Progress Illinois

In our post earlier today about GOP Rep. Mark Kirk's WLS interview, we noted his suggestion that America could develop 80 billion barrels of oil domestically by lifting the ban on offshore drilling and wondered where he got that number. Well, we looked into it and discovered that the 10th District Republican is actually conflating two very different government estimates. In doing so, he's more than quadrupling the amount of oil thought to be available in the offshore areas under federal moratorium. 

First, the 80 billion.

As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of the Interior did an assessment of oil resources available on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). According to June 2007 testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee by MMS acting director Walter Cruickshank, the OCS contains "an additional 86 billion barrels of recoverable oil (bbl) and 420 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas." Ergo, Kirk's "80 billion" claim, which the Republican staff of the Senate Energy Committee and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) have used as well.

But that's not the entire story. The 86 billion figure is the number of barrels that could be potentially found in the entire OCS.  But the entire OCS isn't under federal moratorium.  So how much of that total estimate can be attributed to the areas under the ban?  The MMS detailed that amount in a July 30 press release:

The Outer Continental Shelf currently provides 27 percent of U.S. domestic oil production and 15 percent of domestic natural gas production -- most of that from the Gulf of Mexico. The areas under a congressional ban contain an additional 18 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in yet-to-be-discovered fields.

We know the numbers "18" and "80" sound similar, Mark (kind of like "Osama" and "Obama"). But that doesn't mean they can be used interchangeably.