Dear Editor,

Your editorial in favor of lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling states that “If the ban … were lifted, within a few years, we would be getting the benefit of tapping the 10.4 billion barrels there and, in the short term, it might just bring a drop in gasoline prices.”

Proceedings of the American Petroleum Institute indicate that a more realistic time frame is seven to 10 years before the first drop of oil is ready for market. In addition, the impact of the potential supply on the world price of oil is generously expected to be less than $5 per barrel. Many observers believe the impact to be less than half of that amount.

Drilling in the 70 million acres of federal land (containing an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil) that the oil companies already have drilling leases for would produce a larger effect in a much shorter time frame; however, given the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource, and the effect of greenhouse gasses on the environment, it seems to me that an aggressive national energy policy that fosters a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is a preferable approach to increased drilling, even in the short term.

Properly conceived, such a program would improve our economy, create good-paying jobs that could not be exported, increase our national security and make the United States a world leader in saving our planet for future generations.

Lewis Boddie
Eureka