I’m really tired of people and pundits going on and on about how we have so much oil that just can’t be reached because the mean old government won’t let the oil companies drill for it. Remember “Drill, Baby, Drill”? ANWR? Yeah, that.

FOX Business News correspondent John Stossel is the latest to blame the government for keeping all those precious lands oil-rig free, all the while pushing the oil companies into dangerous deepwater exploration.

[Former Shell President John Hofmeister is] right. More than 50% of Western land is owned by the federal government. But 75% of that is off limits or restricted for private drilling. Land that the government estimates contains 20 billion barrels. If government would just step out of the way and let people drill, oil companies wouldn’t have to go so far offshore!

Well, the truth is that the oil companies were going to go deep-sea drilling at some point anyway, even if they could have gotten permission to drill on government land. They’re just there sooner, but the main reason they are there has less to do with the government than our insatiable demand for “Texas tea”.

20 billion barrels sure sounds like a lot until you put it in perspective up against what the United States consumes. According to the US Energy Information Adminstration’s summary page, we as a country consume 19.5 million barrels a day. At that rate, 20 billion barrels will give us an extra 2.8 years of oil.

So, even if the government “stepped out of the way”, it will cost a lot of money and time to get those oil wells online and producing, and there will be an environmental cost. And after all that, you’ll have a little less than three years of oil to show for it. Those consumption figures were current as of 2009; by the time we have those hypothetical rigs online, who knows where are consumption will be? Even if consumption were to stay flat or decrease, will the rest of the developing world curb their nascent appetites? (Mumble mumble China mumble.)

Is having an extra three years of oil worth spoiling precious natural resources? According to this chart, the entire Gulf of Mexico is estimated as having only 3.5 billion barrels total. That’s enough to last a paltry 177 days at the US’s current rate of consumption.

While we’re doing some number crunching, let’s think about those thousands of barrels of oil that are currently spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the foundered Deepwater Horizion. The government estimates—conservatively—that the flow rate is 19,000 barrels of oil a day. At that rate, as of this writing, over 800,000 barrels have spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a spill so large it’s easily visible from space. It’s going to ruin coastal fishermen’s livelihoods, kill wildlife, and spoil the coastlines of several states. But had we been able to use the oil that’s been spilled, it would only equal the amount of oil that the entire US consumes in a single hour. ONE. LOUSY. HOUR.

The idea that somehow we could ever become energy independent on producing our own oil alone is a complete crock unless we learn to do with a lot less of the stuff and look for more sustainable resources. Oil is not the final answer, and if we act like it is, we’re going to be in a heap of trouble when the wells run dry and we have nothing to show for it.