Cost of Banning Oil-and-Gas Drilling? Two Point Three Six Trillion Dollars Over 20 Years

Or -- a half of a percent shaved off GDP every single year. And that's big, because even solid growth is a mere three point five percent. (And our best hope is probably for a weak 2% rate of growth for the next ten years.)

So yes, let's definitely stop oil and gas drilling. We can easily afford another two and a third trillion on top of Obama's planned ten trillion.

And by the way -- by "banning" such drilling, what they're really talking about is continuing the bans already in effect.

Obama's talking about loosening the bans up -- talking. And they don't need to be loosened up, they need to be dramatically reduced. (The bans, I mean, which in turn increases actual drilling.)

This should provide some ammo for industry groups pushing the White House to allow wider drilling: A new report says U.S. oil-and-gas drilling bans will increase consumer energy costs and decrease cumulative U.S. GDP by $2.36 trillion over the next two decades

That’s an average annual GDP drop of roughly a half a percent.

The report, commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, comes as President Obama is signaling that he’ll back expanded offshore drilling as he seeks GOP and centrist Democratic support for a broader energy and climate bill.

The report explores restrictions on offshore drilling and onshore areas, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was conducted by the Science Applications International Corp. and the industry-backed Gas Technology Institute.

It concludes that maintaining limits on domestic exploration will cause U.S. oil production to decrease by nearly 10 billion barrels total by 2030, while OPEC imports rise. The U.S. used roughly 7 billion barrels of oil in 2008.

posted by Ace at 02:37 PM

| Access Comments