Republicans' worthless oil plan: more proof

On Wednesday, I showed proof that the Republicans' oil plan won't change prices until 2030. Well, Michele Bachmann is pretty obsessed with $2 a gallon gas, so how are we going to get there? Maybe drilling in ANWR will help?

Bachmann's already been talking crazy about ANWR. Across the Great Divide examines some of her conclusions on the environmental impact in Postage Stamp on a Football Field? More Like a Pile of Horsepuckey.

Well, what about the effect on oil prices? Fortunately, our friends at the Bush Administration have already analyzed the potential price effects. A report by the Energy Information Administration (PDF link) forecasts the price of oil in 2020 under high-yield, low-yield, and medium-yield scenarios in ANWR. In two of those scenarios, the total impact would be less than $1 per barrel! Here's an excerpt from the report:

With respect to the world oil price impact, projected ANWR oil production constitutes between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030, based on the low and high resource cases, respectively. Consequently, ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices. Relative to the AEO2008 reference case, ANWR oil production is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light (LSL) crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 in the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 in the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 in the high oil resource case. Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by a similar amount (emphasis added).

So why do the Republicans keep thumping their chests over oil prices? Because they believe they've finally found an issue that will win them political points. In fact, they don't want gas prices to go down before the election. In two previous articles, I showed that Michele Bachmann and John Kline and Norm Coleman voted against measures to lower the price of gas, because they want to score political points with their own plans.

So there you have it. Between ANWR and off-shore drilling, a total savings of $1 per barrel. And in the meantime, we get to stay addicted to oil while our federal government continues to obsess over how to reduce oil prices instead of encouraging the development of alternatives.

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