Two weeks have passed since poor oversight resulted in a BP oil rig exploding in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the deaths of eleven people. More than 5,000 barrels of oil are being spilled every day into the Gulf and onto the surrounding coasts, which will kill wildlife, destroy ecosystems and hinder economic growth for years to come. The disaster comes on the heels of a swell in momentum for offshore drilling, and the movement’s supporters are quickly scrambling to defend the practice. Unfortunately for all of us, the backbone of defense behind offshore drilling was not grounded in reason or rational scientific inquiry, but in rhetoric and invective. The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 was the first major legislation affecting oil drilling in the United States. While the act originally intended to protect the nation’s aquatic life, pressure from the oil industry eroded the act to the point where it was unenforceable, and rampant exceptions limited its applicability. In March 1967, the Torrey Canyon, chartered by BP, spilled over 120,000 tons of oil off Southwestern England. This was followed by the explosion of an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969, and the environmental damage to both regions was tremendous.
The disasters accelerated legislation sponsored by Senator Edmund Muskie to amend the Oil Pollution Act in order to allow industry regulation to prevent future disasters. Citing EPA research on the ecological effects of polluted groundwater and runoff, and the devastating effects of the explosion in Santa Barbara, the Clean Water Act of 1972 regulated all point sources of pollution, including land based pollution and oil spills. But as memories of the disasters faded, oil and agricultural interests slowly chipped away at regulatory authority, and Congress passed more and more exemptions to the Clean Water Act into the 1980s. This ultimately resulted in the Water Quality Act in 1987, which provided some provisions to enforce the Clean Water Act, but was loaded with exceptions, and, like the passage of the Oil Pollution Act 50 years prior, was difficult to enforce.
As if on cue, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling 37,000 tons of oil into Alaskan waters and blanketing 1300 miles of coastline. The effort required to clean up the spill was monumental, the environmental impact was catastrophic and the region’s fishing and tourism industries were devastated. Once again, people were forced to learn firsthand not only the effects of a catastrophe on the environment, but also on thousands of people’s lives and economic well-being.
And yet, two decades later, offshore drilling not only gained traction, but garnered national fervor with the simple anthem “Drill, Baby, Drill” first uttered by RNC Chairman Michael Steele at the 2008 Republican Convention. Behind the slogan was the sentiment that the solution to America’s energy problems laid in offshore drilling. Offshore drilling, it was thought, was a safe way to acquire domestic oil and to decrease reliance on foreign countries without polluting American soil or having to wait for untested clean energy from wind, solar or other sources. And while that’s a nice idea, the numbers simply do not back it up.
Despite advances in technology, drilling for and transporting oil is not getting safer by any means, and, in fact, more accidents are happening. There have been at least two oil spills of 100 tons or more in every year since 2000 except 2008, and as many spills in that period (26) as in the previous 20 years. The benefits of drilling are miniscule; all of the coastlines in America contain only .25 percent of the world’s oil. While .25 percent is more than nothing, given the disasters that surface time and time again, drilling offshore for oil simply is not worth the risk.
When a disaster continues to occur every couple months for over 30 years, it is academically disingenuous to call it an accident. If you accept that it is untenable that the oil industry annually spill thousands of tons of oil into the world’s waterways as part of their business plan, and yet that this exactly reflects recent history, there is no intellectually honest argument for continued offshore drilling. Thankfully, both Governor Schwarzenegger and President Obama have announced a moratorium on earlier plans to expand offshore drilling in the wake of this disaster. Given the abundance of rapidly developing clean alternatives to drilling, it really is time to move Beyond Petroleum.
But the main culprit that allows disastrous ecological practices to continuously skirt regulation is a willingness within the American populace to overpower scientific research with baseless rhetoric. Slogans are fantastic ways to galvanize a movement around an idea, but unless they are supported by truth, they can be powerful tools of subversion. Every slogan deserves intense scrutiny, whether it be “Drill, baby, drill!” “Yes we can!” or “Beat Cal!” And while two of the above slogans are backed up by significantly more substance than the other, in the spirit of this column, I encourage you not to take my word on it, but to do your own research to draw your own conclusions.
To get you started, Stanford has 26 Nobel Prizes to Berkeley’s 21 and 55 Big Game wins to Berkeley’s 46. Share your findings with Jack at [email protected].