Rove Baselessly Claims EIA Agrees That Oil Drilling ‘Would Bring Down Prices’

Last night on Fox News, former top Bush adviser Karl Rove showed up on Hannity & Colmes to discuss the political topic du jour: gas prices and energy policy.

Co-host Alan Colmes noted that conservatives like Rove just want to drill for more oil with the “hope that seven years from now we bring down the price which Bush’s Energy Department says it wouldn’t do.” Rove then became agitated, saying to Colmes: “You’re wrong on your facts”:

ROVE: First of all the EIA does say that drilling would bring down prices. You’re wrong on your facts.

COLMES: That’s what they said.

ROVE: No, no no. That’s simply wrong. The Energy Information Agency [sic] which is a respected nonpartisan branch of our government does say if we expanded supply, it would reduce the price.

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But its actually Rove who is wrong — or misleading at best. The group Rove cites to back up his “facts” — the Energy Information Administration — says that new drilling won’t start until 2018, and won’t ever have much impact on oil prices. The EIA’s assessment of offshore drilling:

For the lower 48 OCS [Outer Continental Shelf], annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher—2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

The EIA’s assessment of drilling in the Arctic Refuge in Alaska:

ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices. [...] Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount.

And if Rove is going to cite the EIA for his misleading claim that U.S. drilling will reduce oil prices, he should at least get the name right. Its the Energy Information Administration, not the Energy Information Agency.

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