McClatchy: McCain's call for offshore oil drilling won't bring relief soon

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McCain's call for offshore oil drilling won't bring relief soon

By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers



WASHINGTON — Opening America's coastal waters to oil drilling, as John McCain urged in an address Tuesday, is unlikely to provide Americans with more oil for at least seven to 10 years.

That's the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. Major environmental groups think the increased supply would be at least that distant before arrival, and say it mostly would benefit Big Oil.

"It would take a decade to bring new leases into production, and then they would only line the coffers of the oil industry," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director.

Deron Lovaas, senior energy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that even if billions of barrels of oil are available offshore, the U.S. still will control only a fraction of the world's supply, so energy independence isn't within reach.

"We are just not blessed in this country with enough resources for this to make a big difference," Lovaas said.

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