Brave New Films on McCain's oil love affair

Brave New Films has come up with another installment in its series, The Real McCain, which outlines John McCain's intimate relationship with Big Oil.

McCain's babbling about 21 billion barrels of oil that is untapped along our shores sounds good for the headlines and for everyone who's angry for paying $4+ per gallon, but the math doesn't hold up. The US consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day, which translates to 7.3 billion barrels of oil per year. That's a little less than three years' worth of oil. And the great fallacy of all of this oil that McCain (and President Bush) now says we need to drill for is that it won't reach the market for years to come.

What's more, a new oil refinery hasn't been built in this country for over 30 years, so even if more oil comes in, the supply wouldn't increase, because oil companies refuse to increase refining capacity, and our bought-and-paid-for government won't force Big Oil's hand to build more capacity. Even more outrageous is that these oil companies have had tens of billions of dollars in profit during the last 2-3 years, and our government continues to turn a blind eye to the oil companies' willful raping of the American taxpayer because of Big Oil's campaign contributions.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of Big Oil's push to drill on our coasts and in ANWR is how they claim that the drilling will be done in an "environmentally sensitive way." What a joke. I've said it before and I've said it again - I've got two words: Exxon Valdez. Our government had better not risk our coasts and our tourism economies to drill for oil. The consequences could be disastrous.

I also think it's outrageous that oil companies only pay the U.S. Government 12.5 percent of the oil's market value. That's complete b.s. - the government should double it to 25 percent, and use some of it to give tax breaks to companies that will invest in alternative energy sources. And it wouldn't hurt to give some of the money to companies willing to build hydrogen refilling stations, too, since we need that infrastructure to use hydrogen vehicles.

John McCain's modification of his opinion (Read: A total reversal) about drilling on our coasts is transparent, and it should be realized for what it is - shameless pandering for votes.