Energy Prices, Offshore Drilling, and an "Excess" Profits Tax
作者：Becker
原文地址：
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/06/energy_prices_o.html
Increases in energy prices sharply accelerated during the past year, as the price of oil more than doubled, and gasoline prices in United States rose by 25 percent. Responding to these price increases, Senator McCain and President Bush have called for an end to the 27-year old federal moratorium on offshore drilling for oil and gas in US waters, while Senator Obama supports a continuation of the ban. McCain has also indicated that he is reconsidering his opposition to drilling in the Artic region of Alaska. In another response to the energy price boom, Obama has proposed an excess profits tax on oil companies, while McCain has come out against such a tax. What does economic analysis contribute to an evaluation of these proposals?
在过去几年，能源价格加速上涨，石油价格翻了一倍多，美国境内的汽油价格上涨了25%。为此，参议员麦肯恩和布什总统呼吁取消对美国海域近海石油开采的联邦禁令(这一禁令已保持了27年)，而参议员奥巴马则认为禁令应当继续保持。麦肯恩曾经反对在阿拉斯加北极圈区域开采，现在他表示正在重新考虑自己的这一立场。另一方面，奥巴马建议对石油企业征收超额利润税，麦肯恩则坚决反对。经济分析是否有助于我们评估这些建议？
Supporters of a continuation of the moratorium worry that offshore drilling and oil leakages will kill many fish, and damage beaches and other coastal areas. These are potential risks, but whether to continue the moratorium involves a balancing of the advantages of drilling against environmental and other risks. These risks have not been affected by the rise in energy prices, but the benefits from drilling clearly have increased. Additional oil (and gas) from offshore drilling would lower US spending on imported oil, and thereby reduce the transfer of wealth from Americans to other oil and gas producers. Larger domestic energy supplies would also improve energy security in the event of a disruption in the supplies of oil and gas from major producers located in places like the Middle East and Nigeria that have had terrorist attacks on oil production facilities.
近海开采禁令的支持者们担心近海开采和石油泄露会毒死很多鱼类，并且污染海滩及沿海环境。这是潜在的风险，是否继续禁令是个关于开采石油的收益与风险的权衡问题。这些风险并没有受到能源价格上涨的影响，但是由于能源价格上涨开采的收益就明显是增加了。近海开采带来的更多的油、气将降低美国在进口石油上的消费，同时也减少了美国人向外国石油厂商的财富转移。更多的国内能源供应将增进本国的能源安全，因为如果遇到中东、尼日利亚等地区油气供应大家断供的情况那将很危险，这些地区的石油生产设备遭受过恐怖分子的袭击。
Even if offshore drilling started tomorrow, it would take several years before actual production began since construction of platforms in deep water and installation of equipment take time. The value of ending the moratorium now would depend not on energy prices and risks of disruption this year or the next, but on the situation beginning in several years and extending over the following decade. Some oil specialists are predicting a rise in the price of oil to $200 a barrel during the next few years. I have argued previously why such a large price increase is unlikely (see my post on May 11); indeed, oil may very well retreat from its present level of over $130 a barrel. Still, as long as world GDP continues to grow over the next decade at a sizable pace-which is likely- the price of oil will remain far above what it was in the 1990's.
即使明天就开始近海开采也要很多年后才可能有实际的产出，因为在海里的搭建平台和组装设备都需要时间。现在取消禁令的价值并不取决于近几年的能源价格和断供风险，而是将在很多年后才开始显露，并持续几十年。一些石油专家预测几年后原油价格将涨到200美元一桶。我曾经说过为什么我认为这样大的增幅不大可能发生（参见我5月11日的博客）；确切的说，未来原油价格将比现在超过130美元一桶的价格有所下降，当然，只要全球GDP在未来十年保持高速增长（貌似很可能），那么原油价格就将持续保持高价，将高出上世纪90年年代低迷时期的价格很多很多。
This means that the financial and other benefits from offshore drilling are likely to greatly exceed the benefits at the time the moratorium was imposed, for oil was then much cheaper even in inflation-adjusted terms. The increasing share of imports in the oil consumed by the United States, and the rise in oil prices, explain why the value of imported oil rose more than five fold since the 1980s. This is why cost-benefit calculations of whether to end the moratorium and allow offshore drilling have shifted in the direction of allowing drilling. Although the risks of offshore drilling are much harder to quantify than the benefits, I believe the shift in the benefit-cost ratio has been large enough so that the time has come to allow drilling. Norway and Great Britain, to take two examples, have allowed drilling in the North Sea for many years without suffering major environmental damage. To be sure, in the end oil companies are the ones who have to decide whether the gains from drilling are worth the risks, including lawsuits if there are damaging oil spills, but these companies seem eager to start drilling offshore.
这就意味着，近海开采带来的经济和其它利益将远远超过禁止开采的利益，因为到时候油价将会便宜很多很多(去除通胀)。美国对进口石油消费的增加以及油价的上涨，解释了为何进口油价从上世纪80年代以来已经翻了五倍多了。这也是为什么在从成本收益的角度计算是否应当禁止近海开采时，人们偏向选择应当允许开采的原因。尽管近海开采的风险量化要比其利益量化困难很多，但是我相信收益成本比已经足够大了，因此是时候允许近海开采了。有两个例子，挪威和英国已经允许在北海开采多年了，他们还没有遭遇什么大的环境危害。当然，最终还是得由石油公司来判断收益是否大于风险，风险包括石油外漏危害引发的诉讼，但是这些公司看上去已经迫不及待的希望开工了。
The proposed excess profits tax on the earnings of oil companies would discourage the search for additional oil, and hence would have the opposite effects on this search from a relaxation of the moratorium on offshore drilling. An excess profits tax that is expected to persist for many years discourages further exploration for oil simply because much of the profits on new oil production would be taxed away. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter introduced a windfall tax on oil companies to prevent them from profiting a lot from the high price of oil due to the Iran-Iraq war. An evaluation by the Congressional Research Service, a think tank that provides reports to Congress, concluded that the tax significantly reduced domestic oil production and raised oil imports. Disillusionment with the tax led to its abandonment in 1987. Yet the lessons from this fiasco have been forgotten, for since the post-Katrina rise in gasoline prices in 2005, members of Congress have made regular attempts to introduce legislation with a sizable excess profits tax on oil companies.
对石油公司征收超额利润税的建议将降低他们寻找更多石油的积极性，这将对可能的近海开采造成负面影响。一个预期会持续多年的超额利润税将打击石油勘探，因为很多利润都将被税收抽走。在1980年，吉米·卡特总统对石油公司开征暴利税，以阻止他们在由于两伊战争造成的高油价中获利过多。国会研究部(为国会提供报告的一个智库)的一项评估结论是，税收减少了国内石油的产量并增加了进口量。对这项税收的美好幻觉在1987才破灭，但失败的教训早已被遗忘，从2005年我的这篇博客－－卡特里娜飓风促使油价上涨－－开始，国会的议员们便开始定期地尝试对石油公司征收巨额超额利润税的立法活动。
Even those Americans who worry a lot about global warming and other global pollution form the use of oil should be reluctant to discourage oil production offshore or elsewhere by American oil companies. Lower production by American companies would cause a rise in the world price of oil. Moreover, increased production by other countries would tend to offset reduced production by the United States, so that the effect on global warming and global pollution is likely to be modest. However, the increase in wealth transferred from the United States to the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela, and other oil-producing countries could be substantial.
甚至那些担心由于石油使用造成全球变暖和污染的美国人也不太情愿打击美国石油公司在近海或其它地方生产积极性。美国公司更低的石油产量将造成原油价格上涨。而且，其它国公司石油产量的增加将弥补美国石油产量的减少，因此这对全球变暖和污染的影响貌似没变化。但是，美国向中东、俄罗斯、委内瑞拉和其它产油国的财富转移将会持续增加。 (翻译：feng)
