The Politics Of Energy

Today hearings began in Washington as to the cause of the explosion on the drilling rig Deep Water Horizon and the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Top executives from the five largest oil corporations in the world tried to deflect any impending damage to there industry. The message that all five sent was that if recent moratoriums on deep water drilling were to continue that an imbalance in the supply demand structure would cause the high prices that we saw at the pump in 2008 look like a cakewalk in comparison. After watching this circus of political posturing on C-Span i caught an interesting interview with the ex CEO of Shell Oil Corp on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS. John Hofmeister stated that no oil company in the world has a cookbook on how to drill safely at those depths and that all involved including the government are fully aware of the level of risk involved. Mr Smiley asked the question that if what your implying is true why wont the government allow near shore shallow drilling thus mitigating the level of risk?, Mr Hofmeister said that the answer is simple yet embarrassing. After the 1969 blowout on the rig in Santa Barbara laws were implemented to push drilling into deep water areas where unsightly drilling rigs could not be seen. He also stated that if stringent safety precautions were not followed in the drilling process at those depths that it could lead to the catastrophic results seen in the last few months. His most recent book entitled Why We Hate The Oil Companies should be an interesting read for Americans hoping for the truth as to who is truly to blame in this debacle.