Safety First: Major Oil Industry Reforms Needed for Continued Exploration in Extreme Environments
"Sen. Bob Graham:
At the current level of proven reserves and at our annual consumption of petroleum, if America were to go to a "Drill, Baby, Drill!" philosophy, we would exhaust our reserves by approximately 2031.
If we continue at the current level of using 48 percent domestic and 52 percent imported, we'll stretch that to the year 2068. I think that those numbers indicate the imperative of having as part of our energy policy that we need to be holding back some areas that have potential for future generations.
And the absolute imperative of moving aggressively towards reducing America's almost insatiable appetite for petroleum. An appetite which today is consuming 22 percent of all the petroleum from the North Sea.
Africa, Australia, as well as United States, we're using 22 percent of it. Those numbers are not sustainable and I believe our policy of reaching out to areas that are not currently being exploited has to be within that context."
