The title above is similar to ones on letters from me published by The NY Times decades ago on 3/11/73 and 3/24/75, and to a letter in Newsday on 3/5/75. Plenty of gas and oil lies 60-100 miles offshore buried in US continental shelf sediments that could be obtained safely, cleanly, and relatively inexpensively with remarkably effective new technology now available. But due to misguided false fears, federal and state bans have even been placed on merely exploratory drilling along our East Coast outer shelf.

US needs for domestic fuels are growing and can become acute if OPEC rulers suddenly cut off their fuel exports to America for whims or for political reasons as in 1973. Little has changed since then. Our economy and civilization still depend mostly on fossil fuels for energy, and we must continue to do so for decades until cleaner, safer, non-combustion energy sources can be developed in large amounts to replace fossil fuels.

Large quantities of gas and oil still remain in shelf sediments more than 60 miles offshore, and our ability to safely drill, pump, and pipe offshore gas and oil to land areas is much better than ever before. Our dependence on fossil fuels today is more acute than back in 1973 because the US now imports a much larger percentage and a greater volume of fossil fuels from abroad. Environmentally, tanker spills of overseas imported oil are still the largest cause of marine oil pollution in America, and paying for expensive imported overseas oil still increases our national debt more than anything else!

During the 1970s energy crisis, cars were lined up for blocks at gas stations waiting for them to open for a few hours daily to dole out tiny amounts of gasoline to each customer before running out. Fuel prices then soared, and OPEC potentates reopened their wells to become super-rich on American dollars. The oil industry got Congress to approve drilling on Alaska's North Coast Shelf where large amounts of untapped oil and gas were known to be present. This was a good idea which a few environmental scientists (including me) approved, but I vociferously opposed shipping the oil (but wasting the gas) from Alaska to the lower 48 states via ocean tankers because an accidental spill was inevitable. Remember the Exxon-Valdez' huge spill in Alaskan waters?

I suggested in the 1970s' Newsday and NY Times letters and in other media that both Alaskan oil and gas should be transported by infinitely safer pipelines along Canada's Mackenzie Valley down to Edmonton, where pipelines already connected to the US. Now, Canada is extending its piplelines all the way up to its Arctic coast, and US fuel companies may join in constructing the Mackenzie lines if Congress and President Bush open up our Arctic Wildlife Preserve which is contiguous to the new Canadian drilling areas.

The drilling, pumping and transportation of both American and Canadian Arctic gas and oil should be done only if adequate amounts of fuel resources are present, and if both projects do no long-term irreparable environmental damage to wildlife, birds, fishes, and habitats that would be affected. America's East Coast shelf should also be tapped to reduce our dependence on expensive overseas foreign fuels. More than half our economy would be shut down if overseas fuel exporters decided again to put political pressure on America by banning fuel shipments to us as they did in 1973.

Unfounded false environmental fears in the 1970s had sabotaged efforts to merely explore for gas and oil on our East Coast shelf 60-100 miles out from land. Both state and federal authorities reacted like head-in-the-sand ostriches and banned shelf exploratory drilling on the outer continental shelf 90 miles offshore where sea-floor pipelines (much safer than tankers or barges) were planned to bring oil and gas ashore.

Today, modern technology, satellite positioning, pinpoint drilling and three-dimensional subsurface imaging (developed by my former student, Michael Zeitlin), make offshore drilling far safer environmentally than ever before. Zeitlin's new technology, which is revolutionizing the oil and gas industries, is described in the January 2001 Atlantic Monthly magazine (p. 40) and in the NY Times' January 30 Science Times. He is CEO of Magic Earth Co. and was featured on a recent Jim Lehrer PBS News Hour Report.