Nearly three in four Americans favor increased offshore drilling

[heronguy]

Okay, help me out here. Are people really this stupid? Is there anyone out there is who so very dense that they do not understand that increasing offshore drilling, and drilling the ANWR, will increase the price of gasoline at the pump

Comments

[clayshaper]

The very SAD thing, is that Americans are CLUELESS that most 'oil' isn't going into their car tanks anyway.

In the panic for moremoremore, they're overlooking that we could save VAST amounts of oil by oh, not manufacturing things in plastic, not making 'throwaway' everything out of petroleum products, and not using gas driven equipment in order to 'cheapen' manufacture... we could go back to have humans do things, ya know. :P

I saw an article once, that said that for every gallon of 'gas' we used, we also used several barrels-worth of non-gas products, like plastics... gross.

[heronguy]

Yep. And in the intervening 16 years, the price per barrel of domestically produced petroleum would dramatically increase, because the costs of developing all of that infrastructure would be tacked on to the existing oil market. It's really important to understand this point: the US petroleum industry has not upgraded ANY of their drilling or refineries since the early 1970's. They've barely even been maintained since that time. None of us are paying a single penny for construction and development of the existing facilities, they've all been paid off since the Carter administration. The last significant development of US oil production and infrastructure was Prudhoe Bay/Alaska Pipeline/Valdez. That's paid for, now, except for the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. New development means new costs for the petroleum industry that the US public has not had to pay for in 30 years.

[baal_kriah]

Are people really this stupid?

Sad to say, yes. And even those who aren't really stupid are often blinded by wishful thinking.