By Harriet Blake and Barbara Kessler

The battle cry “Drill, baby, drill!” has gotten some crowds stirred up at recent political events, and continues to roil through Congress, because many Americans seem convinced — in spite of contrary evidence — that opening up offshore oil drilling will actually bring in more oil, and in turn drive down gas prices.

The economic theory is sound: Build oil supply and price comes down. And the emotional response is understandable, gas prices have put a big squeeze on Americans at a time when the rest of the economy is clearly suffering.

But the strategy is flawed, according to many energy experts who’ve been weighing in for weeks, saying that these offshore locations that have been closed to drilling will not produce a significant amount of oil, and what would dribble in, wouldn’t arrive anytime very soon.

Even the U.S. government’s own experts report that the impact of domestic oil from off-shore drilling would be “insignificant.”

Lifting the 1990 moratorium set on offshore drilling (put into effect after the Exxon Valdez spill by President George Bush Sr. and extended until 2012 by President Bill Clinton) would open up offshore drilling in what’s known as the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). But whether it’s in the Atlantic, the Pacific or the Gulf of Mexico, these new oil drilling sites would not “have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030,” according to an issues report by the US Energy Information Administration.

Were it not an election year, the issue might have been raised, explained and retired. Or maybe if gas hadn’t risen so precipitously, virtually doubling in a year’s time, this issue might have evolved differently.

But take a population yearning for a quick and simple solution to sudden sharp economic pain and add two parts politicians and bada-boom, the dialogue seems to have achieved a life of its own.

Neither presidential candidate supported the concept of opening up offshore drilling until this summer.

In June, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain endorsed it; and in August, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama indicated he might be willing to support it, if it was accompanied with assurance that other alternative energy solutions were also being pursued.

(The issue divide strictly along partisan lines. Republicans who’ve registered opposition to offshore drilling include California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is joined by his Democratic counterparts in Oregon and Washington in worrying about potential environmental harm to the Pacific Ocean.)

McCain, meanwhile, has made it a centerpiece of his campaign, apparently because it has so much political traction, even though the facts don’t seem to warrant it.

As Denis Hayes, a founder of Earth Day and president of the Bullitt Foundation, notes in an essay in Yale’s environment360: “American oil peaked 40 years ago and has been declining ever since. If we want to wean ourselves of our oil addiction while addressing global warming, drilling for just a wee bit more oil is a strange centerpiece for a national energy policy. Even high-end estimates of the amount of new offshore oil produced would be of negligible importance in the world oil market where prices are set…in terms of national energy policy — as John McCain knows full well — it is roughly as useful as banning gasoline lawn mowers.

Congress has felt the pressure too, and a host of leaders began to backslide on their promises to stand firm on offshore drilling. As the price of gas hit $4 a gallon, the clamor from the American public seemed to echo off the walls in DC. Gas has dropped back down some, but as the Republican Convention demonstrates, we’ve still got drilling on our minds.

And so the political dance continues with politicians (who know that this newfound source of oil is mostly a pipe dream) promising to allow it or at least reconsider their position, appeasing the electorate.

Meanwhile, the experts wring their hands. A Sept. 4 report by the nonpartisan think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), lamented that media coverage was treating offshore drilling as a viable solution.

“Oil Drilling In Environmentally Sensitive Areas: The Role of the Media,” found that in 267 television news broadcasts, the EIA data was cited only once and in 91 percent of the news programs sampled, there was no viewpoint presented challenging off-shore drilling as a solution.

“There really isn’t any excuse for the media to ignore the official data on this issue,” said co-author Weisbrot. “It’s like reporting on the economy and ignoring the official date on GDP growth, unemployment, or inflation. No wonder the public is confused.”

The scientific evidence, reported Weisbrot and co-author Nichole Szembrot, shows that offshore drilling would not significantly affect gas prices; producing only about 200,000 barrels of oil per day at peak production in about 20 years, according to the U.S. EIA, or about .2 percent of world oil production.

Yet, according to several polls, many Americans support offshore drilling. A July poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. showing that 69 percent of those polled favored offshore drilling and 30 percent opposed it, though that might reflect a lack of information at that time.

Still, a more recent poll by the Pew Research Center says that offshoring drilling tops Americans’ energy priorities.

SolveClimate, a website that looks at solutions to global warming, takes issue with the poll takers, who, they say, don’t present actual clean energy policy choices to poll respondents. In the a July 28 report on the Pew poll, SolveClimate’s Stacy Feldman debates the legitimacy of a Pew Research question on energy. The question: “What is the more important priority for U.S. energy policy today?” The choices: Expand exploration, mining/drilling; construction of new power plants; more energy conservation/regulation; don’t know.

Forty-seven percent rated energy exploration as the most important.

“Drilling and new power plants won. Big shock,” writes Feldman. She says the poll would have had more weight if clean energy options had been part of the solutions.

On the other hand, another pollster, Belden Russonello & Stewart, recently posed a similar but more specific question: Which of the following is the more important priority for the government: investing in new energy technology including renewable fuels and more efficient cars; or expanding exploration and drilling for more oil? The respondents (76%) overwhelming supported the first option, investing in new energy.

The Union of Concerned Scientists also has been frustrated that the nation’s energy discussion has taken a bee-line boat ride toward the continental shelf.

In an August 20 statement, the Cambridge-based non-partisan science group dismissed offshore drilling as a solution that would have only “a trivial impact on prices — and not for decades” but noted that other measures, like more fuel efficient cars would save American consumes hundreds of dollars a year if not more.

The statement praised the new fuel economy standards mandated by Congress in late 2007 that would require auto manufacturers to produce fleets that get an average of 35 mpg by 2020, which would put the nation in a “position to dramatically reduce demand — which would truly save drivers money and lessen our oil dependence.”

But the group fretted that the government is already considering lowering the required fleet average to 31.6 mpg, based on recommendations by the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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