By Joe Conason
Listening to the mouthpieces of the oil industry on talk radio and cable television -- as well as in the Bush White House -- one gets the impression that we must start drilling in America's coastal waters immediately. If only we unleash the oilmen to explore and exploit, then the price of gasoline will start to fall, the scheming petroleum cartel will collapse, and the United States will be independent once again. And if we don't unleash the oilmen, then the Chinese communists will siphon off all the oil from the coast of Cuba before we can even launch a rowboat into the Caribbean.
None of that is true, of course. Producing oil from new offshore wells requires decades, and even when those resources come online they will have little impact on world prices, according to the government's own studies. Fouling our shores with clots of tar will bring us no closer to freedom from foreign oil in the near, medium or long term.
And that tale about the Chinese drilling off Cuba is a hoax designed to gull the public into supporting the repeal of laws that restrict offshore drilling. But the phony Cuban oil story raises a pertinent question. If we really want to free ourselves from the death grip of the oil-exporting countries, maybe we should lift the embargo on trade and investment in Cuba.
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