The
blasts from seismic airguns are 100,000 times more intense than a jet plane engine and
are emitted every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for weeks and months at a time. It's
disruptive, destructive, and directly threatens the survival of marine creatures like
dolphins, whales, and turtles," Suzie Hodges of Oceana, a conservancy group, wrote on
the organization's Web site. Government estimates say an estimated 138,500 marine
mammals, such as dolphins and whales, may be injured by testing. The blasts will be
powerful enough to cause temporary or permanent hearing loss in animals. They can
also kill eggs and pupae. North Atlantic right whales migrate near the areas being tested,
along the east coast of the United States, between Florida and Delaware. Just 500 of the
highly-intelligent and social animals are known to be alive today. Jobs are another issue
being considered in this debate. Oil companies have stated seismic exploration could
create up to 280,000 jobs. Estimates by Oceana predict 730,000 jobs will put at risk by
the seismic guns, due to disruptions in tourism and boating. Activists are comparing the
sounds of testing to hearing dynamite exploding in your backyard.
Right Whale is an Umbrella species- protects biodiversity
CEC No Date [Commission for Environmental Cooperation, North America,
http://www.cec.org/soe/files/en/SOE_SpeciesCommon_en.pdf]
Umbrella species are those whose effective conservation will result in the protection of
many other species that share the same habitat. Forhighly migratory animalssuch as
theleatherback turtle, hawksbill turtle, loggerhead turtle, right
whale, gray whale, pink-footed shearwater, short-tailed albatross
and whooping crane, protection of umbrella species means protecting a whole
suite of linked habitats—and the myriad organisms they support.
the plan leads to seismic airgun testing – that kills whales and
turtles
Chris Carnevale, 4-20-2013, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, works in advocacy
for clearn energy development and coastal responses to climate change, "Why We Should
Not Drill Offshore the South Atlantic," http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2013/04/20/whywe-should-not-drill-offshore-the-south-atlantic/~~23sthash.2WNB0Hok.dpuf
The current proposal by the federal government to open the Atlantic to offshore oil and gas
exploration includes the use of seismic airgun testing. This type of testing involves
creating large blasts of noise that help show where petroleum deposits are.
The noises are so loud, though, that they can damage hearing and navigation
of marine mammals like whales and dolphins as well as other marine
creatures. According to the federal government, allowing this testing would result in the
death or injury of up to 138,500 marine mammals by 2020 and disrupt
migratory and mating habits of many creatures including sea turtles.
European
studies have shown declines in catch rates for commercially important fish due to seismic airgun testing.
Drilling puts whale population at risk
Young, 5/22 --- marine scientist at Oceana (5/22/14, Sarah, “500 Right Whales
Could Face the Wrong Fate (Op-Ed)”, https://news.yahoo.com/500-whales-could-facewrong-fate-op-ed-210549581.html, RE)
Ever since the depletion of the North Atlantic right whale population, these whales have struggled to
recover , in part because of how long it takes them to mature and reproduce, and also because of threats they face from human
activity. The characteristics that made these whales the "right" ones to hunt are
now placing them in the path of other dangers. Though there is a moratorium on commercial
whaling, these whales have still faced threats like injuries and fatalities from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement . Wit h the
new seismic testing proposal, the situation grows even worse . The U.S.
Department of the Interior is currently considering opening critical North
Atlantic right whale habitat to seismic testing. The tests create sound waves that help geophysicists
map the seafloor for oil and gas deposits, the first step on the path to offshore oil drilling in the
Atlantic ocean. The sound waves are generated by seismic airguns that blast
compressed air at sounds 100,000 times more intense than standing near a
jet engine. These blasts can occur every 10 minutes, for days to weeks on end, and may result in temporary or permanent hearing
loss for the whales, along with habitat abandonment, disruption of mating and feeding, beaching events and even death. The
planned testing area stretches along the East Coast between Delaware and
mid-Florida and coincides with right whales' migration routes. Startlingly, the U.S.
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management itself estimates that more than
138,000 marine mammals could be seriously injured or killed by these
blasts, including the extremely rare right whales. And if offshore drilling does move into the
Atlantic, future oil spills could put these rarest of great whales into even
more risk of further depletion.
Horizon spill occurred,
With offshore drilling no safer than it was four years ago when the BP Deepwater
the United States should not open the Atlantic to seismic
testing and future oil drilling, and we definitely do not need to subject these
whales to further risks beyond those they already face . The administration
of U.S. President Barack Obama should reconsider its plans to allow the use
of seismic airguns, and listen to the 14 coastal communities; the more than 150 national,
state, and local elected officials; and 160 environmental and welfare organizations who have taken clear stances opposing such seismic
testing.
We do not need to turn the Atlantic into a blast zone to fulfill our
energy needs.
Polar bears
Kills polar bears
Endangered Species Coalition, no date (“Polar Bear,”
http://fuelingextinction.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82)//E
R
Threats Faced By Fossil Fuel Development The polar bear was the first mammal listed as
threatened based solely on climate change threats. Reducing greenhouse gases that lead
to global warming, which in turn are melting the polar ice caps, is one of the most
important problem facing the governments of the world today. Scientists have noted an
increase in drowning and starvation in polar bears as the sea ice melts. Potential oil spills
are also a severe threat to polar bears. A polar bear cannot regulate its body temperature
when its coat is covered in oil. And, if the bear ingests the oil while grooming, it could
die. Furthermore, ice seals, polar bears’ primary prey, are vulnerable to oiling and could
pass contaminants to bears. Recent years have brought immense political pressure for
offshore oil drilling in polar bear habitat. As industrial activity increases, so does the risk
of a catastrophic oil spill. Shell Oil is asking the federal government for permission to
drill in the Arctic Ocean as soon as summer 2012. There is no way to clean up an oil spill
in icy Arctic waters, and during certain times of the year, any response may be
impossible. Therefore, a large-scale oil spill could continue over many months, if not
years. If a large spill reached polar bears along the coasts or on land waiting for sea ice to
return, it could harm them in large numbers. In considering a small-scale spill, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) estimates up to eight percent of the Southern Beaufort
Sea polar bears could be oiled. Given more realistic spill scenarios, a larger number of
bears could be immediately impacted. And, the inability to quickly contain or clean up a
spill would magnify the long-term impact, potentially killing large numbers of bears.
Even in the absence of an oil spill, daily oil and gas activities negatively impact polar
bears. Seismic testing, icebreaking activities, aircraft flights, and ship activity disturb
polar bears, and their ice seal prey. Proposed Marine Mammal Protection Act regulations
for oil and gas activities in the Beaufort Sea demonstrate these impacts: as many as 150
polar bears per year may experience distress from oil and gas activities in the Beaufort
Sea alone, and as much as 20 percent of the Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar
bears could be impacted by industry operations in the next two years. Given that we
already see starving and drowning polar bears, this additional stressor is gravely
dangerous for polar bears. In addition, Congress continues to push legislation to open
the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The
Coastal Plain is the most significant onland denning site for polar bears in the United
States. The oil industry has not proven it can develop in the Arctic responsibly. The
Prudhoe Bay area, just west of the Arctic Refuge, is currently our nation’s largest
industrial site and experiences an average of an oil spill per day.
impacts
Loss of biodiversity causes extinction.
Diner, 94 [David, Ph.D., Planetary Science and Geology, "The Army and the
Endangered Species Act: Who's Endangering Whom?," Military Law Review, 143 Mil. L.
Rev. 161
To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp
southeastern shrew 74 could save [hu]mankind may be difficult for some.
Many, if not most, species are useless to[hu]man[s] in a direct utilitarian
sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their
extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely
interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species
dependent on it. 75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of
each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 4.
Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that
diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction has
progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This
trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and
within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry
serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are
characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow
ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less
diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully
it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to
others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a
simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down
as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially
simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the
risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the
dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild
examples of what might be expected if this trend continues.
Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly
perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem
collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of
disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an
aircraft's wings, 80 [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.
Sea turtle loss causes extinction
Todd Steiner, xx-xx-2010, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Executive Director at Turtle
Island Restoration Network, San Francisco Bay Area, “Are Sea Turtles Worth Saving?”
http://www.bonaireturtles.org/explore/are-sea-turtles-worth-saving/
Sea turtles demonstrate the ultimate lesson of ecology – that everything is connected.
Sea turtles are part of
vital ecosystems , beaches and marine systems. If sea turtles become extinct, both the
marine and beach ecosystems will weaken. And since humans use the ocean as an important
source for food and use beaches for many kinds of activities, weakness in these ecosystems would
have harmful effects on humans. Though sea turtles have been living and thriving in the world’s oceans for
150 million years, they are now in danger of extinction largely because of changes brought about by
humans. If we alter the oceans and beaches enough to wipe out sea turtles, will those changes make
it difficult for us to survive ? And if we choose to do what’s necessary to save sea
two
turtles, might we save our own future ? Beaches and dune systems do not get very many nutrients
during the year, so very little vegetation grows on the dunes and no vegetation grows on the beach itself. This is because
sand does not hold nutrients very well. Sea turtles use beaches and the lower dunes to nest and lay their eggs. Sea turtles
lay around 100 eggs in a nest and lay between 3 and 7 nests during the summer nesting season. Not every nest will hatch,
not every egg in a nest will hatch, and not all of the hatchlings in a nest will make it out of the nest. All the unhatched
nests, eggs and trapped hatchlings are very good sources of nutrients for the dune vegetation. Even the left-over egg shells
from hatched eggs provide nutrients. Dune plants use the nutrients from turtle eggs to grow and become stronger. As the
dune vegetation grows stronger and healthier, the health of the entire beach/dune ecosystem becomes better. Healthy
vegetation and strong root systems hold the sand in the dunes and protect the beach from erosion. As the number of
turtles declines, fewer eggs are laid in the beaches, providing less nutrients. If sea turtles went extinct,
dune vegetation would lose a major source of nutrients and would not be
healthy or strong enough to maintain the dunes, allowing beaches to wash
away. Sea turtles eat jellyfish, preventing the large “blooms” of jellyfish – including
stinging jellyfish – that are increasingly wreaking havoc on fisheries, recreation and other maritime
activities throughout the oceans. Research has shown that sea turtles often act as
keystone species . Sea grass beds grazed by green sea turtles are more productive than those that aren’t.
Hawksbill turtles eat sponges, preventing them from out-competing slow-growing corals. Both of these grazing
activities maintain species diversity and the natural balance of fragile
marine ecosystems. If sea turtles go extinct, it will cause declines in all the
species whose survival depends on healthy seagrass beds and coral reefs. That
means that many marine species that humans harvest would be lost. Sea turtles, and
many species that are affected by their presence or absence, are an important attraction for marine tourism, a major
source of income for many countries. These are some of the
roles
that we
know sea turtles play
in the essential health of ecosystems . Who knows what other roles we will discover as science
reveals more about sea turtles? While humans have the ability to tinker with the “clockwork” of life, we don’t have the
ability to know when it’s okay to lose a few of the working parts. If you disagree, try to take apart a clock
and just throw away one of the pieces that doesn’t look that important. Put
the clock back together and see if it still works.