The BP Deepwater horizon oil spill became one of the greatest environmental disasters this country has ever faced, spewing 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and costing Gulf communities $22.7 billion in lost tourism revenue. President Obama’s decision to ban offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf and off the Atlantic is the right decision, but, unfortunately, it will also increase pressure to drill in the U.S. Arctic Ocean.

A recent report by Pew catalogued the challenges we face in the Arctic, an extreme, remote and fragile place. Gale force winds, 20-foot seas, broken ice, sub-zero temperatures and months of darkness are not uncommon. Marine species such as polar bears, walrus and bowhead whales are found nowhere else in the United States and remain critical to the health of the region's overall ecosystem. If we've learned anything from the Gulf tragedy, it’s that oil spill response is challenging, even in temperate waters. Responding to a spill in the Arctic will be even more so.

We must ensure that any development is accompanied by a comprehensive, science-based plan that ensures usage of the best available technology for drilling as well as preventing, planning for and responding to an oil spill. Moreover, those plans should identify important ecological and cultural areas and ensure they are excluded from oil and gas activity. But there’s only so much the administration can do. Congress must also step up and pass the pending offshore energy reform bill.

After the spill, Members of both parties stood in line to make promises for swift action to prevent such a disaster from ever occurring again. The House passed the first significant offshore drilling legislation in 32 years, but the Senate, to date, has failed to respond. Next year, the 112th Congress must make passing offshore energy reform a top priority. If they don't fix the loopholes in the law, we could be faced with another Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The President’s reversal on offshore drilling damages American consumers, kills jobs, increases our national debt, helps our international competitors, and undermines the citizens’ confidence in the policymaking process. Simple common sense, sound reasoning, and academic research tells us that increased access to our domestic oil and gas resources will create more jobs, generate more government revenue, and lead to more affordable energy prices for American families and businesses. Other countries, such as China and Brazil, certainly understand that.

Unfortunately, our government continues its war on affordable energy and works to make energy production in the United States as expensive and difficult as possible -- all the while insisting that they're doing the right thing. No matter what the politicians say, the facts remain the same. The current moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf is expected to kill 19,536 jobs and $1.1 billion in earnings. If ANWR were opened, production there would create between 1/4 million and 3/4 million jobs. Off the coast of Florida, energy production would create 225,093 jobs; California's tanking economy could surely benefit from the 295,185 jobs production would generate there.

The BP oil spill, while tragic, will probably be little more than a distraction to the overall conversation. One defective well and one problematic company must not dictate federal offshore oil and gas policy, especially when matched up against 50 years of competent, safe operations, and thousands upon thousands of safely-drilled wells.

Finally, while most of the newly elected lawmakers are more reasonable on energy issues than those they are replacing, proponents of domestic energy production will still face an uphill battle. The simple and unfortunate truth is that most elected officials ignore energy and economic realities for as long as they can. But with oil prices edging towards $100 a barrel, these politicians will soon discover that legitimate domestic energy production involving reliable, affordable sources like oil and natural gas is a winning proposition. Jobs, affordability, reliability, and even government revenue all argue for increased domestic production of oil and gas. It is only a matter of time before Congress and the Administration catch up to the will of the American people and come to the right conclusion.

The reversal will cause many oil and gas companies to think twice about where they might explore and drill for oil. There are many other places in the world they could do this where policies are more stable. Unstable policy decisions are not good for business. The oil industry is a business.

The Gulf oil spill was a disaster, but it is not representative of the industry’s unusually good track record on oil spills and other problems in the past, and especially since the 1990s. The facts do not track with the usual media hype about the industry. However, it takes just one of two huge errors, like the Gulf spill to overshadow the importance of offshore oil drilling in our overall energy security situation.

The greatest source for oil spilling into the ocean from human sources in the US has historically been from runoff from roadways, cities, and the like, not from oil and gas platforms or from oil tankers, especially since the 1990s. The largest sources of oil spillage into the ocean have often been natural oil seepages. There are volcanoes of asphalt from such natural spillages off the coast of Santa Barbara. I have seen oil seepages and gas seepages in helicopter rides over oil and gas fields in the ocean.

However, we need to look at the nuances of our oil reserves choices for development and production, especially when considering environmental and other possible impacts. There are lots of variables involved and we need to consider all of them.

About 40% of our energy use is from oil. About 98% of our transportation is based on oil fuels. About 60% of our oil is imported even though we may have as much as 86 billion barrels of oil in our moratorium fields.

Our imports of oil are very costly. Direct payments at the present $90 per barrel would add up to about $300 billion this year alone on average. This is just for the crude oil. This is not including the refined products we also import in increasing amounts due to our laxity and timidity in building refinery capacity.

On the other hand let’s calculate the value of the possible 86 billion barrels mentioned above. $90 time 86 billion barrels is $7.8 trillion dollars. That is a lot of money sitting in the ground. Also, we should also assume that the price of oil will likely increase as the world economy gets moving better and as peak oil kicks in more so in the mostly non-OPEC countries.

We are facing down a huge set of budget deficits over the coming years. Royalties and taxes on these billions of barrels of oil would be solid money into the treasury of the US that could be put to the good purpose of helping us move from hydrocarbons toward more sustainable and renewable fuels and energy sources in the coming decades. These gains to the treasury could be in the trillions of dollars.

I have often proposed a 25 year phase in of offshore oil drilling followed by a 25 phase out of offshore oil drilling with the combined offset of at least many hundreds of billions in taxes and royalties being paid to develop new energy technologies and systems – as well as trillions going to pay off our national debt. (It may be better than the 60-80% tax rates some are talking about if we keep kicking the debt can down the road and do nothing about it.)

After this 50 year period we will likely be well beyond peak oil, including many of the unconventional reserves we think are out there and including enhanced oil recovery methods. This 50 year phase-in, phase-out would allow the US to move more smoothly into the energy future that awaits us. The more oil we import, the more money we spend on it, the more we shock the energy systems here with massive oil spikes, and the less we put to alternative energies, the harsher our energy and economic futures will be.

We cannot move very quickly from oil-based transport just yet. If we move too quickly there could be serious economic and possibly even political repercussions. Indeed, we could move to various transport alternatives, such as the electric car, methanol fuels, CNG, garbage-to-energy transport, better public transport systems, healthier transport systems (such as more bike friendly and walking friendly cities), and more. You might want to look at my recent article in the World Policy Journal on some of these alternatives being considered now. In that article there is a cautionary note on moving too quickly.

Surely, we have serious environmental problems to face. We also have to face global climate change. We need to change the way we do things at many levels. However, we need to be reasonable and help the transition from the 85% fossil fueled economy of today to the 75%, then 65% and then even 35% fossil fueled economy of the next 50 years. It may take that long to transition without huge shocks to the overall economic-energy-political system. We will still likely rely on a lot of coal and even a greater proportion of natural gas over the coming decades so let’s not kid ourselves that we are going to shut down the fossil fuels industry and all move to electric and other non-oil base powered cars, for example, any time soon.

Oil and gas companies can be part of that transition. Part of the deal we could make with them is that they get to the oil offshore and in the deep drilling areas, but in return they put large efforts and serious money into developing our better and more sustainable energy future at many levels. They could gain from this too. They would then be part of the new energy future, not increasing anachronistic companies holding on to an unsustainable past.

There is no free lunch and there should be many returns to society at many levels for the people, and that is who owns the offshore lands and what is underneath them, for allowing the oil and gas companies the rights to drill in the people’s ocean. The waters off the US coast are either state owned or federally owned. The returns from efforts out there should accrue to society as a whole, but they need to be rationally developed and with a very long view in mind. We also need to protect these waters and their shores from pollution and other damaging activities. So let’s tighten the rules more and get more secure in our sense that this drilling is the right thing to do. Confidence building will be required.

These returns and the royalties and taxes gained from the offshore oil production should go mostly to developing better transport, lighting, heating, cooling, water treatment and other energy using activities in our cities in particular. Most of our energy use is in or by our cities by far. They will be the crucial strategic centers of gravity for the development of our new energy future – and a huge amount can be accomplished in our cities. A few hundred billion in revenues could help that along with seed money and more.

This is all way beyond politics and politicians of today. The changes needed in the future are vital and oil will be part of that, but mostly in the transition. Let’s use all of our tools and resources available and not hamstring our future. We can all move forward into a better energy future as a team of many from many parts of the energy industry. Without that we could waste valuable time and resources simply battling for this or that pet cause and for the next set of profits, instead of seeing the massive opportunities available in our transitions to new energy futures: and there will be many transitions and many different kinds of energy futures to choose from. The big benefits are to be found in the transition. And these could be in the multiple trillions of dollars and in our environmental and climate improvements. Let’s be smart and not just fall once again into the myopia and selfishness that has crippled our abilities to deal with out energy and environmental security in the past.

President Obama is absolutely right to protect the Arctic Ocean from oil and gas drilling at this time. He was right to postpone the scheduled drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas this past summer and – contrary to some of the respondents – the facts and not politics justify that decision. He needs to keep drill rigs out of the area while federal agencies: 1) research the area’s biology and ecology as it is one of the least understood areas on earth, 2) examine the potential effects of spills in these highly-sensitive waters and coastal areas, including how to address the lack of effective cleanup technologies, and 3) make the regulatory and enforcement upgrades needed to ensure effective oversight. Additionally, Congress needs to increase the current, absurdly-low liability limit of $75 million for major oil spills to U.S. waters.

Given the oil industry’s problematic record of environmental protection including the BP spill in the Gulf this past summer, delaying potentially destructive drilling activities in the Arctic was the right course of action. It was the only course of action that would ensure the safety of rig workers and protect the wildlife that rely on pristine, icy Arctic waters. A major oil spill would impact whales, seals, polar bears and nesting sea birds which live in this harsh environment, as well as the lives of Alaska Natives along the ocean’s coast who depend on marine resources for food and to carry out their cultural traditions.

Furthermore, the Administration should not bow to industry pressure to open up sensitive lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which celebrated 50 years of protection last week. Throwing out a half-century of protection of one of the most iconic and unique landscapes in the world for a relatively small quantity of oil neither achieves energy independence nor meaningfully lessens our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels. And since the State of Alaska issued a report this month showing that there’s a North Slope oil spill nearly every week with one greater than 1,000 gallons nearly every two months, many needed jobs could be created by upgrading existing oil infrastructure.

President Obama certainly does not want to go into the history books as the President who oversaw the destruction of our oceans and our iconic landscapes for oil. American citizens agree, and sent more than 100,000 messages to the U.S. Department of the Interior, urging them to keep drills out of the Arctic Ocean.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf was a wake-up call to America to reconsider our energy decisions. President Obama is right to take sensitive and fragile habitats off the table for oil drilling. Given that a major Arctic Ocean oil spill likely would devastate marine wildlife and Native communities that have existed for thousands of years, it is a wise and moral course of action.

Shortly after the BP oil disaster I talked with a number of senior executives in the oil and gas industry. Without exception, they told me that what has happened was incomprensible, "shouldn't have been possible," "we never could have imagined." And as we watched the stumbling efforts to cope in the weeks that followed, it was impossible not to contrast the super-sophistication of the technology of oil production -- approaches that even a few years ago would have been unimaginable because of their information technology rich base -- with the almost ludicrously outmoded technology of oil capture and clean up. We had giant scissors that were supposed to shut down wells a mile underneath the ocean, but which it turned out routinely had failed. We were going to cap a giant funnel over the well -- but icy methane hydrates kept blocking it, like BP needed super Drano. And then once the oil spilled we fell back on detergents and straw.

Drilling was high-tech innovation at its best and worst. The clean up technology could all have come out of my grandmother's kitchen. It was if the nineteenth century was trying to clean up after the twenty-first, and unsurprisingly, the twenty-first won. Now the Presidential Commission appointed to investigate the disaster had concluded that for years now the industry has put its R&D effort almost entirely behind efforts to push the frontiers of producing oil, and almost none into how to produce it safely. This long delayed effort to apply modern technology to making oil drilling safe even when things go wrong cannot be made up for in months. That's why the President's decision to delay further expansions of areas where drilling is allowed is such a responsible -- if incomplete -- recognition of this reality:

Oil drilling is modern and sophisticated. Oil clean-up us a joke. And when oil companies file plans, as required by law, saying they can clean up what they spill, they are perjuring themselves -- and we now know it.

Perhaps someday they can learn to clean up. Perhaps someday they can meet the simple requirement of the law. But not yet. Not now.

The President is only doing what his oath of office requires -- faithfully executing the laws.

The BP drilling disaster clearly caused the Obama Administration to rethink its position on expanding drilling into previously protected areas like the Atlantic Coast. But drilling in these areas was a bad idea long before the Macondo well blew our drilling safety illusion to bits.

Drilling in the Atlantic has been marketed by the oil industry as a way to lower the price of gasoline, and to make us more energy independent. And of course, even now, they’d like us to think it’s safe. But according to government studies, neither of those goals could be achieved. The Energy Information Administration has shown that even at peak production, which doesn’t even happen until 2030, Atlantic oil and gas would lower the price at the pump by only about 3 cents. Gasoline prices fluctuate by more than that on a weekly basis already.

As for energy independence, EIA predicts we can go from needing to import about 62% of our oil, as we do now, to needing to import only 58% of our oil. So, by sacrificing the Atlantic to oil and gas we could be a whopping 4 percent more energy independent than we are now. There are better ways to improve our energy independence in the next decade than industrializing Atlantic beaches.

As for safety, Americans can see for themselves, especially those that got an up-close look at the “sweet” crude on the Gulf of Mexico’s shores.

The oil industry keeps suggesting that the only way to save the economy and to create jobs is to drill for oil. See API's comment below as an example. But compared to offshore wind, an emerging energy option on the Atlantic coast, offshore drilling in the Atlantic doesn’t stack up on economy or jobs. In fact, we could get more energy for less money and create more jobs by harvesting the wind available on the Atlantic shelf, using conservative assumptions, than we’d get from developing offshore oil and gas. Some states could generate more energy from offshore wind than they currently generate using fossil fuels, nuclear, and all other sources of electricity, combined. This wind energy could be used to heat more homes, generate more electricity, or, if we electrified our cars, it could power many more of them than the Atlantic’s oil and gas.

Now that we have seen first hand the devastation wrought by an offshore oil spill, we recognize that allowing offshore drilling is essentially placing the interests of the oil and gas industry above those of other industries, namely fisheries and tourism. To do that in the Atlantic where the benefits of drilling are minimal and where many states depend on fishing and tourism economies, would be irresponsible. Changing course, in this case was the responsible thing to do and many Senators and Members of Congress recognize that and support it.

Rather than adorning Congress with hopes, lobbying budgets and campaign contributions, in an effort to reverse this decision, oil companies would serve Americans better if they would commit to investing a significant portion of their record profits in clean energy. The seven years that we now know oil companies will not be busy drilling in the Atlantic would be a good time for the those companies to instead help the United States catch up with countries like the UK, China and Germany in the great clean energy race. That outcome would make the Administration’s decision to forego drilling in the Atlantic, not just the right thing to do, but pure genius.

President Obama reached the only possible rational conclusion when he deferred until 2017 his earlier proposal to open long-protected waters to the risks of expanded offshore drilling. The findings of various commissions are leading to the inescapable conclusion that this year’s BP Gulf oil disaster was entirely preventable. This spill might have even been predictable, in light of prior missed warning signals and inadequate preparedness coupled with fatally-flawed equipment designs that have been applied throughout many offshore drilling activities in U.S. waters. New observations of heavy oil deposits on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor continue, marshes on the Louisiana coast remain plagued with spilled oil, tarballs and entrained oil remain buried in our beaches, many desperate Gulf Coast business owners remain uncompensated, even as a lingering economic stigma still precludes a full recovery of the once-famous branding of our Gulf Coast fishing industry.

Despite the lasting trail of economic and ecosystem damage from the BP oil spill disaster, the oil industry’s public relations machine apparently hopes that Congress and the Administration can be coerced to just cover their eyes, disregard sound science, and pretend that the BP Gulf blowout never took place. The “drill baby drill” crowd wants BP and friends to move on to similarly risk polluting North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the waters off of Georgia Sea Island. Even the Arctic Ocean is in their sights, where no known oil spill cleanup technology has been proven effective amidst broken sea ice, prevailing darkness, heavy seas, fog, and storms, and where no available rig to drill a relief well - or ports from which to mount an oil spill response - exist anywhere nearby.

As America celebrates the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the oil lobby is claiming that drilling throughout the fragile Refuge lands will not harm a thing. Yet damaging pipeline breaks and messy onshore oil spills continue to plague Alaska’s North Slope drilling infrastructure. False reassurances are not something that politicians and the public should fall for. We need to allow the facts and sound science to fully emerge from the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history; apply the hard lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico to our future ocean management policies; and let improved well-control measures and redundant blowout preventers and other long-overdue safety systems guide us on a reasonable and measured path forward.

If our society does not learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them, at the cost of irreparably damaging America’s important economic sectors that depend on clean coastal waters. Now is clearly not the time to take an ill-advised gamble with the Atlantic coast, Florida’s Gulf Coast, our Arctic Ocean, nor with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A precautionary policy is the only reasonable course, unless and until peer-reviewed science and demonstrated success with safety measures and oil spill cleanup can fully assure us that we are likely going to be able to proceed with dangerous activities in these high-risk areas in a safe and responsible manner. That day has not yet arrived, as we obviously learned the hard way, and at great expense, this year.

The Interior Department's surprising decision takes U.S. energy policy in the wrong direction. Despite long-standing concerns about U.S. energy dependence on oil from other countries, the administration's decision is likely to result in increased imports and a lessening of U.S. energy security.

The decision couldn't have come at a worse time. With unemployment rising to 9.8 percent and an estimated 15 million Americans out of work, it makes no sense to shut the door on one of the nation's best prospects for job creation.

A study by ICF International projected that in 2030 full development of these areas could generate nearly $91 billion in revenue for government, more than 75,000 new U.S. jobs, and the production of nearly one million barrels of additional oil per day. These potentially energy-rich areas could go a long way toward helping to balance the federal budget and ease concerns about the nation's economic future.

The U.S. Department of Energy reported last week that oil supplies are tightening worldwide as demand increases abroad, especially in China. The agency also projected higher crude oil prices, which would affect every American family by putting upward pressure on energy costs.

No one wants to pay more for energy, and the American people have made their views clear in poll after poll. A new Rasmussen poll found that 54 percent of voters believe the decision to bar offshore drilling will raise gasoline prices and hurt the economy. Other polls conducted by Harris Interactive for API have shown that voters reject energy tax increases and policies that bar offshore drilling. They know the importance of energy to their daily lives and to their family budgets.

They also know the offshore drilling ban exacerbates the ongoing permit and lease sale delays in the Gulf. Permitting on existing Gulf leases has slowed to a crawl, keeping many workers in the region in unemployment lines. Information released by the Interior Department suggests that new lease sales in the central and western Gulf, where development is allowed, are unlikely to occur next year. That would make 2011 the first year since 1965 when no lease sales are held anywhere in the Gulf.

The administration says the industry should focus on developing oil and natural gas from existing leases, suggesting that America can get the energy its needs from them. The administration's argument is a red herring, and one that could have a negative impact on American consumers.

Energy companies must lease large amounts of new acreage to replace dwindling supplies of oil and natural gas in older wells and ensure the best prospects with the greatest energy potential get developed. They plan 10-to-20 years out to ensure a steady supply for oil and natural gas for consumers. By prohibiting promising areas for oil and natural gas production, the administration is discouraging investment in the United States for many years to come, blocking U.S. job creation, and potentially sending jobs overseas.

When the administration lifted the deepwater drilling moratorium in mid-October, it acknowledged the work done by industry and government to improve safety following the tragic accident in April. If the administration believes it is safe to drill in most of the Gulf, why isn't it safe to drill in other areas as well, where the same new government regulations, heightened oversight, and industry safety improvements would be in place? The answer has more to do with politics than safety.

The Interior Department should reconsider its approach to oil and natural gas development and get energy development back on track. The U.S. government does not have a sound energy strategy, and that must change.

The politics for more oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was always horrible for the President and so, while positive, the recent cessation announcement by pro-drilling Ken Salazar was more a reflection of electoral reality from the beleaguered Interior Department after the Gulf oil disaster than it was a major new policy shift. Indeed, reading carefully between the lines, it is clear Secretary Salazar will attempt to open up Alaska’s Arctic waters to highly dangerous drilling over the next 24 months. This move will spark a momentous battle between those who can only see short-term economic profits and those who rightly worry that a crucial planetary ecosystem will be placed at huge risk. If one is truly concerned about global warming, drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas is a horrible idea for many reasons, including: the contribution to global warming of burning these fossil fuels; the disruption of a millennia-old center of hemispheric weather stability; the further decline of a host of wildlife species up and down the food chain starting with the polar bear; the complete inability of current technology and infrastructure to respond to an inevitable spill; the further demise of native communities; and the first real sullying of pristine waters to industrial drilling activity in the Arctic, which is already warming at twice the rate as the rest of the world.

There is no doubt that the new House majority will push for more drilling anywhere and everywhere, but the key to America’s future energy policy has always been the ability to wean ourselves off the dominance of the old guard. If the Democrats are smart, they will play an honest game of “follow the money” which will demonstrate it makes far more sense to invest in renewables and conservation than it does to carry on with business as usual. Whether this change will happen is dependant upon a coordinated grassroots campaign and courageous political leadership. EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide from mega-large corporate polluters will be a good and sensible start to leveling the playing field for all Americans.

President Obama is just following the political tradition of using energy as a tool of political opportunism. Every President since the first President Bush, who imposed the first offshore moratorium by executive order, has used offshore drilling to pander to some constituency. President Obama’s change of heart is either to pander to his liberal base which is in revolt, to shore up support in Florida which will be critical to his re-election, or just another sign of his off-oil philosophy.

Whatever the reason, it is irresponsible and unjustified. It is irresponsible because as a nation politicians rail against too much foreign oil being imported but then maintain a self imposed embargo on increasing domestic production. That is cognitive dissonance in the extreme.

The President justifies his action on the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, claiming that offshore drilling is too risky to continue. But, Bill Reilly, the co-chair of the commission investigating the accident, was uncharacteristically blunt in his assessment of the accident.

“There is virtual consensus among all the sophisticated observers of this debacle that three of the leading players in the industry made a series of missteps, miscalculations and miscommunications that were breathtakingly inept and largely preventable."

Poor decisions and management practices by those involved in this “debacle” should not be a justification for using a broad brush to paint all companies that drill offshore as irresponsible or assert that offshore exploration is too risky.

It is clear from this accident that improvements need to be made in the industry’s operating practices as well as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 which spells out spill response responsibilities and liability limits. The industry is in the process of setting up a new organization for operating in the Gulf and is reviewing its operating practices. The cost of this spill to BP--in excess of $20 billion--provides a very strong incentive for companies to make sure that their platform management and operating practices meet higher standards of excellence. It would be naive to think that that isn’t the case. No company will risk experiencing what BP is going through or will go through for decades as a result of its poor platform management and decision making.

Prior to this accident, over 50,000 offshore wells in US waters had been drilled over a 41 year period without a major accident. Worldwide 14000 deepwater wells have also been drilled safely. That record is compelling empirical evidence of a responsible industry.

Enough time has now lapsed to allow companies to resume operations in the Gulf and there is sufficient information now available to pursue leasing in the eastern gulf and east coast sooner than 2017. Many states along the east coast would welcome drilling and the jobs and revenue it would bring. Drilling in the eastern Gulf is a logical extension of the successful drilling that has taken place elsewhere in the Gulf. How much oil and gas will be produced with new drilling is an open question but the amount could be substantial as it certainly would be if drilling was allowed on Alaska’s coastal plain. A more reasonable and realistic approach to offshore and Alaskan exploration could result in the US producing well over 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2020,with some being produced much sooner.

Every barrel of oil we produce here is a barrel we don’t import. And, increased domestic exploration and production involves billions of dollars of capital investment and operating expenses. Those produce good paying jobs in the United States which is something we need now more than ever.

Reflecting on the President’s reversal, it is hard to conclude that his decision is anything except another case of playing politics with energy and its contribution to restoring healthy economic growth. While never justified by the facts, it may have been somewhat tolerable in the years of strong economic growth. Today, it is just irresponsible.