Environmental case for expanded offshore drilling

UC Santa Barbara professor says American waters might be the greener bet

BY ERIC LIDJI FOR GREENING OF OIL

When Eric Smith began studying energy politics in the 1990s, he thought of global warming as an interesting idea without enough data to back it up. “By now, it’s very conclusive that global warming is real and that we ought to do something about it,” Smith, a political science professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an interview with Greening of Oil on April 8.

Others have also reached that conclusion, forcing a second look at previously unpopular energy ideas, such as increasing the use of nuclear power. Smith believes environmental concerns should prompt a closer look at another taboo. “I haven’t heard anybody re-evaluating offshore oil because of climate change, but I think we really have to,” said Smith, who is also affiliated with UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management.

The Obama administration recently proposed opening much of the Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The decision brought immediate criticism from the environmental community, who argued that the risk of an offshore spill devastating existing coastal industries like tourism and fishing just wasn’t worth the domestic supplies available in the untapped areas.

In an April 2 editorial in the Washington Post, Smith argued that offshore drilling might actually have an environmental benefit, at least in the context of oil development.

In short, his argument is this: drilling for oil off American coasts is environmentally friendlier than importing it from abroad.

Why? Because tankers cause more spills than platforms; the United States has higher environmental standards to protect the environment than other countries; and moving oil long distances across oceans burns more diesel than piping it to shore.

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Thinking outside the box

In a debate that usually pits industry against environmentalism, Smith offers a unique perspective: political science.

For 15 years, he’s studied the public perception of energy. Like his views on offshore drilling, Smith’s work often reveals conclusions that at first seem counterintuitive.

For example, in a 2004 paper on “Nimbyism vs. Environmentalism,” he found that proximity to proposed drilling sites did not necessarily lead people to oppose oil development. In other words, the public image of NIMBY—“not in my back yard,” or supporting development so long as it happens far away—might be inaccurate. Opposition we blame on NIMBY may actually be political activism rising to meet a local challenge.

But overall, Smith’s discoveries point to an unsurprising trend: public support for offshore drilling closely tracks the price of oil. When prices were low in the mid to late 1990s, the public generally didn’t approve of drilling off its coasts. Over the past few years, though, during a historic run up in prices, the public became more open to the idea.

Since 2008, when oil prices peaked, around 63 percent of the citizens of the United States have supported expanded offshore drilling, according to a March report from the Pew Research Center.

Letting the facts square off

Smith lives and works in Santa Barbara, site of an infamous 1969 offshore oil spill that many credit with propelling the American environmental movement to prominence.

While his work over the past 25 years touches on voter behavior and gay marriage, Smith began studying energy and environmental policy almost exclusively in the mid-1990s.

“I was originally drawn to the areas because I’m a wanton environmentalist, and I had been politically active at various times. It popped up as an opportunity to do something that merged scholarship with my personal opinions on things,” Smith said. “But this stuff—which I’ve been working on quite a while—it’s not a matter of opinions. The editorial basically tossed out a lot of facts that are drawn primarily from government studies.”

For his Washington Post editorial, Smith used public records kept since the 1969 spill.

“From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff,” he wrote. “Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent). In short, the risk of oil spills from platforms is small.”

Regulations increased since 1969 spill

Even before 1969, Smith said, environmental concerns about offshore development were justified. He believes industry sloppiness and inadequate regulation lead to the 1969 oil spill, pointing to an assumption that the strength of the subsea floor made well casing unnecessary.

Today, technological improvements and an increase in regulations have negated those old concerns, Smith said.

For instance, companies can now make a three-dimensional map of the sea floor before drilling, pointing out weak spots or hazards in the ocean floor. “Back then, you could say, I think quite reasonably, that this is very risky, because we didn’t know what we were doing. And you can no longer argue that very persuasively,” he said.

Smith admits there are other environmental concerns about offshore oil development besides spills and emissions. He said ice and wildlife makes the debate over drilling in Alaska different than the one in California (which would remain off limits under the Obama plan), but added that he doesn’t feel qualified to discuss the differences in detail.

A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report criticized the way the U.S. Minerals Management Service handled environmental issues in parts of Alaska.

While most of the response he’s received has been supportive, Smith noted the criticism from some of the people who commented online on his Washington Post article.

Those criticisms include the relatively small supply of oil from offshore sources in terms of domestic demand, the fact that oil companies are not required to sell domestic oil to U.S. markets and the claim that any expansion of oil drilling only serves to delay alternative energy production, rather than serve as a bridge to a clean energy future. Some also pointed to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Smith wants the facts to square off. He thinks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or university researchers, should thoroughly compare the footprints of domestic offshore oil development and importing oil from abroad.

“I have no doubt that the basic answer is that drilling it here produces less greenhouse gas and environmental damage,” he said.

Links of interest

“Offshore oil drilling might make environmental sense,” in the Washington Post, April 2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040102800.html

“Public Opinion about Energy Development: Nimbyism vs. Environmentalism.”
http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/smith/Nimby.pdf

U.S. Department of Interior Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Strategy
http://www.doi.gov/whatwedo/energy/ocs/index.cfm