I have received the text of an Alice-in-Wonderland memo (below) that House Republican leaders will circulate today on legislation they plan to offer. It claims:
To increase the supply American-made energy in environmentally sound ways, the legislation will:
* Open our deep water ocean resources, which will provide an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day;
* Open the Arctic coastal plain, which will provide an additional 1 million barrels of oil per day; and
* Allow development of our nation's shale oil resources, which could provide an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day
First off, we opened the vast majority of our deep water ocean resources to drilling two years ago and oil prices doubled.
Second, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts, ending the federal moratorium on coastal drilling would add perhaps 150,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s and have no impact on prices through 2030, unless, as seems likely, California blocks drilling off its coast, in which case it would add well under 100,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s.
Third, opening up the "Arctic coastal plain" (GOP-speak for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) would also have no impact on prices, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts.
Fourth, you can't develop U.S. shale in environmentally sound ways.
Yet Republican leader John Boehner, Republican Whip Roy Blunt, Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, and Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor still have the chutzpah to write:
