We will know the answer to that one soon. President Bush said in his radio address today said that the oil in the offshore protected areas is equal to 10 years of current production.
No, that is not true. The Energy Information Agency, the government agency responsible for making estimates of oil reserves, calculates that there are approximately 8 billion of barrels of oil in the protected areas. Current production is approximately 3 billion barrels a year. That implies that the oil in the offshore protected areas is equal to less than 3 years of annual production, not ten years. That means that President Bush is off by a factor of more than three.
It actually is somewhat worse. U.S. production is only equal to 40 percent of consumption. Consumption is the more relevant factor in determining the importance of this oil. The oil in offshore protected areas is equal to only a bit more than a year of domestic consumption.
In other words, President Bush was completely misrepresenting the importance of oil in offshore protected areas. Why isn't this major news? Do the NYT, Washington Post, NPR, and Lehrer News Hour believe that President Bush lies so often that it can't be treated as news?
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