It was to be a celebration, but a federal agency in charge of offshore drilling has postponed next week's annual luncheon in Houston, which was to extol the safety record of offshore oil drilling.
A new posting on the website of the U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, or MMS, noted that the agency is busy and the unfolding tragedy that has cost lives and oil might conflict with the May 3 luncheon.
They might also want to rethink the awards to be given out. One of the winners last year was BP American, operator of the rig that exploded last
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What's lost in this conversation is that oil is a fungible commodity. It always cracks me up to hear the phrase 'dependence on foreign oil', because it's really no different than 'dependence on oil'. In short, it doesn't really matter where the oil comes from. We'll always have the same geo-political problems as long as we depend on oil, and I don't see any way we can't depend on oil, at least not in the short term. As far as electricity goes, I say 'build baby, build', as in nuclear reactors.
Lewis brings up a good point.
I also heard a great point on NPR the other day- domestic drilling will not lower oil prices- because OPEC will simply raise their prices- and we cannot drill enough to meet our needs.
What's unfortunate is, we have enough oil available here to supply all of our needs, but with the NIMBY mentality, coupled with over-regulation and red tape we can't take advantage of our own resources.