No domestic drilling worse than domestic drilling.

Below are some very interesting points made by Univ. of California Professor Eric Smith:

From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff. Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent). In short, the risk of oil spills from platforms is small.

In contrast, there are relatively high environmental costs associated with importing oil as opposed to producing it in the United States. There are three problems with importing oil: First, spills from tankers and barges are the largest human-caused source of oil in the oceans. Oil is more likely to be spilled from a tanker than from a platform, and tankers have the potential to cause catastrophic spills. The groundings of the Exxon Valdez (off Alaska), the Castillo de Bellver (South Africa), the Amoco Cadiz (France), the Irenes Serenade (Greece) and the Torrey Canyon (Britain), to name a few, all had severe effects on local ecosystems.

Second, the countries from which we import oil have lower environmental standards than the United States has. In particular, many foreign oil producers choose to vent methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — directly into the atmosphere rather than spend extra money to capture or flare it. Mexico, for example, produces less than half the oil that the United States produces but emits six times as much methane.

Third, shipping oil to the United States requires burning a huge amount of diesel oil, the exhaust from which is greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere. Just as environmentalists argue that eating locally grown food is better for the planet because it saves transportation costs and energy, locally produced oil has less of a negative impact. Depending on the country of origin and the tanker size, 1 percent to 3 percent of the oil in every tanker is consumed merely for delivery.

Great commentary. But here’s one the professor didn’t mention regarding domestic off-shore drilling: right now, countries like China are drilling in those same waters which so many people deny our own companies access to. Those foreign countries, in turn, sell that oil to the very countries from whom we purchase foreign oil.

We’re not protecting our environment, but simply ensuring that we pay more for oil.