The 24-Year Object Lesson That Should End The "Drill Now" Debate

I understand that Barack Obama is defending his move on offshore drilling as simply a practical effort to reach consensus and get things done.

"If we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don't like, or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that's something I'm open to," the Illinois Democrat said.

This is exactly what he's promised in his campaign, and must be his understanding of how to "change politics." What I think is it's a fool's errand that involves giving up on any core beliefs in return for pretty much nothing and certainly no political advantage. Conservatives will still beat you up like a piñata, to set you up for the next compromise where you must give up even more. It doesn't work.

And in this case, you're allowing some undefined amount of offshore drilling, which is nothing but a gimmick. When it does nothing to lower gas prices, Obama will be told that it's because he only allowed some drilling, at which point he'll be told to release the rest of the OCS and ANWR because that's where the real oil is. It's the very fact that it is a gimmick which will have us return to this issue over and over.

Anyone who thinks that oil companies will immediately set to drilling and providing that oil into your gas tank needs to read this LA Times story about Hermosa Beach's efforts to raise needed funds by offering leases on municipal property. This was the result of a ballot measure in 1984. 24 years later, no oil has been produced, and none ever will.

The deal seemed straightforward enough. Hermosa Beach voters had overturned a 52-year-old ban on oil drilling, and a small Santa Monica company had signed the lease for the job, one that was supposed to earn the small city as much as $2 million a year.

But after more than a decade in court, not a drop of oil has been pumped from the ground. Instead, the deal that was supposed to solve the city's financial problems and help fund schools threatens to send it into bankruptcy.

The state Supreme Court last month refused to review a lower court ruling that Hermosa Beach had breached its contract with Macpherson Oil Co. and ruled that a trial must be held to decide how much the city owes.

Macpherson's lawsuit asks for damages of more than $100 million. The city's latest settlement offer: $4.5 million.

"They never put a shovel in the ground," Mayor J.R. Reviczky said. "For doing nothing, other than pursuing approvals, that's pretty generous."

The reason that Macpherson is suing is because the voters in Hermosa overturned the measure through ballot initiative in 1995, reinstating the ban. That was 11 years after the initial lifting, and in that time, nothing was drilled. It took two years to find a company willing to do the work. Then there were environmental impact studies and capital that needed to be raised and lawsuits from citizen's groups, etc., etc. This would be the case in any municipality in America within range of an offshore site. 11 years later, America wouldn't have one more drop of domestic oil, major oil companies would sell stock at a premium off the reserves but never set up a rig, and Republicans would blame this on the compromise deal, without question. If you invite weakness, you perpetuate it. And you make your arguments look insipid.



That's embarrassing, on an issue where Kerry is totally in the right.

This issue is a sham, and Hermosa Beach is a perfect example. There's room for compromise when the issues are actually genuine, but this is like compromising by agreeing to fund half of the nation's unicorn population.