Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, of course this is a very controversial issue, and there is a lot of uncertainty related to any studies, so we don't have a final answer. What I am going to report today is sort of the official study, if you can call it that, actually from the U.S. Department of Energy. And they have looked at the situation, and they have looked at what would be the impact of drilling offshore on energy supplies as well as prices. And what they have concluded is that if we started right now and expanded the range of drilling that companies could do off the coast of the U.S., first of all, we probably would not get any additional production until about 2017. And secondly, once that production was in full swing - again, U.S. Department of Energy estimates - that the increase in domestic oil production would be in the range of 2 to 3 percent. And they conclude the impact on, therefore, the price of oil - which, of course, is set in the world market - would be very, very minor. Now that said, there are certainly a lot of debates about this Department of Energy report and their conclusions. First of all, many people in the oil business say, 'You know, you really don't know how much oil is down there until you start to drill.' So anything based on some estimate of how much is - in this case - under the ocean is just that, an estimate. Also, they say that, some critics of the Energy Department report say that if we increased offshore drilling it would change the whole psychology of the oil markets, especially the psychology of the large suppliers like in the Middle East as well as Russia because it would suggest that there is going to be more competition. And as these critics say, that would actually further lower oil prices. So this is really a wide open debate. Nothing is settled, but it is certainly a very important one."