It's interesting that many on the Left want to use the Gulf oil spill as a justification to ban all off-shore drilling. Not surprisingly, Charles Krauthammer sets them straight.
However, while this is a good argument for shallow-water drilling as well as drilling off the Alaska coast, I find it neglects land-based sources of energy. These sources including oil from oil sands, natural gas and coal (taking into account the recent Massey mine tragedy of course) would generally be safer for workers and problems that do occur could be much more easily confined rather than sloshing up and down coastlines. (In econ speak, we could reduce the externalities.)
If the Obama administration was serious about increasing energy production at home, they would use this disaster as justification for increased energy exploration on-shore. Instead we get the same old bromides about cap-and-trade and carbon emissions about an "danger" that fewer and fewer people believe exist. Thanks, President Obama for always having your priorities straight.
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