Five days after Barack Obama's comic statement that we can eliminate the need to drill for more oil through proper tire inflation and getting regular tune-ups, Time Magazine's Michael Grunwald was still bitterly clinging to the idea that Obama was right.

Grunwald published his attempted Monday defense of Obama's "tired" claim on Monday -- several days after numerous bloggers and others had refuted it.

That didn't stop the Time writer from stepping in it bigtime in his attempt to defend the indefensible. Grunwald's "analysis" is so pitiful and woefully incomplete that it deserves a serious slap-down.

From ABC's Political Punch blog, here is exactly what Obama said last Wednesday -- which, curiously, Grunwald didn't bother to quote:

“Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.”

Here's Grunwald's "defense":

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

..... Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears.

Grunwald didn't cite where his 200,000 barrels a day figure came from. The closest I could find to justifying it is at a June 19, 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times. There, the Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva wrote the following:

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that opening access to undersea oil fields "in the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." Drilling in domestic waters off all the coasts except Alaska's would increase annual production from 2.2 million barrels a day to 2.4 million barrels a day, the agency estimates.

There are at least four problems with Mike Grunwald's presumed reliance on this statement (if anyone has a better link -- that includes you, Mike -- This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or add a comment below).

• The EIA estimate, as cited by Silva, does NOT say that the full amount of the production increase will not materialize until 2030, as Grunwald claims. The full amount of the annual increase would occur well before that.
• Grunwald's "expanded offshore drilling" reference only involves "domestic waters off all the coasts except Alaska's." Last time I checked, Alaska has a coastline too. In fact, there's 44,000 miles of it. Excluding it was a fundamental oversight.
• When President Bush lifted an offshore drilling ban in Alaska in mid-July with an Executive Order, the Associated Press's Ben Feller wrote that "Bush says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start." Assuming that includes all coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or ANWR (the AP report is not crystal clear on that), and that the 18 billion barrels would be recovered over an absurdly long 50-year period, that's an average of 986,000 barrels a day from offshore drilling (18 billion divided by 18,262 days contained in 50 years) -- about five times larger than the 200,000 Grunwald used. If Bush was only referring to Alaska, add another 200,000. If Bush didn't include ANWR, the amount is much larger still.
• Note that Obama didn't limit his use of the word "drilling" to offshore applications as Grunwald did. There are least two other forms of drilling for oil: "shale oil drilling" and "oil sands drilling." The synopsis of this June 2005 NPR story on the topic indicates that US oil shale reserves amount to more than a trillion barrels (that's with a "tr"). This Wikipedia link indicates that reserves could be more than 2 trillion. Estimated tar sands/oil sands reserves are another 32 billion barrels. Assuming only a trillion barrels and spreading extraction over 100 years, that's 27.3 million barrels a day (you read that right; it's 1 trillion divided by 36,525 days contained in 100 years).

The total daily amount obtainable from all sources of drilling, if allowed, would be at least 28 million barrels a day (27.3 million plus 986,000, rounded to the nearest million), or at least 140 times more than Grunwald claimed.

Now let's turn to Obama's hyper-inflated inflation and maintenance assumptions:

• Granting that "keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%," Grunwald is assuming that no one is currently keeping their tires properly inflated. Given that 40%-50% of Americans have someone else change their oil (according to this search as ask.com, about 50%-60% change their own), and that the oil change services routinely check tire pressures (which they do), Grunwald's assumption is absurd on its face. Additionally, those who change their own oil are often more conscientious about other aspects of keeping their cars roadworthy, such as proper tire inflation, than those who don't. I'd be surprised if even a 1% improvement in gas mileage could be achieved if all cars somehow magically had properly inflated tires.
• Grunwald's maintenance claim ("regular maintenance can add another 4%" gas mileage improvement) is even more problematic. Of course, it also assumes that no one is currently maintaining their vehicles properly (does that include the author?). Crucially, note that Obama referred only to "regular tune-ups." Hello? This is every bit as ignorant as Bush 41's alleged lack of knowledge of store checkout scanners in 1992 (which is a myth, by the way). Ten years ago, this New York Times article noted that manufacturers had been touting the 100,000 mile tune-up interval for some time. This Google News Archive search indicates that the 100,000 mile tune-up interval has been a feature of most cars for at least 15 years. Where has Obama been? That isn't to say that there aren't other maintenance steps owners need to take. But following the same logic as applied to oil changes, and accounting for human nature, I don't see how more than a 1% improvement in mileage could be squeezed out of the maximum realistic improvement in nationwide vehicle maintenance.
• Finally, according to this basic data page at the EIA, only 70% of US oil consumption, or 14 million barrels a day (70% of 20 million) is used in transportation.

All of this means that the maximum achievable usage reduction if everyone followed Maximum Leader Obama's suggestions would be 280,000 barrels a day (2% of 14 million). That's only 1% of the low-ball estimate above of 28 million barrels a day obtainable from all forms of drilling. We would be taking advantage of these gifts from God already if it weren't for the fact that unlike every other country on earth, which sees natural resources as a blessing to be opportunistically exploited for the benefit of everyone, our politicians and elites see them as environmental liabilities that have to be locked up.

In sum, Barack Obama is at least 99% wrong. That's not a "smear," Michael Grunwald. It's a fact.

But let's look at the bright side. Given how misstep-prone and gaffe-prone their candidate has been in recent months, the Obama campaign can seize upon the fact that he is less than 100% wrong on anything as a tangible improvement.

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