Sen. Inhofe for Pro-Drilling

Yes this video is 26 minutes long and this is only part one but I feel that this is a good video to showcase the pro-onshore drilling side of the argument. To sum it up for the people don’t want to watch the whole video, U.S. Senator James Inhofe makes many points backing onshore drilling and the use of Hydraulic Fracturing:

·         Hydraulic Fracturing has been used of half a century and no negative side effects have been   proved.

·         The EPA has conducted a test on the use of fracking and stated that there was no provable contamination of ground water due to drilling and fracking and never finished their testing.

·         They also state that fracking includes taking out the contaminated water left over.

·         Onshore drilling has many pros:

o   Less dependence on foreign nations

o   Make money

o   Produce jobs

o   America has enough oil under the surface to last us 100 years (he really stressed this point). Just in the oil shale in Pennsylvania and New York there is enough to last 35 years.

The main argument made by Senator Inhofe was that the claims made by the other side were not provable and “just completely false Mr. President.” To me this is not close to a reason of why we should even risk endangering our environment forever. Just because things haven’t been proved by the EPA, many acclaimed environmentalists have proved themselves; the EPA hasn’t even completed a full test (they are currently in the process).

As for the reasons he provides for expanding and continuing onshore drilling, I just don’t believe they are worth the risk. Yes we will have less dependence on foreign nations but who cares we will always be dependent on others nations like China for example. It would stimulate the economy and create jobs and but is that worth potentially harming the only world we have? And finally his most stressed point: the amount of oil available; maybe 100 years is a lot to him but when it comes to the life of the world, it is a small percent. Even to me that is short, I could possibly live that long myself and one lifetime of oil isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.

All in all, it seems like the argument of Inhofe is deny the claims as “yet to be proved” and throw out supportive facts about money and jobs, which yes they are important but I’m not sure they are important enough.