A friend recently sent us a press release, complete with hyperlinks (which we've kept, though not the funky redirects*), from the Brian Davis campaign.
Just as Davis earlier cited the China-Cuba off shore drilling myth and used a dated (and discard) Minnesota Chamber of Commerce statement about Minnesota's renewable energy standards, he once more has to pick a dubious source in order to attack Congressman Walz.
Rather than reproduce the entire GOP karaoke of talking points, we'll excerpt the part of the press release that drew our interest:
( Rochester , MN ) - Today, Brian Davis the endorsed Republican candidate for the First District of Minnesota, called upon Congressman Walz and others in Congress to lift the moratoria on offshore drilling that exists around nearly all of the U.S. coastline.
Dr. Davis commented, "Congressman Walz recently stated that eighty percent of the outer continental shelf is open for oil exploration and that 'they're not doing it' in reference to oil company drilling. Clearly, the Congressman is badly mistaken because much less than eighty percent of America 's coastline and territorial waters are being explored for oil deposits. It's actually closer to ten percent. Presently, the Atlantic, eastern Gulf of Mexico, Pacific and most of the Alaskan coasts of the United States have been off-limits for exploration and leasing since 1982. Only the western Gulf of Mexico is under active exploration.
Let's take a look at Davis's sourcing. The first link leads--through a redirect*--to an article in the Post Bulletin. The second goes a now deleted page at the Institute for Energy Research. Fortunately, via Google cache, the original can still be retrieved.
What is the Institute for Energy Research? Sourcewatch says:
The Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organisation, advocates positions on environmental issues which happen to suit the energy industry: climate change denial, claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless, and the deregulation of utilities.
It is a member of the Sustainable Development Network. The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron.
An ExxonSecrets Factsheet notes:
IER analyzes public policy related to oil, gas, coal, and electricity. According to IER's mission statement, it "articulates free-market positions that respect private property rights and promote efficient outcomes for energy consumers and producers."
IER President Robert Bradley is a Cato Institute scholar and received the 2002 Julian Simon Award from CEI. One of Bradley's areas of concentration is "global warming alarmism." IER does not publish reports, but sells publications Bradley has written for other organizations, such as the Cato Institute. These publications include "Climate Alarmism Reconsidered" (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003) and "Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not 'Green'" (Cato, 1997).
And how much did ExxonMobil shell out for this shilling?
Institute for Energy Research has received $212,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
2003
$37,000 ExxonMobil Foundation
Source: Institute for Energy Research website 5/042004
$45,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
Climate Change and Energy Policy Issues
Source: ExxonMobil 2004 Worldwide Giving Report2005
$65,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
Source: ExxonMobil 2005 Worldwide Giving Report2006
$65,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving
Source: ExxonMobil 2006 Worldwide Giving Report
That in itself is interesting, since the head of ExxonMobil has twice announced that ExxonMobil was going to quit funding extremist global warming front groups like the Institute for Energy Research. The Integrity in Science project wrote:
ExxonMobil last week announced for the second consecutive year that it will cut funding to nine groups fueling climate science skepticism, including the Capital Research Center, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research. Each group continued to receive Exxon funding in 2007 after the company’s first announcement that it would discontinue the payments. Exxon did not immediately return calls seeking comment on how serious it was in following through on its plans.
No wonder the Rockefeller heirs were in such an uproar, a fact cited in a recent column in the Albert Lea Tribune. The discovery that ExxonMobil hadn't followed through prompted PR Watch to ask the question More Hot Air from Exxon? Another blogger was more blunt: Question: Can ExxonMobil tell the truth?
Davis grabbed his figures from a global warming denial front group that ExxonMobil can't even be honest about funding. Where did Walz get his figures?
In today's press call, he brought up the figure again, slightly revised downward for both oil and gas resources ; he directed those of us listening to the call to contact the staff for supporting documentation. We took him up on the offer and this statement was sent back by communications chief Meredith Salsbery:
According to the Minerals Management Service [MMS, of all the oil and gas believed to exist on the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of the natural gas and 79% of the oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.
Salsbury noted these documents from the House Natural Resources committee. She also provided this link to MMS information about productive leases. And where did the committee get its information?
Mostly likely this report from the MMS, Report to Congress: Comprehensive Inventory of U.S. OCS Oil and Natural Gas Resources Energy Policy Act of 2005 – Section 357. If I'm reading the report right, if the acreage of the OCS sealed off seems large, those acres aren't holding the vast majority of reserves. Rather, most of the "undiscovered technically recoverable resources" are--as Walz claims--in areas open for explorations and drilling.
The table at right, above, found on p. vii of the MMS report, lists the total "Undiscovered Resources" for oil at 85.88 billion barrels (bb). It does not note which of these resources are in OCS area unavailable for leasing and development (either by congressional moratoria, or in the case of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Area, executive order). For that information, we must look at Table 4 (left), which is found on page 72 (it will be listed at 90/134) in the MMS Inventory.
The table lists 18.92 bb of "Undiscovered Technically Recoverable Resources" of oil.
Rounded up, this is the 19 bb of oil that we hear bantered about in discussions of opening up the OCS. If we're looking at this right--and we're a graduate of the Ozarks Famous Writers School, not the local engineering mill [wow! solar-powered boats]--that means that 66.92 bb of recoverable OCS oil resources are open on publicly available land.
Presumably, at least some of those lands available for leasing and development have been leased. We'll dig more on this, but so far, a reliable source indicates that the lion's share of recoverable OCS oil is in areas open for drilling. That's Congressman Walz's point.
And Davis? ExxonMobil's semi-secret BFF. It's no wonder the Rockefeller heirs were up-in-arms at the latest stock holders' meeting, as was noted in a column last week in the Albert Lea Tribune.
*If you want to access the sites link through the redirects (whatever their purpose is), we've produced the original linked passages below. Email us, and we can also send the entire hyperlinked press release if you want it.
Original redirected hyperlinks:
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