One of Dr. Davis's standard talking points about offshore drilling is that the government of Cuba is working with China to develop offshore oil fields. In his Rochester Post Bulletin op-ed column, Davis wrote:
While our federal government sits on its hands just 45 miles off the coast of Florida, the government of Cuba is working along with China in developing oil fields.
Past predictions of a limited supply of oil have often proved wrong. Offshore areas along the U.S. coastline and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska have an estimated 100 billion barrels of crude oil, enough to provide all U.S. transportation needs for more than a decade.
To start addressing the problem of rising gas prices and our economic "stall," it is my view that our government should remove obstacles to increasing domestic oil production as soon as possible. Opening ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf for oil exploration and recovery would be a good first step. . . .
This echoes an earlier statement in an email Davis distributed in January:
If Congress wants an energy bill it should work to remove obstacles to domestic energy production by increasing supply, such as opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf for oil exploration and recovery.While our federal government sits on its hands, just 45 miles off the cost of Florida, Cuba is working with China developing oil fields.
Has Cuba leased offshore sites to oil companies? Yes. Are any of them Chinese? Republican Senator Mel Martinez schooled Cheney on Thursday, according to Chinese oil drilling off Florida coast? 'Akin to urban legend', senator says, by McClatchy Washington Bureau reporters Erika Bolstad and Kevin G. Hall:
As Congress has debated energy policy over the past several days, an unusual argument keeps surfacing in support of drilling off the U.S. coastline and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Why, ask some Republicans, should the United States be thwarted from drilling in its own territory when just 50 miles off the Florida coastline the Chinese government is drilling for oil under Cuban leases?
Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.
"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.
Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open up more U.S. territory to domestic production. . . .
The AP story reports more facts in Cheney oil comment attacked:
Jorge Pinon, a senior energy fellow at the University of Miami specializing in Latin America, said Cuba has awarded offshore oil leases, or concessionary blocs, in its offshore waters to six oil companies — none of them Chinese — and soon may announce an agreement with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras.
"But no one is currently drilling in any of those concessions," said Pinon in a telephone interview. Pinon, who supports drilling in the eastern Gulf and believes it can be done without hurting the environment, said China is being raised as an unnecessary "boogeyman" by drilling proponents.
"There is no actual drilling yet. ... There is exploration," said Johanna Mendelson-Forman, a senior fellow on energy and Latin America at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
She said China's oil company, Sinopac, has conducted exploratory drilling on a lease on land in western Cuba, but is not involved in the offshore development.
But talk of China drilling in waters within 50 miles to 60 miles of Key West has been a common theme among Republicans. They are clamoring to open more of the country's offshore waters to energy development, including the eastern Gulf where drilling is strongly opposed by Florida officials.
That's what Brian Davis has been saying and writing for month. It is simply not true.
At Atrios, Duncan Black wonders where George Will got the information Cheney cited. We're not sure, but we do know where Davis got it, from an article published by the conservative group, the Heartland Institute, on August 1, 2006. The piece, by James M. Taylor, states:
The presence of Chinese oil rigs, there by agreement with Cuba, within view of the Florida coastline has irked state residents. Cuba has announced it will expand those operations.
"I saw all kinds of wells with Chinese writing on them just south of the Keys," Leonard Gropper, a Marathon, Florida retiree, told the June 20 Orlando Sun-Sentinel.
With just 90 miles separating Cuba and the Florida Keys, Cuba has legal rights to oil and natural gas reserves in its half of the Florida Strait. Cuba can, therefore, produce or lease for production oil and natural gas reserves as close as 45 miles from U.S. shores.
"China is trying to lock up resources around the world, and they are locking up resources in our own backyard where we can't even compete and play ball," Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) told the Sun-Sentinel. "This is simply wrong. I've had enough, and I believe the American people have had enough."
That Sun-Sentinel story seems to be the ur-narrative, an account from a retiree who saw oil derricks with Chinese writing on them. And that's it.
According to the AP report, Cheney's office has acknowledged the error:
Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged on Thursday that he was mistaken when he asserted that China, at Cuba's behest, is drilling for oil in waters 60 miles from the Florida coast.
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney said on Wednesday that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil.
"Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida," the vice president said. "We're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply."
He cited his source as columnist George Will, who last week wrote: "Drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are."
Can Brian Davis also admit he's wrong? Or will he simply continue to repeat urban legends that his supporters blindly accept as "common sense energy policy"?
Photo: The Kiester derrick.
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