Research shows more oil drilling will lower prices

Professor Morris Coates and another professor recently conducted a study to examine what the impact of opening up ANWR would be on today's oil prices. Their conclusions speak for themselves:

"We find that oil that is expected to reach the market some years hence has an immediate impact on oil prices," and that "if oil firms were allowed to drill in ANWR and many of the other areas that are currently off limits to oil production, it is possible that these areas together might have a significant impact on world oil prices."

That is, "will lower prices." When these two authors - both economics professors - submitted their findings for publications to a prestigious energy journal, what was the response from the rarified world of economists? It was rejection -- but not for the reasons opponents of opening up new areas for oil and gas exploration would like to believe. No, their study was rejected because their conclusions were so obvious and so well-known - since the 1960s in the field of economics -- that the two authors were not offering up anything new that merited publication.

Letter from Energy Journal

Although the referees, and I, are in agreement with your basic argument, I regret to say that we will not be able to publish this work. Basically, your main result (the present impact of an anticipated future supply change) is already known to economists.
If Hotelling didn’t exactly spell this out in his original article, certainly Herfindahl and others had done so by the 1960s. It is our policy to publish only original research that adds significantly to the body of received knowledge regarding energy markets and policy.

All the economists know it. How about distinguished Senator Maria Cantwell?

How about the people of Alaska? Governor Sarah Palin says that developing ANWR would benefit them.

Cross posted at Sound Politics.

Via Newt Gingrich.