Extra Credit #1 (offshore drilling)

When I was little I used to watch a show called Captain Planet. It was about this group of kids trying to help the environment and one episode that I remember watching was about them trying to help animals that were affected by an oil spill. Now, even though this was a cartoon, it still scared me watching the animals go through what they did, it scared me to see how it affected the people. Now this is happening in real life and this is a crucial time for United States to stop offshore drilling.
The US should stop offshore drilling because it can be extremely harmful to our country, and not just ecologically. The United States happens to be in a recession right now. Gas prices are very high and people can’t afford it to get much higher. If the US stopped offshore drilling and found a source of fuel right here in America, the citizens would be so much better off. Gas prices would be cheaper and the United States will be able to support itself and not have to depend on foreign countries or sneaky oil companies who have drilled for oil illegally to supply us with our fuel. The US needs to put an end to offshore drilling because it not only harms our economy, it is also terrible for our environment.
Drilling for oil offshore can cause great damage to the world around us. As people can already see, the offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has only resulted in an uncontrollable catastrophe. It seems that there was no pre-planned course of action by the drillers if a spill ever happened. President Obama has said “’It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little or more than assurances of safety from the oil companies,’” he later goes on to say that this should not happen again, which is true. The Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service should by all means, not give permits and/or waivers to any oil companies just because the companies reassure them that its safe, but they should have to prove that they have a system to keep it safe and that they have a plan on what to do if I spill does occur. Although some would say that we need to drill offshore, it is definitely not the only solution.
A lot of people would say that we need to do this because the United States depends on oil to use as fuel. They would think that it’s the only way to get fuel. It seems like the easiest, most convenient way to get fuel, but there are other solutions. The US could use many different types of things for fuel. Oil is not the only substance that can be used. If the United States stopped drilling offshore for oil, we could replace the fuel we would have gotten from offshore with fuels like electricity, natural gases, water, or ethanol. There are clearly many other ways we can get fuel without harming our environment and economy by offshore drilling.