Yeah, but to reduce seepage one must drill where pressure has built up. That may require new infrastructure.

scaeagles, I don't have the energy tonight to look into that claim. But every single quick source I find traces back to a single Op Ed in a newspaper that references a single press release from 1999 for the idea that drilling reduces seepage.

Tomorrow maybe I'll have the energy but since you brought it up would you have any interest into looking at whether this idea has any more support than the last Drudge link that took the conservative blogosphere by storm?

I actually read it in an article from the Heritage Foundation, if I recall.

OK - here's the only thing I can find - can't seem to find what I thought I'd read from the Heritage Foundation, but this is published on the UCSB website, which references and article from Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, but I can't seem to locate that article.

From UCSB

Since that is pretty much the only thing that I find referenced repeatedly, I assume that's what you were referring to, Alex?

Searching their site for seepage doesn't find any good candidate but if you remember where you read I'll read it.

It sounds a bit fantastical but it could be true. That said, it could also be true that it is better to have a lot of seepage where it happens naturally than a little spillage where it doesn't, what with ecosystems adapting and all.

Yes, that is the 1999 press release that every single article on the subject I can find points to. I haven't found anybody yet who claims to have read the research, just quoting the press release.

Here's the abstract for the original article in Geology. I don't feel like buying the article itself.

Anyway, as you can see from reading the abstract it merely hypothosizes that drilling is the cause of reduced seepage in that area (I've no idea if seepage in Santa Barbara Channel is remotely standard). That's a long way from "off shore drilling will likely reduce pollution in the ocean."

Maybe that has been supported over the last decade, but I can't find anybody pointing to such support and I'm certainly not doing a full citation search tonight.

Also, it is worth pointing out that the press release states that most of the seepage is natural gas which is different than what would be introduced into the water if there were a pipeline spill.

Uh oh. I'm scared now, isn't this proposal from the Gang of Ten exactly what Paris Hilton advocates here? Maybe we should elect her.

I thought in looking at statistics for oil seepage, oil was specifically done separately - not in terms of seepage, but oil seepage (in terms of 67% of ocean oil is from seepage, 1% is from drilling, etc).