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

1) Environmental harm"The canals crisscross the coastal wetlands...and have contributed to coastal erosion."Offshore oil drilling isnt the only thing that causes pipelines to be build on the mainland, that happens no matter what type of oil drilling you do, whether it be fracking or traditional drilling. "The biggest pollution risk involved in offshore drilling is in transporting the oil."Which we also know how to do safely and regulate those transport ships to ensure that they are safe. "What this evidence suggests is that it isn't just oil spill themselves that harm the environment, but the entire operation"....... We cant just NOT pump and refine oil bsh, the economic impact that oil has on the economy and people's daily lives far outweighs the environmental downsides that oil extraction and processing has on the economy or and the environment."Underscoring the concerns of an oil spill is the Exxon-Valdez catastrophe."Which happened 20 years ago in 1989 and has not happened since the event on a scale or impact close to the exxon valdez either. "You'd only need one spill of similar magnitude, and 600+ miles of ecosystem could be irrecoverably damaged. This would harm biodiversity, local economies, and more."Yeah, but you seem to not be emphasizing the '600+miles of ecosystem' part there which isnt really present in the Gulf of Mexico. The BP oil spill was 19 times larger then that of the exxon Valdez spill, but it only killed 8,000 birds, turtles, marine mammals, etc. The Exxon Valdez spill on the other hand killed 100,000 seabirds alone, some estimates put it at 250,000, and the exxon valdez spill killed off billion of potential salmon as well. https://www.nwf.org...Point is, the Gulf of Mexico is not NEARLY as much of a biological hotspot as the piece of Alaska that the Exxon Valdez accident occured, even though the amount of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the BP incident was literally 17 times LARGER. 2) Human Safety"So far, more than 400 oil-exposure complaints have been logged by poison-control centers and 100 oil-spill-related illnesses have been reported"100 illnesses and 400 complaints? Thats literally nothing! You cant claim that human safety is an issue for offshore oil drilling when nobody (who wasnt on the oil rig at the time of the accident) has ever even died. Thats makes offshore oil drilling safer then cows, which kill about 20 people in the US a yearhttp://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com..."the groundwater contamination happening across the U.S. from drilling for natural gas, combined with the challenges of what to do with the toxic fracking wastewater, a byproduct of drilling, makes me wonder how...the natural gas industry [is] to significantly grow without 'putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk"I heard 'natural gas' and 'fracking', I didnt hear a single word about deep offshore oil drilling in there. in fact it sounds like a hell of a reason to support offshore oil drilling more since other means provide a more ready and present threat to people 3) Economy"Offshore oil drilling will only account for around 2-2.5% of America's oil reserves. "I find that hard to believe considering that just a few years ago, offshore oil drilling accounted for 25% of oil production:http://en.wikipedia.org..."(1) oil is not sustainable [6], (2) we need to diversify."True as that is, the unfortunate truth is that oil is the best thing we got for right now and diversifying takes a hell of a long time to achieve. Solar and wind is great and all, but we cant just ignore how much of a role that oil has in today's economy and the future one as well. It is completely devoid of reason to think the US can completely kick its oil habit or somehow make it so that there are more hybrids and electric cars on the world than oil-dependent ones. Dont get me wrong we are presently diversifying and its good that we are, but diversifying is a process that can last a lifetime, and banning deep-offshore oil drilling isnt going to change the rate of diversifying. "Consider, once we can no longer manufacture oil for ourselves, foreign nations could charge us even higher rates for what limited oil remains"Fracking and offshore oil drilling though can make sure that doesnt take full effect, hence why its happening everywhere. "Another issue here is that once oil fields dry up, we have hundreds of workers with no jobs"Ok first off oil fields dont simply 'dry up' all at once. When one oil field goes dry then those workers and machine experts move on to the next closest oil field that is hiring.... Thats why every oil guy and their mother is heading up to North Dakota and the Northeast right now. Second is that not every person who works in the oil industry works specifically in drilling for it. You have those who make the equipment, those who work in the refineries, those who work on docks to bring in the imports.... You get the point. The oil fields arent gonna dry up all of a sudden anytime soon, the reason why is because the US has a real talent for finding more oil and finding newer ways to get oil they couldnt get access to before. " Instead of investing in offshore oil, we should be investing into other, cleaner, renewable forms of energy that will create stable jobs"Yeah because Solyndra was so stable right?http://en.wikipedia.org...Also, Solar and wind power manufacturing isnt exactly a stable field to work in... In 2012 alone, 40 Solar companies went into bankruptcy while oil companies have been doing fantastic. http://www.forbes.com...Oil is ironically more stable than these new green tech companies, so if youre opting for stability, then oil is actually your safer bet in the present day. "Pro fails to provide sourcing here (About job creation)"By all means help yourself:http://blog.al.com...http://hamptonroads.com..."When the oil runs out, these jobs will end suddenly"Oil fields dont suddenly run out all at once though, as ive already mentioned. "As my evidence shows, all it would take is one spill to obliterate an ecosystem"The Gulf of Mexico doesnt HAVE a big ecosystem though, its literally all ocean out there. "even if rigs don't spill, ships and pipelines will. "Thats not a problem for rigs though and it especially isnt their fault. "Then why was BP able to engage in unsafe practices? [6] If regulators don't enforce them (as with BP), the protocols are meaningless."Because the protocols werent as rigidly enforced until the BP incident came along. You know how America works with environmental disasters, if something catastrophic happens to the environment somewhere that shouldnt have happened, then a ton of regulations are adopted to ensure it doesnt happen again while existing ones are more viciously enforced.