March 10, 2011
WAMU, one of the NPR affiliates in Washington, DC, has a segment during Morning Edition called “Power Breakfast” which discusses issues being debated in Congress. This segment is often embarrassing for the amount of misinformation that it can pass along in just a few minutes.
This morning was one such occasion. It began with a comment by Texas Senator Kay Baily Hutchison, complaining about the price of gas and the cost of filling up her pick-up truck. Ms. Hutchinson then said that part of the answer to high gas prices was increased drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and then talked about a bill that she is co-sponsoring with Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu which would allow for some additional drilling.
While the segment did give a short sound bite to an opponent of drilling, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, it would have been appropriate to ridicule Ms. Hutchison’s comment, since there is no plausible story in which her bill would have any visible impact on the price of filling up her pick-up.
The amount of additional oil that can be drilled from the Gulf is only around 0.2 percent of world supply. It would take roughly 10 years to get up to this level of production. Using normal elasticity assumptions, this would imply a reduction in the price of oil of around 0.5 percent. That would mean that if we completely opened the Gulf for drilling, it would save Ms. Hutchison about 30 cents off the cost of filling her pick-up in 2021. Of course the bill she has proposed would have considerably less effect.
If politicians can say ridiculous things to advance their political agenda, and the media do not point out that their comments are ridiculous, then they will have incentive to say ridiculous things. This makes for an ill-informed nonsensical debate on public policy issues. The media bear much of the blame for this since it can be expected that politicians will do whatever advances their political career. It is the media’s job to hold them accountable.
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