Resolution: Allowing deep water offshore oil drilling is in the best interest of the United States.

Recently, President Obama issued a 6-month moratorium on deep sea drilling. I will argue that this decision is correct. It's the right decision for 3 major reasons: 1. A blowout in a deep sea rig is more devastating than a blowout in a land or shallow water rig, 2. a blowout in a deep sea rig is much more difficult to prevent and suppress, and 3. a six month moratorium provides time to develop new technology that will prevent a future oil spill. Contention 1: A blowout in a deep sea rig is more devastating than a blowout in a land or shallow water rig According to the Anchorage Daily News, huge submerged masses of oil, gas, and chemical dispersant have been found floating in the Gulf f Mexico. These are apparently from the Deep Water Horizon blowout. In land and shallow water rigs, a blow out would not form submerged masses. In shallow water, there is not enough pressure to keep the oil and gas underwater. According to the Anchorage Day News, the BP blowout also created some floating dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Floating dead zones are areas of water that have drastically low levels of oxygen. Some apparently formed from methane from the blowout. Scientists say that at shallow depths, methane that escapes from the sea floor is sent o the surface by storms, where it dissolves into the atmosphere. At very deep depths, there is no disturbance to send methane to the surface, so it dissolves into the water and a dead zone is formed. Ecologists fear that these floating dead zones will wash over the coral in the gulf. In the Anchorage Daily News it was written, "Some research now suggests that those corals are the originals, the sources of the world's corals in shallower water -- the tropical rain forests of the sea." To make things worse, there are microbes that feed on methane in the ocean. This might sound like a good thing, but the catch is that these microbes consume twice as much oxygen as methane while feeding, augmenting the size of floating dead zones. Contention 2: a blowout in a deep sea rig is much more difficult to prevent and suppress With deep water drilling, water pressure produces a host of engineering challenges. According to CBS News, sunlight is unable to penetrate farther than 1,500 feet below the surface, which means that it's very cold. 5,000 feet below the surface, the pressure is 2,300 pounds per square inch, enough to crush a submarine. That means that rigs have to be designed to withstand high pressure. Blowout preventers have to be designed to withstand high pressure. If things go wrong and the company has to make repairs, they have to use robot submersibles with a flashlight. The pressure increases the chance of a leak tremendously. At such depths, when a blowout happens, methane rising to the surface converts to a gaseous state under less pressure. It gains tremendous force, similar to steam from boiling water. That is probably what killed 11 workers on the Deep Water Horizon rig. Later, BP tried to cover the ruptured well with a cap that transferred the oil to a tanker. It failed because an icy slush had clogged the pipes that connected the well to the tanker. Since I'm down on time, I will discuss my 3rd contention in my 2nd speech. Sources: http://www.cbsnews.com... http://www.adn.com... http://articles.latimes.com...