Birds of a Feather

First McCain calls for Congress to lift the ban on offshore drilling. Now Bush is on board. My new governor, Charlie Crist, also supports lifting the ban. I am curious how much oil would be available and at what environmental cost. Personally I am against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but there may be other locations that make sense. I just can't speak intelligently on where these alternative locations may be. The US needs to develop a substantive long term energy policy which accounts for regional variability in resources. If the Bush administration also put more emphasis on other renewable energy sources, I would put more stock in this type of effort.

Update:
As I stated above, I am somewhat ignorant concerning the oil reserves available if the ban on offshore drilling was lifted. Chris Shultz, at the Energy Collective, gives a little more insight. It appears that there are around 21 billion gallons of proven oil reserves that would be available.

The US consumes about 21 million barrels of crude oil a day. This is a little over 7.6 billion barrels a year, and that figure will rise as our daily consumption rises.

I still stand by my assessment that we need a long term energy policy which accounts for regional variability in natural resources. These types of plans often smell of political pandering since they have such short term impacts. At least this plan isn't as asinine as repealing the gas tax! Environmental quality should not be sacrificed for short term economic gains.