Yesterday while reading a magazine, I found a full page ad from EnergyTomorrow.org with the headline “Is Tomorrow’s Energy Right in Front of Us?”

The page caught my attention because of a sidebar text box that stated “85% of lower 48 OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) acreage is off-limits to oil & natural gas development.”

The ad went on to state that in America there are 112 billion barrels of oil and 656 trillion cubic feet of natural gas just on federal lands but because of regulatory restrictions most of those resources are off limits to production.

I started to wonder who had the resources to put a full page ad in a national magazine encouraging the mining of America’s oil and natural gas resources.

Turns out that the EnergyTomorrow.org website is sponsored by API, a American trade association with 400 corporate members representing oil producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators, marine transporters, along with service and supply companies that support these businesses.

What are the priorities of API?
- Increasing Energy Efficiency
- Investing in Energy Technologies
- Increasing and Diversifying U.S. Resources
- Increasing and Diversifying Global Resources

While I’m all for the group’s focus on increasing energy efficiency and investing in energy technologies, I personally have issues with their desire to tap into America’s oil and natural gas resources, at least for now.

While API stresses they are not looking to access the oil and natural gas underlying parks or wilderness areas, they do want to get at the oil and gas on other government lands including the resources under the Outer Continental Shelf.

The U.S. Outer Continental shelf consists of submerged lands, subsoil, and seabeds offshore the U.S. coasts.

API says technology today allows mining of the underwater oil and natural gas to occur without damaging marine life, but what happens once those resources are gone? API says there are enough known reserves to power 60 million vehicles for 60 years and heat 160 million households with natural gas for 60 years. But then what?

I think our focus needs to be on developing alternative forms of energy and not on using up every bit of what we currently have.

What do you think?