51% of public opposes offshore drilling

Until the BP offshore oil well exploded and began leaking 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil each day into the waters off the Gulf Coast, a full 60% of Americans supported expanded offshore drilling. This is reflective of a very successful campaign to convince Americans that more offshore drilling would somehow affect either the price of gasoline and/or reduce dependence on oil imported from other countries, despite the fact that even completely accessing all U.S. offshore oil reserves would result in only 1%-2% of domestically consumed oil to be produced domestically, and then only 25 years into the future.

The BP underwater oil fountain seems to have shown Americans the unnecessary risk run by seeking out relatively small amounts of oil in areas that are dangerous to explore in: not only dangerous for the environment, but for the workers employed in these drilling platform. A new CBS Poll shows that 51% of Americans now oppose expanded offshore drilling, a huge swing from previous surveys. Chris Bowers has a more detailed analysis at OpenLeft.