It’s about time to shatter all this “offshore drilling” mumbo jumbo with a few facts.

1. Over 40 billion barrels of offshore oil are currently under lease, and precious little has been done to exploit it so far, in part because drilling out there is very expensive and also the limited available equipment is already committed.

2. The other protected offshore areas that the Republicans are demagoging about amount to an additional 19 billion barrels-less than half of what the oil companies are not going after right now when they have the right to.

3. During the past week, the federal government received bids on only 10% of the offshore oil parcels that were up for bid. If we so desperately need to exploit this resource and there aren’t any other alternatives, why aren’t the oil companies lined up out the door to bid for these drilling rights?

4. It seems that we hear a lot from some politicians about the need to rush out and get more offshore oil. Yet, we have heard very little from the oil companies. Perhaps because this is all bogus and a political game of smoke and mirrors.

Let’s get rid of the phony rhetoric and get down to work. We have boodles of available reserves that are untouched. We also have a host of possibilities for alternative and renewable energy already in hand and on the near horizon. I think that we would be far wiser to direct our efforts in the latter direction for a better and more secure future.