Offshore Drilling

There's a proposal by the US Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to lease more offshore areas of the Gulf, Alaska, and Virigina for oil and natural gas drilling. Right now, a shitload of the HoR is against offshore drilling in site of rich developed neighborhoods, but I wouldn't be surprised to see something go through farther out. Most of the oil we have left is in those areas. The trouble with oil estimates for these things is they fucking use terms like, "In its recent five-year leasing proposal, MMS estimates undiscovered resources to include 85.9 billion barrels of oil and 419.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas technically recoverable from all federal offshore areas." (That's from an article linked to over at futurepundit.com) I mean, if the resources are undiscovered, you don't really know they're there, right? Come on, if anti-emission control people can say that global warming thinking centers around unfounded estimates and computer simulated models, then can't the anti-ANWAR drilling people and similar factions argue that those same tactics render even the best mathematical estimates and models for how much oil/gas is left where illegitimate as well. Goose and gander discussion right there. A guess is a guess no matter how educated it is. Personally, I'm with the futurepundit guy on this one. If we're gonna do it, tax it and earmark all the tax money for grants and research funding for energy alternatives and creating new infrastructure. And I'm not talking efficency increases. I'm talking flat out switching off oil. A 10% tax on nearly $9 trillion is almost $1 billion for that shit.