McCain Switches Position to Allow Offshore Drilling

In an age of $140 oil, John McCain is right to change positions for the sake of national security:

Sen. John McCain called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices and immediately drawing the ire of environmental groups that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has courted for months.

The move is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by freeing states to open vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 80 percent said soaring prices at the pump are causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.

"We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil," McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that "we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions."

McCain's announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.

Environmentalists should consider the potential effects of Islamists on the planet, such as when they topple skyscrapers and attempt to use nuclear weapons. Jihad is fueled by oil revenues and even the perception of future US production will decrease prices.

Additionally, consider the speculative theory that oil is a renewable resource that the earth produces naturally. While the inside of the earth is too vast and deep for science to evaluate such a hypothesis currently, one element of the proposition is the phenomenon of dry wells that later refill. This would imply that the way to channel the earth's oil wealth to surface in one's country is to extract the oil that is found rather than hoarding it there. It's a bit like Pascal's wager (which is also the basis of the Global Warming scare). We can't know for sure yet, but the implications are so huge that we need to act as though it were true.

To make the point completely clear, if oil is indeed a renewable resource, then this is the most important fact in defeating the Global Jihad, which should be exploited by encouraging as much drilling as possible. Currently, we feel that we are "saving" those reserves for the future.