Washington Post: Offshore oil drilling might make environmental sense

An excerpt:

. . .It is not clear that the risks of offshore oil drilling still outweigh the benefits.
The risk of oil spills in the United States is quite low. One result of the 1969 oil spill is that we have detailed records on every oil spill into U.S. waters greater than one barrel and comprehensive studies of the sources of oil in marine waters throughout the world. They show that the offshore oil industry spills a surprisingly small amount of oil and that the number and size of spills have declined sharply since the 1970s because of technological advances in drilling and tighter government regulations. There have been no catastrophic oil spills from U.S. platforms since 1969, even as more than 4,000 offshore platforms operate in U.S. waters. Changes in ship design and safety procedures have made tankers less risky since these disasters, but tankers remain a risk.
From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff. Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent). In short, the risk of oil spills from platforms is small.
In contrast, there are relatively high environmental costs associated with importing oil as opposed to producing it in the United States. . . .