Oil slick stains political landscape

That gigantic oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is about to crash into more than those pristine tourist beaches and essential estuaries. It's also headed straight toward political headwaters.

It's been a generation since an oil spill off the California coast turned public opinion against offshore drilling, and it's been 21 years since the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. During all that time, America's appetite for oil has increased. Offshore drilling has quietly increased, spreading into deeper waters in the Gulf as the oil industry assured the public that new safety devices eliminated concerns about major oil spills. President Obama and other politicians made the once-unthinkable shift toward allowing more offshore drilling in previously restricted areas along the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Florida. And the public, shell-shocked by $4 a gallon gasoline, didn't seem to mind.

The April 20 explosion and subsequent collapse of a deep-water drilling platform remains an anomaly — just one of scores of offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico dutifully pumping crude oil ashore to be turned into gasoline and other petroleum products. This one spill could undo the good work and goodwill of years of safe operation of other drilling platforms. The potential environmental damage is vast. Not only will white-sand beaches that lure tourists be blackened by crude oil, but the shrimp and oyster beds, water fowl nesting areas and fisheries could be devastated by a thick coating of sticky crude. Oil industry, Coast Guard, Navy and EPA officials are all trying to minimize the damage to the shoreline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, but the magnitude of this spill makes effective containment nearly impossible.

As bad as the environmental damage might be, America's appetite for oil is unlikely to be diminished, and offshore wells are among the few options left to reduce the importation of foreign oil. The mess in the Gulf should be a warning that more effective safeguards are needed — a blowout valve should have shut off the oil at the wellhead, but it failed. It should not be seen as a need for an absolute prohibition against offshore drilling. Proposals for drilling off North Carolina's coast target natural gas, not oil. Any spill at a natural gas well would result in the release of gas into the atmosphere, not an oil slick.

The risk of environmental damage is the price we pay for our insatiable appetite for oil, particularly in internal combustion engines. Until we control that appetite, we have to accept that risk and be prepared to safeguard against its consequences.