Why I Oppose New Oil Drilling

There is over ten billion barrels of safe, easy to recover oil of California's coasts and to leave it naturally seeping out of the ground creating onerous local air pollution is environmentally criminal.

"America could be energy self-sufficient within a decade if County, State and Congress eliminated the American energy blockade. This ongoing failure to develop America's oil and gas resources is costing the county state and federal governments hundreds of billions of dollars in royalties and taxes and consumers are paying double what they should pay for gasoline.

Opening America'sr domestic oil and gas resources, to responsible oil and gas development would produce more supply, lower gas prices, create greater US energy security, and lower taxes. As well as creating an influx of trillions in new income and excise taxes as well as creating millions of American jobs; prosperity here not there."

It doesn't pay to ship oil from Santa Barbara to Calcutta and it doesn't happen.

My company AOAG has offered to create an economic boom in Santa Barbara from new local offshore oil production;

The case for drilling is compelling:

1. $2.50 GASOLINE for Santa Barbara County residents and County vehicles
from AOAG production.
2. $2.50 GASOLINE for all hotel guests in Santa Barbara County.
3. County-wide, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) car conversions facilities.
4. $1.50 CNG for Santa Barbara and Coast residents for flexi-fuel
vehicles.
5. Substantial Annual Grants to environmental study groups and renewable
energy programs.
6. Significant decrease in County-wide Air pollution from lower natural
reservoir seepage.
7. Lower C02 emissions for the County and State of California.
8. Significantly reduce greenhouse gas methane emissions from offshore
gas seeps.
9. Much cleaner Santa Barbara beaches and oceans by reduction in beach
tar balls.
10. Increased local, State and National energy income streams, with
monies all staying inside America.
11. Provide Complete Santa Barbara energy self reliance and improve
America's energy security.
12. Significant high-paying local jobs boost.
13. Significant increased cash energy royalties to County of approximately
$250-500 million p.a. will improve the quality of life for all Santa
Barbara residents.
14. Special Proposed Community royalty payment from Bering Sea Gas imports
landings to fund FREE County-Wide clinics and a new FREE County
Hospital.
15. Lower-cost CNG for public transport-busses and vans, will enable
disadvantaged and senior citizens to travel more freely.
16. Natural Gas for County home heating and cooking at a 30% discount
to the prevailing rate.
17. Increased State and Federal royalties will help treasuries balance
their budgets.

see www.strategicnine.com

It's interesting the Mr. Sterling does not tell us that AOAG, his company, stands for Arctic Oil And Gas.

To comment on some of his points, items 1 through 5 are unsupported self-serving comments. Where's the evidence? Further, many people believe that energy prices should be even higher than they are, via a carbon tax, which would be offset by a decrease in, say, income tax. This seems to be the only way to decrease consumption.

Points 6 - 9 - less pollution from natural seepage - again, where's the footnote directing me to the supporting data?

Points 12 and 13, I agree that more offshore drilling would provide more good-paying jobs and enhance the treasury, but the environmental price is too high.

And as to points 16 and 17, they are just sops to the commmunity that will probably never come true. How about AOAG builds all that infrastructure and put a few billion in our treasury first? Then we can talk contract.

Prolonging our addiction to oil is only going to make the day of reckoning more painful. Let's bite the bullet now and hope that future generations will not speak too harshly of us.

We're going to drill some day. We will never completely stop using petroleum. It's used in plastics, pharmaceuticals, and other places.

Scientific advances are happening so quickly that we cannot possibly predict what future generations of Americans might need some oil for. It sure would be nice to leave them some and not burn every drop in a way that will do nothing to help our economy overall and could easily end up doing harm to it, as well as to the planet that is at present our only habitat. It's the greenhouse effect, stupid. And neoconservative borrow-and-spend has racked up a truly nasty present we are handing to our children and grandchildren in the form of the national debt ( http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ ); do we have to also strip them of what is left of every natural resource? We already may easily go down as the most selfish, short-term-thinking-only generation in history.

Let the drilling begin on leases already allocated and approved. Let's face it, the protected Arctic reserves are simply some of the last domestic 'apples' that can be picked while 'standing on the ground'. The North Slope infrastructure is close by. A short pipeline would bring AWR oil to market quite cheaply and would afford "Big Oil" even more obscene profits. 'Slash, Trash, and Take the Cash' is their mantra. The cash would be shared with no one except citizens of Alaska and many politicos in Washington. Much of that oil, if it WERE produced, would admittedly not be shipped to Calcutta, but rather to Japan due to proximity and shipping costs. To think for a moment that it would significantly affect the price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S.is ludicrous.
"Big Oil" spends much of its enormous income buying governments. When OUR Government fails to impose measures upon its citizens and its industries that might help to alleviate our addiction to oil, and continues to subsidize "Big Oil" via tax breaks, one might arrive at certain conclusions, huh, (nudge, nudge), huh?
Gasoline will, in the near future, cost $5.00 or more per gallon---depend upon it. Europeans have been paying that much for decades. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but no remedy other than raising prices seems to work in curtailing our epidemic of wasteful consumption. The shame is that no politician, State or Federal, had the guts to even SUGGEST imposing a 25 cent surtax on a gallon of gas immediately following 9/11. Now California and indeed the Federal Government are in dire economic straits. The price increase of gasoline (many times 25 cents) didn't go into our respective treasuries; rather it went into Swiss bank accounts held by the leaders of corrupt, oil rich countries. Many of those countries are openly hostile to the United States and are using those funds to fuel anti-American sentiment and even finance al-Qaeda in some instances. WAKE UP, fellow Americans! The time has come to pay the piper, not to pay for more pipelines. Please consider this when you go to the polls.

Yes, we do need oil for many products other than fuel and energy. But I say, save that oil for those products and totally eliminate oil for fuel for our transportation and energy needs. Renewable energy sources can be utilized for our energy and transportation needs. The technology is already here. If our government were to take the fast track to this conversion, like they did for developing the atom bomb or putting a man on the moon, I believe we could achieve this goal easily within the next 10 years or less.

Lois Capps and all of her Santa Barbara greenie friends are not riding mules along dirt trails. They drive cars (usually big ones) on asphalt freeways. As green and moral as they are...they burn their share of oil. Yet they never miss a chance to moralize at us about OUR use of oil.

Give it a rest please Lois.