Fallout from spill touches attitudes

May 30, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTOn

The Gulf oil spill has triggered a crisis of confidence, shaking Americans’ views about BP, the oil industry, technology and President Barack Obama and slowing a planned expansion of domestic offshore oil drilling.

Are the worst spill in U.S. history and images of dead birds and toxic syrup lapping at Gulf shores shocking enough to be a tipping point for energy policy and consumer behavior, however?

Will Americans rush to smaller cars or spend more to buy hybrids? Will politicians embrace gas taxes and charges on large carbon polluters or adopt other measures to punish fossil-fuel burning and encourage alternative energy use?

It’s probably too soon to say. Public willingness to change — and the political courage to provoke change — may hinge on how long the spill continues, how the wind blows, how the cleanup goes and the extent of damage to wildlife, seafood, jobs, tourism and real estate.

The debate also comes as the nation is emerging from the worst economic crisis in decades, saddled with debt, trying to wrap up two wars and embarking on an experiment in health care that has left many Americans unsettled and businesses bracing for higher taxes. It also comes as key developing nations, including China and India, rely heavily on oil and coal to drive their expansions.

For now, many experts say Americans aren’t ready to change.

“I don’t think it’s a game-changer,” said Antoine Halff, the head of commodities research at Newedge, a New York-based brokerage firm. “It drives home the risky nature of meeting the demand for oil,” but he predicted perspective largely would be offset by a more- powerful reflex: “People like to have their cake and eat it too.”

Even the most-cautious analysts expect the crisis to lead Americans to embrace greater government regulation of offshore drilling and perhaps to expedite higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

Advocates of a faster transition from an oil economy to alternative energy are seizing the opportunity to push for as much as they can get.

The searing images of the spill already are having some impact. In a USA Today/Gallup poll released this week, 55 percent of those polled said environmental protection should be prioritized, even if it meant limiting U.S. energy production.

In the same poll, however, 50 percent said they still supported increased offshore drilling, perhaps realizing the nation depends so heavily on oil that change will be difficult.

“We’ve been through this sort of drill before with the oil embargo back in the 1970s, the various oil-price shocks,” said Frank Felder, the director of the Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “Everyone gets riled up ... and then we go back to our ways. The reason we do it is that oil is just very, very useful.”