Presidential hopeful John McCain and hopeful President George W. Bush have hit on a lovely bit of shameless political pandering, just in time for the election season - advocating for the repeal of bans of offshore drilling. It sounds like a great plan: tap the gas we've already got offshore in our territorial waters, raise the bird to OPEC, and alleviate the crushingly high gas prices that are straining so many budgets. Accordingly, much political hay has been made while the sun of high gas prices shines.

Unfortunately, there's one small problem with this proposal, and that problem is that we can't do it for at least five years and probably longer. Why? A backlog for the services of high-tech ships used for deep-sea drilling, and the slow rate at which shipyards in Korea and Japan can produce them, will prevent the first offshore drilling from happening until at least 2013. And it would almost certainly be at least 2-3 years after that before production was significant enough to affect oil prices even slightly.

The shortage of drilling ships is being felt worldwide; Brazil's ability to exploit its newly-discovered Tupi oil field south of Rio De Janeiro is limited by the same shortfall. Prices for the stabilized vessels have increased 20 percent, to half a billion dollars per vessel, in the last year.

Add the questionable feasibility of the entire idea to the laundry list of reasons why drilling offshore is questionable. And speaking of questionable, somebody - preferably an Envirowonkish anchor or journalist - needs to raise this inconvenient truth with Messirs McCain and Bush as early as possible.