The Moral Imperative of the BP Oil Spill: Drive 20 Percent Less

Photo: Jonathan Henderson, Gulf Restoration Network

Editor's note: This is an essay from Jason Henderson, a Geography Professor at San Francisco State
University. He was born and raised in New Orleans and spent many years
exploring Louisiana's wetlands. He is currently writing a book about
the politics of mobility, and frequently advocates for reduced car
parking and improved bicycle space in San Francisco.

The Moratorium

After
almost two months of failed attempts at "topkills," "tophats,"
"junkshots," "cofferdams," and "caps-on-the-diamond-cut-riser" it is
evident that the BP wellhead spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico has
unleashed an unprecedented catastrophe. We made a mistake in wishing
away the risks of deepwater drilling. Despite protests from the oil
industry, the six-month moratorium proposed by the Obama administration
is clearly needed in order for the nation to have a pointed and
deliberate reflection about its priorities.

As a Louisiana
native I am sensitive to the disruption this moratorium might cause for
the 150,000 people employed in offshore drilling and corollary
services. Yet take one look at the destruction of a truly renewable and
sustainable industry -- fisheries -- and think it through. The offshore
oil industry just killed the commercial and recreational fishing
industry, it may destroy tourism, and will kill more if we do not get
drilling and environmental protection right. How many jobs will be lost
because of this ecological catastrophe? And what future start-up
companies or footloose firms want to move to a region that is mired in
a toxic cesspool of oil? Who would want to invest in property or raise
families in a region that has not carefully protected its environment
and regulated polluting industries? In the long run, the moratorium
gives us time to work this out, and is better for the Gulf Coast
economy. It's also best for the nation.

But in the short run, a solid and comprehensive moratorium could mean roughly 1.7 million barrels
a day eliminated from the US energy portfolio without any stopgap
measure in place to check that demand. Far-off energy miracles in
hydrogen, wind, solar, or nuclear energy will not meet the immediate
demand. Instead, as Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu points out, the nation might get the 1.7 million barrels it draws from the Gulf from somewhere else.[1]

Defenders of offshore drilling say that demand for oil in the U.S. will still hover around 20 million barrels a day -- every day -- including during the moratorium, however long it lasts. Since
there is nothing online to substitute for the oil drawn from the Gulf
of Mexico, the equivalent will instead be shipped in by tanker.
Existing and soon-to-be deployed rigs in the Gulf will be moved to
Brazil, Mexico, or West Africa. Once they are licensed to operate
there, they'll likely be fixed in place for up to two years. Therefore 1.7 million barrels
of oil will still come in every day, but at greater risk to other
places with less regulation or oversight. Do Americans feel that these
places are more expendable than Louisiana and the Gulf Coast? I hope
not. And if we put all our eggs in the Middle East basket again,
consider that it costs America between $47 and $90 billion annually to
defend Middle Eastern oil supplies.[2]

So what can be done in the immediate future to rectify the whole mess? I propose that we can offset the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico by driving 20 percent less. What follows is an outline of how I came to this conclusion, and what government can do to achieve it quickly.

Photo: Jonathan Henderson, Gulf Restoration Network

Offsetting the Moratorium

According to the US Department of Energy's 2009 Transportation Energy Fact Book, regular passenger cars used 4.8 million barrels a day in 2008.[3]
That same year light trucks (SUVs, mini-vans, and personal household
pickup trucks) burned another 4 million barrels a day. In total,
personal household passenger vehicles burned 8.8 million barrels per
day in 2008. The 1.7 million barrels per day produced in the Gulf of
Mexico, mainly for gasoline, amounts to roughly 19 percent of US
gasoline consumed daily for cars and light trucks. For comparison,
trucks for freight used 2.5 million barrels per day in 2008, and 1.2
million barrels per day were used for flying.

So if we err
on the side of caution and round up, America needs to reduce daily
gasoline consumption by 20 percent every day for the next six months,
and, I argue, for the next two-to-five years as this deepwater drilling
conundrum is resolved. We do not want to hit trucking because that
carries our food and goods. We do not want to hit industry, which uses
4.5 million barrels a day, because we want to remain competitive
globally (although we could stand to decrease consumption of disposable
plastics made from oil). And we do not want to hit agriculture because
petroleum, like it or not, grows food. There are various other
important things, like pharmaceuticals, eye glasses, and laptops that
are part of the 20 million barrels consumed daily in the U.S. We pretty
much will want to keep using those things, albeit in cleaner ways. So
we are left with reducing everyday driving, and there is nothing wrong
with that. It is what the nation needs to do anyway. We owe it to
ourselves, to the Gulf of Mexico, and to the rest of the world. And we
need to do it now -- not wait for miracle green cars decades from now.
So how do we do it?

We should learn from World War Two

During World War Two the United States supplied 6 billion barrels of oil for the Allies' war effort. [4]
It was used to propel bombers and transport the wounded, to build
battleships and provide fuel for growing food for the Allied armies.
U.S. oil amounted to roughly 85 percent of all the oil burned by the
Allies, and it was oil that largely determined who won the war. As
rapid expansion of wartime industry occurred, the government recognized
the need to conserve oil. It established the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) within days of the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.
ODT was mandated to "assure maximum utilization of domestic transport
to ensure successful prosecution of the war" and lasted until August
1945, just after the Japanese surrender.

Through gasoline rationing, coordination of public transit, and
aggressive marketing of the moral imperative to conserve, the U.S.
reduced gasoline consumption by 32 percent between 1941 and 1945.[5]
In 1941, 23.6 billion gallons of gasoline were used for civilian cars
and trucks, but by 1944 it was reduced to 16 billion gallons. More
significantly, by 1944 personal driving was reduced to 63 percent of
what it was in 1941. Annual vehicle miles traveled per private personal
vehicle dropped from roughly 9,500 miles to 5,250 miles per car. The
"We Can Do It!" spirit of war on the home front translated into a concerted effort to reduce driving.

Lest
you conclude that rationing is some sort of communistic plot, recall
that after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut down Gulf of Mexico
drilling and crippled 50 percent of U.S. refining capacity, President George Bush
urged Americans to be "better conservers" and asked us to avoid
non-essential driving. He also asked federal workers to carpool or take
public transit.[6]
While this was purely voluntary and amounted to nothing, the point is,
an oil man said it. He did not have to, but Bush's people understood
the relationship between oil and driving and saw the panicked long
lines at gas stations in Houston suburbs. Now, 52 days after the
Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank, there has not been a peep about the
relationship between oil and driving from the current administration.
But I am certain that they understand that relationship, and so I will
offer the following suggestions for how we as a nation can reduce
driving by 20 percent in order to offset the 1.7 million barrels of oil
pumped daily from the Gulf of Mexico.

Flickr photo: Atwater Village Newbie

How to reduce driving by 20 percent (or more):

Federal funding for transit operations

During
World War Two, public transit reached its peak ridership in the U.S.,
and this was largely through coordination by the federal government as
part of the national gasoline rationing strategy. Public transit policy
was energy policy. While I am not advocating a federal takeover of
transit, the federal government can provide something more targeted to
transit today -- operating revenue.

Consider this. As part of a voter mandate to study how transit can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, transit planners in San Francisco have thought about what would be needed if a substantial portion of motorists in that city switched to transit.[7]
Currently the transit system, Muni, is at capacity carrying roughly
700,000 passengers a day. Planners estimate that in order to reduce the
city's greenhouse gas footprint by 20 percent, transit would need to
expand by 25 percent, and carry 920,000 daily passengers. This actually
approaches the city's peak ridership of 970,000 at the end of World War
Two, as the federal government coordinated transit for the war machine.
But Muni's expansion needs several hundred million dollars of annual
operating funds. These are funds that the city does not have. The
federal government should make it a core part of energy policy to
provide that operations support and to support public transit
operations throughout the nation. Public transit is energy policy.

Yet
public transit service throughout the nation has been cut because of
local and state revenue shortfalls due to the financial meltdown in
2008. That, coupled with increased health care and pension costs for
transit drivers, meant rapidly increased operating costs but rapidly
shrinking revenue. For example, in San Francisco a draconian 10 percent
service cut went into effect in May even as people demand better
transit service -- and even as the city's system is at capacity. If
thousands of people suddenly stopped driving and took transit, the
existing system could not absorb the new riders.

All transit
systems in the U.S. need an emergency cash infusion to sustain current
operating levels and to expand capacity in order to absorb new riders.
In Congress, $2 billion is
being proffered as a Band-Aid for this national transit crisis. That $2
billion is not enough for all of the transit systems throughout the
nation, and needs to be substantially increased to meet existing
demands. The government bailed out banks and automobile companies that
it deemed "too big to fail." Given the ecological disaster in the Gulf
and the much-needed moratorium on drilling, public transit is now too
big to fail if we are going to get out of this.

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Bicycle Systems

Obviously
it will be hard to get transit capacity expansion ratcheted up
immediately, but Congress can act fast and at least make operating
funds available now. But to be clear, in the early phase of the
drilling moratorium, transit will not be adequate to absorb a 20
percent reduction in driving. This will take months to bring online.
Therefore, in the short-term, there is a quick, cheap, and nimble
solution to help get us to 20 percent reductions in driving --
bicycles. Bicycles do not require expensive, long-term capital
investment. A bicycle system can be developed rapidly. Unlike transit
systems, a bicycle system does not require large operating costs. In
San Francisco the modest, off-the-shelf bicycle plan would cost $24.5
million to implement.[8]
Though modest in scope it is expected to take five years to implement,
mainly due to funding issues, and because of resistance by local
motorists for removal of car space in order to create space for
bicycles. With political will, San Francisco's modest bike plan could
take just six months to deploy and would have minimal operating costs
when compared to transit and automobile systems. Repeat this throughout
the nation in all urban areas, and this can be synchronized with a
longer moratorium on offshore drilling.

Bicycles are
practical and can meet many needs. Throughout the U.S., 40 percent of
all car trips are less than five miles, the ideal spatial range of
bicycling, and some argue that 20 percent of all trips could be made by
bicycle if the U.S. built proper infrastructure.[9] In cities like San Francisco, up to 75 percent of voters support new bike lanes.[10]
But many people are hesitant to start cycling now. Large majorities of
people say cycling with automobiles is uncomfortable, that there are
not enough bike lanes, and that it is difficult to cross major streets.[11]
Cities can address this promptly by producing truly wide, safe,
interconnected bicycle lanes. In most cases the physical space is there
to do it. It just requires political will and good paint. Like public
transit, a bicycle system is a critical part of energy policy, and at
the local level, cities and towns can do their part during this crisis
by prioritizing bicycles as a cheap, quick, and effective tool for
reducing driving.

Entrepreneurial jitney services

Whenever
public transit and bicycles are proposed as solutions, a small but
vocal group of naysayers argue that they cannot bicycle to the grocery
store and carry groceries, or schlep their children to day care on
buses. Some of these concerns are valid for some people, but most
people are physically able and resourceful enough to manage. However,
one way of rethinking grocery shopping and automobiles is to consider
implementing flexible jitney services. This might be an opportunity for
entrepreneurs to do their part in reducing driving by helping to
promote and establish flexible, on-demand, door-to-door jitney service
from grocery stores and other activities currently centered on driving.
In many countries around the world, particularly where transit service
is inadequate, inexpensive mini-van and shared taxi services are
widespread.

While a system of jitneys would take time to
implement and no doubt have political opposition from transit agencies
and taxi-cab companies, an immediate short-term path to flexible jitney
service could be deployed by the grocery store industry. Each grocery
store could own and operate a service to provide costumers deliveries
when they cannot carry groceries. This is already done in some cities
and could be greatly expanded. In New York City several Whole Foods in
Manhattan have no parking for costumers and instead offer delivery
service for those who cannot carry their groceries home. In San
Francisco both Mollie Stones and Safeway deliver groceries. This is not
the panacea for everyone, but with creativity and innovation, grocery
stores could be an anchor in creating licensed jitney services that
contribute to reducing driving overall. More importantly, as more and
more people move to urban areas and seek alternatives to driving, more
urban space can be used for housing, and less for expensive and
gluttonous parking space.

Personal responsibility

Photo: Thinkquest.org

During
World War Two, one of the key approaches to reducing driving was to
promote moral arguments. Many people have seen the iconic 1942
propaganda poster "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler."
The poster showed a typical businessman in a convertible driving alone,
but with the transparent, shady figure of Hitler in the passenger seat.
The poster impressed on motorists that excess personal driving wasted
fuel that was needed to win the war. Appealing to a sense of morals
helped get people to decrease driving, and helped win World War Two. In
a similar vein, if we as a nation accept the urgency of the oil spill,
and of the interrelated crisis of global climate change that is
connected to oil and driving, then there is a moral imperative to
reduce driving today. President Obama stated that BP has a moral obligation
to the Gulf of Mexico. He is right. But American motorists also have a
moral obligation to reduce demand for offshore oil by reducing driving.

In many coastal states, Republicans like governors Arnold
Schwarzenegger of California and Bill Christ of Florida have joined
Democrats like senators Barbara Boxer and Bill Nelson in opposing new
offshore drilling. Reacting to the spill, Schwarzenegger said,
"I see on TV the birds drenched in oil, the fishermen out of work, the
massive oil spill and oil slick destroying our precious ecosystem. That
will not happen here in California..." Senator Barbara Boxer used
images of oiled birds in an impassioned and morally driven speech on
the floor of the US Senate on June 10. She also praised California's
unspoiled coastline and linked its preservation to the ban on offshore
drilling in California. Environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity
have filed lawsuits to halt offshore drilling plans in the Gulf of
Mexico that were approved without full environmental review. Moratorium
or not, offshore drilling is going to be tied up in prolonged political
and legal debates for years. People in these coastal states and
supporters of these environmental organizations have a moral obligation
to reduce their driving if they want to stop offshore drilling. And
even if they insist that they must keep driving, they can at the very
least show support for those who do actually chose to reduce driving.

Individual
motorists can start by accepting that the space of cars in cities must
be reconfigured to accommodate public transit, cycling, and walking.
Motorists who continue to drive have a moral responsibility to
discontinue their local political resistance to changing our streets.
They'll still be able to drive, just more slowly, with less convenience
than they have now.

Throughout cities in the U.S., vocal
motorists oppose proposals to re-allocate street space to favor buses
or bicycles. Each time a stretch of street is considered for change,
angry motorists line up at city hall to protest the change. Our cities
are in a spatial stalemate, traffic is miserable, the buses move slow
due to traffic, and bicyclists find haphazard, fragmented bike lanes.
Often cars double-park in bike lanes, making cycling very unsafe.
Meanwhile, car-oriented neighborhood organizations demand that new
infill, transit-oriented housing must contain excessive amounts of
parking, which then make it difficult to configure space for
sustainable transport. Attempts at traffic calming or pedestrian
enhancements are diluted by anger over lost parking space or because
many motorists simply do not want to slow down.

All of this
resistance to change by motorists needs to stop. Motorists who insist
on continuing to drive need to step aside in local political debates
and cede space to other modes. At the local level this sort of
intransigence has been a major barrier to change, and has kept America
addicted to oil. Every single skirmish over a parking space or traffic
lane sets back progress in sustainable transportation. Individual
motorists need to discontinue opposing change, and better yet, vocally
endorse the removal of travel lanes and reductions in parking as a
necessary step towards reducing oil dependency and addressing climate
change. It is a matter of national security and global justice.

Conclusion

Today
there is an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that stems from
the insatiable demand for oil and for using that oil for driving.
Almost half of the oil used in the US is used for personal driving, and
upwards of 68 percent of the oil we use is for all transportation. We
can make a substantial dent in our oil dependency, while also giving
the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico time to work, by reducing personal
driving by 20 percent. We do not have the time to wait for a magical
"clean" car decades away -- we must act now.

Instead of
seeking to substitute 1.7 million barrels of oil by shipping more oil
in by tanker, we can offset an offshore drilling moratorium by driving
20 percent less. Instead of drilling for the sake of preserving 150,000
offshore jobs, the nation needs to immediately order thousands of new,
off-the-shelf transit vehicles in the short-term -- stimulating the
transit industry. Jobs in public transit can offset lost jobs in
drilling. The nation must also help finance cheap and quick
implementation of bicycle systems in cities and towns. Local
governments can do their part by re-allocating street space to make
cycling safer, and to help transit run more smoothly by avoiding
traffic. Business -- particularly grocery stores -- can do their part
by creating innovative new jitney services for their local communities.
And individual motorists can take personal responsibility by not
opposing efforts to re-allocate street space for transit and bicycling.

During World War Two the federal government coordinated a
massive wartime transportation effort in a very short amount of time.
Individuals, influenced by moral arguments, also did their part for the
greater good. Today we need to lay out a similar vision in the service
of a moral imperative. It was done during World War Two, we can do it
again.