Yesterday President Bush dropped the executive branch’s moratorium on offshore drilling. Today crude oil futures dropped by more than $9 a barrel. Coincidence? Economist and syndicated columnist Larry Kudlow doesn’t think so.
One of the Democrat Congress’ more oft-repeated excuses for not allowing off-shore drilling is the notion that it will take at least ten years to begin producing oil from offshore sources and at least that long for oil prices to come down as a result.
Instead, oil companies haven’t even fired up their drills and oil futures for next month have dropped 6.3%. President Bush, Senator McCain and the responsible members of Congress have come out in favor of offshore drilling and the price of oil is dropping - that price drop can only continue when the rest of Congress finally feels the heat, sees the light, and lifts their ban on offshore drilling. Once that happens, Wall Street researchers predict it’ll take less than a year to start pumping oil from beneath the shallow oceans off the coast of California.
We have to get a jump on domestic oil production to see a sustained drop in oil prices - but as President Bush proved today, simply showing that we are serious about domestic production is enough to get the prices headed downward.