Federal government can’t solve alone

EXT - Not Profitable

New areas to drill don’t solve-companies just want the leases and won’t actually drill

Gertz ’08 (Emily Gertz, a freelance journalist who covers the environment, science and technology. She has written for Grist, Dwell magazine, Popular Mechanics online, Scientific American online, and more, 9-12-08, “Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent?,” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-offshore-drilling-make-us-independent)

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 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.

Not economical to drill offshore even with land

Romm ’08 (Dr. Joseph Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he oversees the blog ClimateProgress.org, 8-6-08, “We Tried Offshore Drilling and Oil Prices Doubled,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/we-tried-offshore-drillin_b_117263.html)

You may ask why Big Oil hasn't gotten around to the 34 billion barrels already available to them offshore, given the staggering price for oil? The answer is pretty much the same reason why the EIA analyst told me that ending the federal moratorium is "certainly not going to make a difference in the next 10 years": It ain't easy being non-green off-shore.¶ As she explained, the constraints on offshore drilling have little to do with the price of oil, but a lot to do with timing. Once the leases are available, it is a 5 to 10 years before you get to exploratory drilling. There is a tremendous shortage of drilling rigs and manpower. Plus, offshore drilling is so expensive, you don't want to make any mistakes. So you spend do a lot of seismic analysis to minimize your chances of a dry well.¶ And it is probably another five or more years from drilling your exploratory well to getting significant production from the area -- and that assumes you didn't dig a dry well. If you did, then you are probably going to be even more cautious. And all that assumes you have developed a pipeline infrastructure for delivering the oil. But again the Atlantic Coast lacks such an infrastructure, so who knows how long it would take to get its oil?

They don’t have enough equipment or refining capacity

Center for American Progress, 9-15-08, “Ten Reasons Not to Expand Offshore Drilling,” http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2008/09/15/4894/ten-reasons-not-to-expand-offshore-drilling/

7. There isn’t enough drilling equipment.¶ Due to the high price of oil, existing drilling ships are “booked solid for the next five years,” and demand for deepwater rigs has driven up the price of such ships. Oil companies just don’t have the resources to explore oil fields in the OCS.¶ 8. We can’t refine the oil we would extract.¶ In a June speech, President George W. Bush noted that, “Refineries are the critical link between crude oil and the gasoline and diesel fuel that drivers put in their tanks.” Yet refineries are already so stretched that last year, the United States had to import almost 150 million barrels of gasoline. The Wall Street Journal reported oil companies are not building new refineries because it would be bad for their bottom line: “Building a new refinery from scratch, Exxon believes, would be bad for long-term business.”

EXT – confusion Blocks Investment

Not enough resources or expertise to sort through drilling paperwork

David Pettit and David Newman 2012 (David Pettit, a 1975 graduate of UCLA Law School, is a Senior Attorney for¶ the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is an environmental law litigator¶ who has been involved in the aftermath of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon¶ oil spill. David would like to thank Rebecca Wolitz, Yale University Law¶ School, J.D. expected 2012, for her contributions to this piece.¶ f David Newman is an Oceans Program Attorney for the Natural Resources¶ Defense Council, and has been involved in BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill¶ Litigation, “Federal Public Law and the Future of¶ Oil and Gas Drilling on the Outer¶ Continental Shelf” HeinOnline ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITYLAWREVIEW [Vol. 17:184)

It has been suggested that the convergence of a large amount¶ of paperwork to review and a lack of resources results in¶ ineffective oversight. Remedies for this problem, therefore,¶ include making important information of relevance to the¶ overseeing agency easier to find.¶ [TIhe attention of the reviewer needs to be captured and¶ focused on the salient issues. Agencies are chronically¶ short of resources and face many demands on their time.¶ Unless they understand the importance of their task in¶ the specific context, they may treat the review as a¶ matter of routine. Furthermore, reviewers should not¶ face unnecessary barriers to identifying the most¶ important or questionable elements of the analysis.¶ 140¶ Access to technological expertise for evaluating salient¶ information is also crucially important.1¶ 41 ¶ One easy step in this¶ direction would be for BOEMRE to clean up its nearly¶ impenetrable website.

EXT - States Block

states can block

Amy McIntire, civil litigation associate at Chaffe McCall LLP, Notre Dame Law, 2/24/14, “OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT ON THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF: THE UPHILL BATTLE FOR STATE INPUT INTO FEDERAL POLICY” Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law, http://tjogel.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/10_Volume-9-Issue-1-McIntire_Final.pdf //RX

Additionally, CZMA requires that an applicant for a federal license or permit to conduct an activity that directly affects the coastal zone provide a certification that the plan is consistent with the enforceable policies of an approved state coastal management plan. If the state does not agree with the applicant’s certification, then no license or permit may be granted by a federal agency unless the Secretary of Commerce provides a reasonable opportunity for detailed comments from both the federal agency and the affected state and independently determines that the proposed activity is consistent with the objectives of CZMA or is necessary in the interest of national security.55

EXT – No Oil/Delay

Drilling fails-oil refineries

Xun Yao Chen , Boston U Econ and MBA, Puji Capital, commodities analyst, 1/23/14, “Must-know: Why the U.S. could hit a light crude oil refining wall,” Market Realist, http://marketrealist.com/2014/01/must-know-u-s-hit-light-crude-oil-refining-wall/ //RX

While U.S. oil imports have been falling over the last few years, tanker companies such as Frontline Ltd. (FRO) and Nordic American Tanker Ltd. (NAT) could benefit from a brighter outlook on U.S. oil imports in 2014. U.S. oil production is definitely surging, but refining capacity could be hitting a wall. The LLS and Brent price differential Louisiana Light Sweet crude (or LLS) is a coastal-based benchmark that has tracked closely with imported crude price—the international benchmark, Brent crude. Until recently, LLS has traded mostly at a premium because U.S. crude is of slightly higher quality than Brent or the international average and it’s closer to domestic refiners. But this relationship started to collapse in August, when LLS started to trade lower than Brent. This change reflects a buildup of supply at the U.S. coast and suggests refiners can’t take as much supply as they want. If this were driven by a temporary shutdown of a major refiners of high-quality domestic oil, the discount of LLS price to Brent would likely narrow to zero over time. On January 17, the spread stood at $4.47 a barrel. While it has narrowed further despite narrowing from $15.83 per barrel in October and our last reported $7.70 per barrel for December 23, the consistent discount suggests that U.S. refineries may have hit capacity to refine U.S. domestic oil. Citigroup’s head of commodities research, Ed Morse, recently noted that the current volatility seen in the Brent-to-WTI and Brent-to-LLS crude oil spreads is a sign that U.S. refining capacity for light sweet crude is being reached. Although he noted there’s growing investment in capacity to refine further light sweet crude of approximately 700,000 barrels a day, that could take time. On January 21, 2014, the IEA (International Energy Agency) also cautioned that U.S. oil output growth could hit a wall because of insufficient infrastructure capacity to take oil away and refine it. If U.S. refiners are running out of capacity to refine domestic oil, then additional U.S. demand for crude (including exports) would support crude oil imports. This could help crude tankers like Frontline Ltd. (FRO), Nordic American Tanker Ltd. (NAT), Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd. (TNP), and Teekay Tankers Ltd. (TNK). The Guggenheim Shipping ETF (SEA) could also benefit until significantly more refining capacity is added.

Drilling fails- lack of infrastructure and workforce

Simone Sebastian, journalist at Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, citing Malcolm Forbes-Cable, Senior Management Consultant at Wood Mackenzie, 6-28-13, “Deep-water drilling expansion will strain workforce, study says”, FuelFix, http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/28/deep-water-drilling-expansion-will-strain-workforce-study-says/ //RX

Global spending on deep-water wells will surge to $114 billion by 2022, compared to $43 billion last year, creating a critical need for offshore rig workers, according to a new analysis by Wood Mackenzie. Deep-water markets are expanding rapidly, the research and consulting firm notes, projecting a 150 percent jump in the number of exploration, appraisal and development wells drilled by 2020. It also projects expansion of Arctic drilling by the end of the decade, though Arctic wells will remain a fraction of all wells drilled — just three percent through 2022. “To meet the forecasted well demand, the fleet will require 95 additional deep-water rigs to be constructed between 2016 and 2022, representing $65 billion of investment,” Malcolm Forbes-Cable, senior management consultant at Wood Mackenzie and author of the study, in a written statement. “This will require the longest period of deep-water rig construction to date, representing a change for the deep-water sector from cyclical to sustained growth.” The Future of Global Deepwater Markets report projects rig contractors will need to expand their payrolls by 37,000 workers over the next decade to meet demand for rigs. That’s an impossible target to meet under the current rate of recruitment, Wood Mackenzie says. The analysis notes that deep-water projects have become central to growth plans for many international oil companies, but that creates challenges for budget constraints, risk management and human resources. “Deepwater has accounted for most of the discovered volumes during this time, but this has not been without increasing technical and commercial challenges,” said Malcolm Forbes-Cable, Senior Management Consultant at Wood Mackenzie and author of the study.

Drilling fails-delays and lack of oil

Tess Engebretson, Southern Environmental Law Institute, 5/29/14, “(Don't) Drill, Baby, Drill: Economic, Environmental, and Military Conflicts Associated with Offshore Drilling, “The Energy Collective, http://theenergycollective.com/cleanenergyleadershipinstitute/389926/dont-drill-baby-drill-economic-environmental-and-military-conf/ //RX

A 2011 Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management study found that there is less than two months supply of oil, at current rates of consumption, in the Mid- and South Atlantic combined. This crude oil must be refined into usable fuel, requiring significant infrastructure development in areas along the coast. Due to infrastructure requirements, access to the small oil supply remains years away. These refineries and pipelines emit significant amounts of oil and fumes daily, polluting the surrounding air and water.

EXT – No Oil

Status quo represents all necessary exploration – any further drilling would be a drop in the bucket

Savitz 13. Jacqueline Savitz, Vice President for U.S. Oceans, Oceana Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. October 1, 2013. “Written Testimony of Jacqueline Savitz. Full Committee Hearing: To Consider the Transboundary Hydrocarbon Agreement”. Oceana – Protecting the World’s Oceans. //NM

The proposed expansion of offshore drilling is unnecessary and dangerous, and we haven’t yet fully addressed the risks. The federal government’s most recent Five-Year Plan allows access to more than 75% of estimated undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. At the same time, the oil and gas industry is sitting on a large number of non-producing leases in federal waters. According to a July 2013 U.S. Department of the Interior report, oil and gas companies hold almost 6,000 active leases in the Gulf, 82% of which are non-producing leases. This represents more than ample opportunity for exploration and development and certainly more than we would get by expanding drilling to the transboundary area. Additionally, even if all of the oil available in the transboundary area were to be extracted and the U.S. recovered the entirety of the reserve, this amount would be less than one-half percent of the total amount of technically recoverable oil currently available in the Gulf of Mexico (specifically, 0.37%). Couple this with the fact that our continued reliance on fossil fuels is exacerbating global climate change and it is hard to find the logic in expanding offshore drilling to the transboundary area when there is so little benefit for us in return.

Even opening all domestic offshore areas would not make the US energy independent

Oceana 12. The Three Myths of Offshore Drilling. Oceana – Protecting the World’s Oceans – leading international organization for ocean conservation, Senate Committee. http://oceana.org/es/our-work/climate-energy/offshore-drilling/learn-act/the-three-myths-of-offshore-drilling //NM

Myth 3: Offshore drilling will make the U.S. energy independent. The only way to become truly energy independent is to end our addiction to oil. The DOE estimates that even if we opened all offshore areas to drilling, the U.S. would still rely on imports for about 58% of its oil supply. The United States simply does not have enough domestic oil to truly reduce its dependence on imports, much less to fulfill its demand. The best way to eliminate foreign oil dependence is to eliminate dependence on oil altogether by developing alternative sources, rapidly switching to plug-in and electric vehicles and phasing out oil consumption in other portions of our economy like home heating and electricity generation. For more information on how the U.S. can phase out the need for oil, see Oceana's report Breaking the Habit.

Only 6-9 months worth of recoverable oil in the Atlantic Shelf – most recent report

BOEM 14. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Assessment of Undiscovered Technically Recoverable Oil and Gas Resources of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, 2014 Update. //NM

Using a geologic play-based assessment methodology, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimated a mean of 4.72 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and a mean of 37.51 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable natural gas in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf of the United States.¶ Introduction¶ This 2014 report summarizes the results of an update to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) 2011 Assessment of Undiscovered Technically Recoverable Oil and Gas Resources of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. Relevant data and information available as of December 2013 are considered for this assessment update. The area assessed comprises the portion of the submerged seabed within the 200 nautical mile U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) whose mineral resources are subject to federal jurisdiction.¶ BOEM has assessed ten geologic plays within the Atlantic OCS Region (Figure 1), including nine conceptual plays where there is little or no specific information available, and one established play where hydrocarbon accumulations are known to exist. Water depths in these plays range from less than 100 ft. to over 10,000 ft. Drill depths in these plays are estimated to range between 7,000 and 30,000 ft below the sea floor.

Offshore drilling will not provide enough oil to affect any change

CAP 8. September 15, 2008. Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan educational institution . Ten Reasons Not to Expand Offshore Drilling http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2008/09/15/4894/ten-reasons-not-to-expand-offshore-drilling/ //NM

1. We can’t drill our way out of the energy crisis.¶ According to a report by the House Committee on Natural Resources Majority Staff:¶ “Between 1999 and 2007, the number of drilling permits issued for development of public lands increased by more than 361 percent, yet gasoline prices have also risen dramatically, contradicting the argument that more drilling means lower gasoline prices. There is simply no correlation between the two.”¶ 2. We don’t have enough oil to meet our demand.¶ The U.S. oil supply-demand balance is insurmountable. We have less than 2 percent of the world’s known reserves, yet use 25 percent of its oil. Even if we drilled off of every beach, and inside every national park, refuge, and forest, we could not produce enough oil to offset our growing demand.¶ 3. Oil companies have not utilized the leases they have now.¶ Why open up new areas to drilling when oil companies hold over 4,000 undeveloped leases in the western Gulf of Mexico? What’s more, the government already leases 44 million acres offshore, of which only 10.5 million—or one quarter—are producing oil or gas.¶ 4. Offshore drilling would have an “insignificant” effect on long-term prices.¶ Offshore drilling in sensitive areas would increase domestic oil production by 3 percent by 2030 compared to a reference case, according to the Energy Information Administration. But “because oil prices are determined on the international market…any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

No long term solvency - wells need replaced too often

Marin Katusa, 6-27-2014,Chief Energy Investment Strategist, Senior Editor, Mathmatician, 6/27/2014, “US #1 in Oil: So Why Isn’t Gasoline $0.80 per Gallon?” Casey Research, http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/us-1-in-oil-so-why-isnt-gasoline-0.80-per-gallon

As the old wells begin to deplete, they need to be replaced by unconventional wells with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Even though these new wells provide an initial burst of production, they decline very quickly. That means you need to drill even more wells just to keep up—and the vicious cycle continues. The costs, as you can imagine, are forbiddingly high. Even in known oil-rich regions like the Bakken and Eagle Ford, the all-in cost of extracting a barrel of oil from the ground can cost as much as US$75 per barrel (for comparison, Saudi Arabia can produce oil for as low as US$1 per barrel). To put it in simple terms: cheap oil in North America is a thing of the past. So, the US produces expensive oil and relies on imports of even more expensive oil. And since the refiners need to make money as well, this means higher prices at the pumps. Who loses? The US consumer, of course.

offshore drilling doesn’t solve-delays, little oil, too much demand

Weiss ’08 (Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, 1-3-08, “Time to Diversify Energy Resources as Oil Hits $100 a Barrel,” http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2008/01/03/3846/time-to-diversify-energy-resources-as-oil-hits-100-a-barrel/)

All of these factors are likely to continue throughout in 2008. Yet in the wake of these near record prices, oil industry allies are likely to haul out the lobbying equivalent of a Christmas fruit cake. They will once again push for more oil drilling off U.S. coastal areas and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These tired proposals have been rejected time and again because they would do little to reduce the price of oil in the short run or offset higher demand in the long run.¶ First off, additional offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, would not produce any oil for five to seven years. It would take at least 10 years to produce any oil from the Arctic. Such plans will not reduce the spot market price for oil. In fact, we already tried this and it failed to reduce prices. In December 2006 Congress and President Bush opened new areas to drilling off the Florida Coast when the price of oil was $62 per barrel. The price is one-third higher today.¶ Second, oil companies hold over 4,000 undeveloped leases in the western Gulf of Mexico. If oil companies want to increase oil supplies, it would be much faster to develop these leases rather than plod through the laborious process to get Congress to approve offshore drilling in currently protected places. Interestingly, the Big Five oil companies—BP plc, Chevron Corp., Conoco Phillips Inc., ExxonMobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell plc—have been spending a huge amount of their half trillion dollars in recent profits buying back their own stock. Perhaps they should invest some of their record profits in developing these leases before they greedily ask for access to more protected places.¶ Most importantly, the U.S. oil supply-demand balance is insurmountable. We have less than 2 percent of the world’s known reserves, yet use 25 percent of its oil. Even if we drilled off of every beach, and inside every national park, refuge, and forest, the United States does not possess enough oil to significantly offset our growing demand.

EXT – No Oil – Takes out Prices Advantage

Much offshore oil isn’t recoverable – even by 2030 drilling will not affect prices

Gertz 8. Emily Gertz, Energy and Sustainability Writer , September 12, 2008, Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent? Even if U.S. energy policy goes "drill baby drill," there will be no escape from the vicissitudes of the global oil market, Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-offshore-drilling-make-us-independent/ //NM

¶ 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 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."

offshore drilling doesn’t solve prices or independence-not enough oil, world market, imports down now

Weiss ’11 (Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, 1-11-11, “Big Oil Sings the Same Old Song,” http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2011/01/11/8924/big-oil-sings-the-same-old-song/)

There are three major problems with these policies beyond their environmental concerns. First, expanded drilling can never address our imbalance between domestic oil production and consumption. The United States has only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but it consumes more than 20 percent of the world’s oil. President Barack Obama noted last year that drilling expansion is not the solution to America’s energy challenges, explaining, “We have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves; we consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil. … drilling alone can’t come close to meeting our long-term energy needs.”¶ Second, an increase in U.S. oil production will make little or no difference in the world oil price or what Americans pay at the gas pump. Environment & Energy Daily (subscription required) recently reported that Ken Green, resident scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, noted that crude oil is a global commodity whose price will be unaffected by an increase in U.S. production.¶ “The world price is the world price. Even if we were producing 100 percent of our oil," Green said, if prices increase because of a shortage in China or India, "our price would go up to the same thing.” "We probably couldn’t produce enough to affect the world price of oil," he added. "People don’t understand that."¶ Nonetheless, Green expects some politicians to exploit higher oil prices to boost Big Oil’s claim on fragile lands and coastal waters. “We’re likely to see a replay of the McCain-Palin ‘drill, baby, drill,’ drill here, drill now. It will probably be a cause celebre for the tea party.”¶ Finally, this Big Oil coastal grab ignores several important Energy Information Administration, or EIA, findings. One of these findings is that more than four out of five barrels of oil off the coasts in the lower 48 states are already available for development. EIA determined that “the OCS areas that were until recently under moratoria in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Eastern/Central Gulf of Mexico are estimated to hold roughly 20 percent (18 billion barrels) of the total OCS technically recoverable oil.” Most of the oil offshore can be developed now without risking oil blowouts off the Atlantic, Pacific, or Florida Gulf coasts.¶ The recent EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2011 also finds little need to hurry to begin drilling without precautions as API and its allies wish to do. It predicts that oil imports will “fall due to increased domestic production—including biofuels—and greater fuel efficiency.” This includes nearly a 20 percent reduction in imports from OPEC nations from 2010 to 2020 (table 146).¶ In fact, the outlook estimates that the percentage increase in domestic liquid fuel production will be equal to the percent increase in oil demand between 2010 and 2015, and the percent increase in production will be twice as much as the percent increase of demand by 2020. (see chart) The EIA further assumes a delay in the expansion of offshore production. Its assumptions include “pushing out the start of production for a number of projects as a result of the six-month drilling moratoria, and delaying Atlantic and Pacific off shore leasing beyond 2017.”

offshore drilling doesn’t solve prices or dependence-not enough oil, rising global demand

Danson ’09 (TED DANSON, a longtime ocean activist and a member of the Board of Directors of Oceana, 2-11-09, “OFFSHORE DRILLING:¶ ENVIRONMENTAL AND¶ COMMERCIAL PERSPECTIVES¶ OVERSIGHT HEARING¶ before the¶ COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES¶ U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,” http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg47302/html/CHRG-111hhrg47302.htm)

B. Offshore Drilling Provides No Real Relief from High Gasoline Prices ¶ and Will Not Create Energy Independence.¶ The U.S. Energy Information Agency has found that at peak ¶ production in 2025 increased drilling offshore would produce 220,000 ¶ barrels a day, which would account for less than 1 percent of current ¶ energy demand in the United States. As the recent drop in oil prices ¶ demonstrates, global demand for oil drives the global price and since ¶ the market for oil is truly global--oil from the United States is sold ¶ all over the world and increased demand from countries like China and ¶ India will have a greater effect on the price of oil than the ¶ availability of oil from the OCS.

not enough offshore oil to affect prices

Gatti ’10 (Dan Gatti, an environmental policy analyst at Environment America, 5-4-10, “In defense of a moratorium on offshore oil drilling,” http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/05/in_defense_of_a_moratorium_on.html)

1) An expansion of offshore drilling will not significantly reduce the amount of oil the United States imports, from Nigeria or Saudi Arabia or from anywhere else. The EIA estimates that domestic production will increase by only a trivial figure as a result of new drilling offshore -- a 1.6 percent increase between 2012 and 2030, topping out at .2 million barrels per day by 2030. By comparison, the United States currently consumes almost 20 million barrels per day, of which over 13 million barrels per day is imported. The difference in the amount the United States imports as a result of expanded offshore drilling essentially amounts to a rounding error.

EXT – No Oil - Takes out Prices/Dependence

offshore drilling doesn’t solve independence or prices-not enough oil, world market, long delay

Moriarty ’11 (Jim Moriarty, the CEO of The Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots non-profit environmental organization that works to protect and preserve the world's oceans, waves, and beaches, 1-14-11, “The Economic Case Against Offshore Drilling,” http://www.theinertia.com/politics/the-economic-case-against-offshore-drilling/)

Now let’s look at how much oil is potentially available offshore related to how much we use and need.¶ The United States is a massive user of other countries oil. We have less than 3% of the world’s oil reserves and yet we use over 20% of the world’s oil reserves. Those two figures should make you pause. More than making you pause they should underscore the fact that we cannot solve our problem by drilling offshore. We don’t have enough oil everywhere in the United States to satisfy even half of our current needs.¶ To put this consumption into daily figures, the amount the United States consumes is 20.7 million barrels of oil per day. The amount the United States produces 8.3 million barrels a day.¶ The best case scenario for what we COULD drill off our coasts is 2 – 4 million barrels a day.¶ Increased offshore drilling can’t get us off foreign oil anymore than a half a talk of gas in your car can’t magically act like a full tank. We don’t have a full tank… we barely have a half tank.¶ The U.S. Energy Information Administration (part of the Department of Energy) stated: “…[drilling in] the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on oil prices before 2030”. The report continues to say: “Because oil prices are determined on the international market … any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

offshore drilling doesn’t solve prices or dependence-not enough oil, long delay, not economical

Wangsness ’08 (Lisa Wangsness, a Reporter with Globe Newspaper Company, 6-20-08, “New offshore drilling not a quick fix, analysts say,” Boston Globe, Factiva)

It would take at least a decade for oil companies to obtain permits, procure equipment, and do the exploration necessary to get the oil out of the ground, most industry analysts say. And even then, they add, the amount of new oil produced would probably be too small to significantly affect world oil prices.¶ Some analysts point out that the wells the United States now depends on are being depleted, and that new exploration could at least help offset that decline in supply from existing wells.¶ Expanded offshore exploration also carries with it some environmental risks, from oil spills to destruction of habitat to vibrations that damage sea life, which environmentalists say could have catastrophic consequences that far outweigh any potential benefit from further offshore drilling. But other analysts say that improved technology means the risks are much smaller than a generation ago. In this view, a sensible compromise approach would be to make decisions on potential drilling sites on a case-by-case basis.¶ Americans' anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline apparently has prompted greater public support for renewed offshore drilling. A Gallup poll last month found that 57 percent of respondents favored such drilling while 41 percent were opposed. Democratic candidate Barack Obama supports the moratorium.¶ The debate over expanded oil exploration has always been polarizing - recall the ferocity of the fight over whether to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - but some analysts are calling for a more moderate tone.¶ "Clearly, drilling is not the solution to our oil dependence, but any serious energy proposal has to be comprehensive and include more oil supply and production off the outer continental shelf," said Robbie Diamond, president and founder of Securing America's Future Energy, a nonpartisan group committed to reducing the nation's dependence on oil.¶ In the short term, oil prices could go down slightly if Congress lifts its moratorium on new offshore drilling, which has been in place since 1981, because the market would factor in the prospect of additional oil supplies later on. But the actual oil would not be produced for 10 to 12 years.¶ And in any case, increased American production from offshore drilling would not necessarily mean lower prices for American consumers because oil is a global commodity whose price is set by global supply and demand.¶ "Suppose the US produced all its oil domestically," said Robert Kaufmann, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. "Do you think oil companies would sell oil to US consumers for one cent less than they could get from French consumers? No. Where oil comes from has no effect on price."¶ And there is not likely to be enough new American oil to make much of a difference, Kaufmann and others said. About 86 billion barrels of additional oil may lie offshore, according to the US government's Energy Information Administration. Of that amount, about 18 billion barrels are subject to the moratorium. Much of the rest lies in areas that are too expensive to exploit or that oil companies have not yet tapped for technical reasons, fueling the industry's desire for fresh territory.¶ "We're picking over bones," said Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute. "If we had new acres, we could hypothetically make a big find. We need oil and natural gas in the future."¶ But in the best-case scenario, Kaufmann said, the United States could only produce an additional two to four million barrels of offshore oil a day - not enough to shift the global supply-demand balance in a world market that now consumes about 86 million barrels a day and is growing fast. About a quarter of that consumption now occurs in the United States.¶ Kaufmann said that by the time any additional offshore oil got to market, much of it would merely offset losses from the depletion of current oil fields. Meanwhile, oil producing nations can easily keep supply constant by limiting capacity if they know the United States is adding more.¶ "There's nothing on the supply side that we can really do to disrupt OPEC's ability to influence prices," he said.

offshore drilling doesn’t solve prices or dependence-world market, not enough oil

Gertz ’08 (Emily Gertz, a freelance journalist who covers the environment, science and technology. She has written for Grist, Dwell magazine, Popular Mechanics online, Scientific American online, and more, 9-12-08, “Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent?,” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-offshore-drilling-make-us-independent)

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.¶ "At its peak in production, which occurred in 1970s, the U.S. produced about 10 million [barrels of oil] a day," Kaufman says. "Now, after 30 years of fairly steady decline, we produce about five million barrels a day," whereas we consume 20 million barrels daily. "Whoever talks about oil independence has to tell a story about how we close a 15-million-barrel gap."

EXT – Arctic Drilling Fails

Empirics prove-Arctic drilling fails

Margaret Hobson, Environment and Energy Correspondent, 7/18/13, “Is Arctic oil exploration dead in the U.S.?” EE News, http://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories/1059984582/ //RX

A year ago this September, Royal Dutch Shell PLC began the first new oil drilling in U.S. Arctic waters in more than two decades. The company spent $5 billion and dispatched an armada of ships and equipment to offshore Alaska to evaluate the energy resources on its federal leases. From the beginning, however, Shell's operation faced a multitude of problems -- everything from lingering sea ice to a damaged oil spill containment dome. The Dutch company was never able to secure the permits needed to drill into the hydrocarbon zone on its leases. The final straw came after the summer season ended. As Shell left Alaska waters, the Coast Guard found multiple technical violations on the Discoverer drill rig, and the Kulluk drill rig ran aground on its way to Seattle.

Remoteness of Arctic makes largest source of oil inaccessible and not cost-competitive for companies – most recent analysis

Cockerham 14. Sean Cockerham, journalist Daily News Washington Bureau. 1/30/2014. Shell won't drill offshore in Alaska Arctic this year. Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/2014/01/30/3298785/shell-abandons-plans-for-alaska.html //NM

Environmental groups hailed Shell's decision to suspend the effort.¶ "Shell is finally recognizing what we've been saying all along, that offshore drilling in the Arctic is risky, costly and simply not a good bet from a business perspective," said Jacqueline Savitz, Oceana's vice president for U.S. oceans.¶ Erik Grafe, the Earthjustice attorney who led the lease challenge, called on the Obama administration to do a new environmental study.¶ "The Department of the Interior now needs to take a hard look at whether the Chukchi Sea should be open for oil drilling at all, beginning with a full and public environmental impact statement process that addresses the Ninth Circuit decision and does not minimize the risks of oil drilling in this vibrant but vulnerable sea," Grafe said in a statement.¶ Greenpeace urged other companies that are considering offshore Arctic drilling to learn from Shell's experience and "conclude that this region is too remote, too hostile and too iconic to be worth exploring."¶ "The decision by Shell's new CEO to suspend Arctic Ocean drilling in 2014 was both sensible and inevitable," Lois Epstein, an engineer and Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. "The Arctic Ocean has proven to be logistically challenging for drilling and mobilization, and a bottomless pit for investment."¶

Lack of resources and infrastructure means it’s impossible to recover oil from the Arctic area – Shell failure proves

Hobson 13. Margaret Kriz Hobson, E&E reporter. Published: Thursday, July 18, 2013. OFFSHORE DRILLING: Is Arctic oil exploration dead in the U.S.? EnergyWire. http://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories /1059984582 //NM

Now the growth of shale oil and gas development, together with Shell's ill-fated 2012 drilling program, has tempered market enthusiasm for Arctic energy development.¶ In February, an Ernst & Young report warned that despite Alaska's bountiful offshore oil resources, Arctic projects are vulnerable to high cost overruns, long lead times and a lack of support facilities, all of which could sour investment in the region (EnergyWire, Feb. 8).¶ Shell's inability to sink a drill bit into its Arctic leases continues to weigh heavily on the minds of top energy executives. Harald Norvik, a board member at ConocoPhillips and former CEO of Statoil, recently told Reuters that interest in Arctic energy "is very high, but nevertheless there is more and more concern about the environment and risk part of it."¶ ConocoPhillips had been seeking to drill off Alaska's shores in 2014 but canceled its plans earlier this year, citing regulatory uncertainty (EnergyWire, April 11).

Too many hurdles to Arctic drilling – unpredictable

DeMarban 13. Alex DeMarban, veteran reporter, editor Alaska Newspapers Inc, business/oil reporter Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch. January 20, 2013. Will Arctic offshore oil drilling prove uneconomic in wake of US shale oil boom? Alaska Dispatch. http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/will-arctic-offshore-oil-drilling-prove-uneconomic-wake-us-shale-oil-boom //NM

In the early 1990s, low oil prices led Shell to abandon its original foray into the offshore Arctic, despite having punched more than 20 holes, including some that found oil. ¶ Fast-forward to 2013 and it's hard not to wonder if history will repeat itself. In total, Shell has spent $5 billion on leases, operational costs and other expenses, but the current exploration phase of that effort might just be the easy part. ¶ To get any discovery to market in the years to come, Shell will have to clear more regulatory hurdles, fend off additional legal battles, and spend billions more to create concrete or steel production platforms, essentially remote islands to process crude. The company also will need hundreds of miles of pipeline to ship oil across one of the planet's most inhospitable and environmentally protected regions.¶ Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said it's too early to speculate on how the Kulluk grounding will impact Shell's ongoing exploration program off Alaska.¶ "We will first complete an assessment of the Kulluk, but our confidence in the strength of this program remains," he said.¶ At what oil price -- or at what point in time -- does the project become uneconomic? Smith said he couldn’t answer. And what will happen to oil prices in the coming years is anyone's guess.

EXT – Oil Production High

US Oil Rapidly increasing rapidly in the status quo but Demand will never be met

Marin Katusa, 6-27-2014,Chief Energy Investment Strategist, Senior Editor, Mathmatician, 6/27/2014, “US #1 in Oil: So Why Isn’t Gasoline $0.80 per Gallon?” Casey Research, http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/us-1-in-oil-so-why-isnt-gasoline-0.80-per-gallon

The United States has the largest refining capacity in the world and is still by far the largest consumer of oil in the world (though China is beginning to catch up), and its refineries require 15 million barrels of oil a day. That means even though, due to the shale revolution, domestic production has dramatically increased to about 8 million barrels, the US still has to import between 7 and 8 million barrels of expensive foreign oil a day. Let's take a look at who the US buys the imported oil from. (Now that I finally figured out my way around the new Windows 8—which, by the way, really sucks—I can even add some color to my tables.) Country Millions of barrels exported to US per day Canada 2.5–3 Saudi Arabia 1.2–1.5 Mexico 0.8–1.0 Venezuela 0.8 Kuwait 0.3–0.5 Canada is blue because it is not only friendly with the US, but also has the ability to increase oil production. The other countries are red because they either have decreasing oil production, or the country is not on good terms with the US government, or the production may be at risk for various reasons. The "red countries" all sell oil to the US at higher prices than does Canada. As I said, the US imports about 7 million barrels of oil a day, and our top 5 exporters make up between 5.6 and 6.8 million barrels while the rest is split among other countries. This means that even though the US has significantly increased its oil production in the past five years, a good chunk of oil has to be imported at much higher prices. And higher crude oil prices for refineries means higher prices at the gas pump.

EXT – Restrictions Not the Problem

Not that much oil is restricted now

CBO August 2012 (Congressional Budget Office, August 2012, “Potential Budgetary Effects of Immediately Opening Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Leasing” heinonline)

On the basis of information in the 2008 inter-departmental inventory of onshore resources and in¶ DOI's 2010 updated estimates of undiscovered oil and¶ gas resources in Alaska, CBO estimates that roughly¶ 60 billion BOE of oil and natural gas resources are¶ located under federal lands (excluding ANWR, which is¶ discussed separately below).' CBO estimates that about¶ 80 percent of those resources are located under federal¶ lands that are leased, currently available for leasing under¶ standard terms, or available for leasing subject to minor¶ stipulations (including temporary withdrawals of various¶ tracts for land-use planning, seasonal restrictions on drill-ing that are in effect for less than six months in a year,¶ and certain requirements for surface uses). Those terms¶ and constraints probably will have a minimal effect on¶ the commercial value of the leases over time.¶ 8¶ About 15 percent of onshore resources are covered by¶ administrative prohibitions on leasing or are subject to¶ major stipulations (including prohibitions on drilling on¶ the surface directly above the leased tract and seasonal¶ restrictions on drilling for more than six months in a¶ year) that could significantly affect the lease values. The¶ other 5 percent of the onshore area, which includes¶ national parks and wilderness areas, is by statute closed to¶ leasing.