Looking to steer public attention away from contentious social issues where Republicans have been steadily marching themselves off of cliffs these past few weeks, Romney has begun to refocus on the economy and particularly energy policy. Or what stands for energy policy in his case: a promise to drill to earn votes.
What a floating waste of money
Focusing on battleground states such as North Carolina and Virginia, Romney has been stumping the idea of drilling more offshore wells and building rigs near the Outer Banks and Williamsburg, VA. It is nothing more than a pandering lie that will never come to fruition.
First, how much oil is out there? Enough to justify the cost of buying a rig, drilling wells, and, most importantly, the safe and clean decommissioning of those wells and rigs when they run dry? If there were huge reserves of oil there, we would have been pumping them for decades already. These areas are also hugely dependent upon tourism, and after the BP spill in the Gulf revealed how fickle the American tourist can be, is that the image these areas want on their postcards?
Second, do the people of those two states actually believe that a few oil rigs will change anything for them? That prices might drop a tiny bit at the pump, or it might create a few jobs? The truth is, oil revenues will not flood the states like the UAE, and most of the jobs created will go to skilled technicians, most of whom will come from other traditional oil states where they have had proper training.
So this energy policy will change little for the states Romney is talking about, but it is also misguided because oil is not sustainable. Every dollar wasted today on oil exploration is one step we take further away from making America the largest creator of clean energy technologies. Every second that we take talking about finding more oil is a waste of energy when we could concentrate that human energy and effort into harnessing sustainable sources that will let us enjoy as much energy as we want without ever worrying about it, and building major, profitable, long-lasting companies that will create wealth for their new employees for centuries, not merely years, to come.
