Oil spill endangers Gulf Coast and long-range energy policy

It has been quite some time since news coverage was dominated by scenes of millions of gallons of oil lapping up on shore and volunteers using dish-washing liquid to clean struggling birds and sea otters.

And that may explain why, in the interim, the phrase “drill, baby, drill” rolled so easily off the political tongue. The consequences of drilling, especially off-shore drilling, had become old news. Today’s news was the need to keep the cost of a gallon of gasoline below $3.

President Barack Obama was among those who had come to recognize the presumed need for more off-shore drilling, and just a month ago he announced plans to allow drilling along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska. It would open to oil production hundreds of millions of acres of ocean that had been covered by a moratorium on drilling.

At the time Obama was criticized by House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio for keeping the vast majority of potential offshore drilling sites off limits, and he was attacked for “unleashing a wholesale assault on the oceans,” by Jacqueline Savitz of the environmental group Oceana.

Startling new development

And then the BP drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20. The immediate shocked reaction was to the force of the explosion and the loss of 11 missing crew members. At the time, BP grossly underestimated the amount of oil that was escaping from the fractured well. Now we know that oil was not seeping from the well at 1,000 barrels a day. It is shooting out at an estimated rate of 5,000 barrels. That’s 200,000 gallons a day.

When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989, it spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil and spoiled 1,200 miles of largely remote coastline. It was one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history.

With the failure this week to activate an emergency shutoff valve a mile below the sea, it could take weeks or months to stop the flow of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

In 30 days, the well will have spewed half as much oil as the Exxon Valdez lost, and the oil won’t be working its way toward remote Alaska coastline.

Hundreds of miles of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastline are endangered. The Gulf-area seafood industry is imperiled. The potential social, economic and environmental costs are staggering.

First things first

The immediate priority is to contain the oil spill by whatever means are possible — booms, suction, emulsifiers and fire. And, of course, to cap the well or reduce its output by drilling a new well.

Clean-up efforts will be monumental, by the oil industry, the government and volunteers.

But ultimately, the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon will change the debate on energy independence and alternate energy.

That may be politically inevitable, but it is not necessarily the best thing. Energy policy should be based on long-range, realistic considerations, not volatile reactions to a Three Miles Island, an Exxon Valdez or a Deepwater Horizon.

Energy policy shouldn’t be driven by an environmental disaster, an economic catastrophe or a war in the Middle East. All those threats and possibilities should be part of the calculus that drives a mature political process toward a sustainable energy policy.

After this crisis is past, let’s see if the administration and Congress are up to that task.