Gassy: Adding up Bachmann’s $2-per-gallon promise

Will Minnesota see $2-per-gallon gas again? Everyone, save Rep. Michele Bachmann, seems to think the answer is no. Bachmann is campaigning on bringing back cheap gas, and it’s a brilliant strategy. She promises a popular yet impossible outcome and then blames her opponents when the outcome doesn’t happen — before it ever could.

Bachmann says gas prices will drop by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling and offering leases to extract oil from shale in the Rocky Mountains. "What Democrats in Washington don’t want the American people to know: This is a treasure trove of energy that will yield a lot with only minimal intrusion," Bachmann wrote on Monday. "The fact of the matter is that Congress is standing in the way of $2-a-gallon gas. We have the resources available in areas like ANWR and Colorado to lower oil costs and decrease our dependence on foreign oil."

Bachmann and Oil Shale

The Star Tribune took a look at some of Bachmann’s promises and found a lot of hype. Disagreeing with Bachmann’s premise was Philip Budzik, an oil analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration. He said the production of Rocky Mountain oil shale was "meaningless" because it is so far from being implemented. He told the paper, "It’s not going to be tomorrow, and it’s not going to be in 10 years."

Why the long wait? Because oil shale is not a good source of gasoline. According to a Congressional Research Service report (PDF), "oil-shale distillate does not make ideal feedstock for gasoline production. Because the kerogen contained by the shale is only a petroleum precursor, it lacks the full range of hydrocarbons used by refineries in maximizing gasoline production. Also, because of technology limitations, only hydrocarbons in the range of middledistillates (kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel) appear extractable."

According to those experts, oil shale will not be part of the solution to lower gas prices.

Bachmann and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Bachmann made the claim Monday that "energy exploration would be limited to a small 2,000-acre lot within ANWR," a portion of land that is comparable "to a postage stamp sitting on a football field."

A Bluestem Prairie calls that postage stamp analogy "malarky." The National Resources Defense Council said that the oil "is not concentrated in one large reservoir within a 2,000-acre area but is spread across its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits, according to the U.S. Geological Survey." And that requires a network of pipelines and roads (See the USGS document describing those deposits – pdf).

"The [Energy Information Administration] has also stated that the production of this oil would create an estimated as many as [sic] 750,000 American jobs," wrote Bachmann. "At a time when our nation is hurting because of rising food and gas costs, more domestic energy and new jobs would give the economy a much needed boost."

Blue Stem Prairie points out that this number is old and inaccurate. A U.S. Department of Energy-commissioned study estimated that only a third as many jobs would be created, and economic analysts dispute that number given current economic conditions.

In any case, the number Bachmann cites did not come from the Energy Information Administration as she claimed. A thorough check of that agency’s Web site pulled up zero references to that estimate. The number is, in fact, from a 1990 study commissioned by the oil industry. It is an 18-year-old estimate from a report written an economic consulting firm for the American Petroleum Institute.

Despite the factual errors in Bachmann’s talking points, The DFL points out that even if we did drill in ANWR, it wouldn’t result in $2 gas.

"At a time when Minnesotans are truly hurting from the multi-faceted impact of higher gas prices on their lives, Representative Bachmann’s wild claim is not only flat-out false — it’s fantasy," DFL Associate Chair Donna Cassutt said in a press statement last week. "To say that drilling in ANWR will bring us $2 a gallon gas tomorrow is like saying that someday we’ll find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Even the Bush administration admits that Minnesotans will have to wait years and years to realize any relief from drilling in ANWR – and even then, the relief would be negligible."

The Mankota Free Press gave Bachmann, and her arguments, a "thumbs down" as well this weekend.

"Bachmann continued her claims that America could return to $2-a-gallon gas, if only drilling could speed ahead," the paper wrote. "Never mind that the Bush administration’s own studies predict that drilling in ANWR would likely drop gas prices by only a couple of cents per gallon and it would take 15 or more years for the effect to be felt."

The Free Press continued, "Oil companies already hold rights to millions of acres of domestic oil drilling land and production has increased in places such as North Dakota. Drilling in a pristine area — even one sometimes in the dark and treeless — is unnecessary, foolish and would provide no noticeable benefit."

Bachmann and North Dakota

Speaking of North Dakota, Bachmann has also been touting the oil there as part of the solution to getting down to two bucks a gallon — and she blamed Democrats for not tapping that resource. "If we would just access, for instance the North Dakota Bakken oil field, that would increase America’s energy reserves by over 50 percent," she told Jack Rice on Friday.

A recent story by KARE 11 indicates that extensive oil drilling is occurring in North Dakota, despite Bachmann’s protestations. "There are about 350 producing Bakken wells in North Dakota right now, and that number is growing rapidly," Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, told KARE 11.

Whoever Bachmann sees as preventing drilling in North Dakota, it certainly isn’t the North Dakotans.

Bachmann and Energy Economics

Robin West, who ran oil drilling programs as assistant secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan, disagreed with the premise that increased oil production would have an impact. Instead, conservation is the key. "The low-hanging fruit is not energy production, it’s conservation," he told the Star Tribune.

Ramping up production would not result in $2 per gallon gas. "Long term it could have a lot of impact," West said. "Near term it will have very little impact."

Bachmann’s opponents agree. "She’s essentially saying oil companies would take a limited resource, flood the market with it and cut their profits in half,” El Tinklenberg told MinnPost. "The thing is, people want to believe it. They want to believe there’s a simple way out. She’s exploiting the real pain that people are feeling. Two-dollar-a-gallon gasoline sounds so nice.”

Photo: Joanne Canen