Thrill, Baby–Thrill.

The Wall Street Journal today:

With only two weeks remaining in the congressional session, the antidrilling Democratic leadership is under considerable pressure to allow increased offshore oil and gas exploration. They don’t much like it–Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that by stopping offshore drilling “I’m trying to save the planet,” and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York wants Saudi Arabia to increase its production by a million barrels a day but opposes U.S. drilling on the OCS or ANWR–but it has become reality.

The bill that passed the House Tuesday would allow drilling 100 miles offshore anywhere, and 50 miles off any state that approved drilling. But more than 80% of known oil reserves are inside the 50-mile limit, and ANWR drilling is still not permitted, even though it involves only 2,000 of Alaska’s 20 million acres of coastal plain. No royalties would be shared with the states under the House bill, and $18 billion in existing government subsidies for oil companies would be repealed.

The upcoming Senate version proposes to allow drilling off only four states–Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia–and to raise taxes on the oil industry by some $30 billion.

* * *

There is no question a great deal of oil and gas is on the Outer Continental Shelf, but the Democratic Party has been opposed to offshore drilling for a long while, and the Republicans have sometimes joined Democrats. Now it is time for a change. As Ronald Reagan said in his 1980 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: “Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes, and controls than more energy.”

He was talking about the Carter administration, but a quarter-century later the Democratic congressional majority would also like more energy regulation, taxes and controls.

We can buy some time to perfect the renewables, but to do it we need more drilling, more natural gas, more clean coal, and more nuclear power.

And as I discussed yesterday, there is plenty of space to move the rigs out of sight (12-20 miles) and still stay within 50 miles off-shore, so the platforms are near the actual petroleum deposits they are designed to extract.

Let the moratoria die.*

* What a funny way to put it: it sounds like “let death die.” Presumably “death” is the root meaning for “moratorium.”