To win the presidential race, it takes energy
Bruce Bullock, director of SMU's Maguire Energy Institute, says it is hard to know how big an impact drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf would have on energy costs.
Paul Davidson and Barbara Hagenbaugh
USA TODAY
Record-high prices for gasoline, heating and electricity and growing concern about global warming have pushed energy issues to the forefront of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Not since the gas lines of the 1970s has energy loomed so large as it does in the race between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, says Kenneth Medlock, an energy expert at Rice University. And it's an issue that is unlikely to fade between now and November. . .
Congress imposed a moratorium on drilling in new offshore areas in 1981. It is hard to know how big an impact drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf would have on energy costs, says Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. It's unknown how much oil and natural gas is there, how accessible it is or how easy it would be to hook up to pipelines, he says.