That would have been the appropriate headline for an article on the Democrats' plan to open up some offshore areas to oil drilling. Polls show that the public strongly favors opening areas to offshore drilling because they believe that it will lead to a decline in gas prices. Of course this is not true according to the estimates of the Energy Information Agency (EIA). The EIA projects that no oil will come from these areas for a decade, and even when the area attains full production levels in about 20 years, there will only be enough oil to lower gas prices by around 3-4 cents a gallon. The media have rarely bothered to point out these facts, which would undermine the Republicans' efforts to make this a major election issue.
--Dean Baker
