The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:





SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | The US receives 30% of it’s oil from the Gulf of Mexico

If McConnell meant 30% of US crude oil consumption – FALSE

If McConnell meant 30% of US domestic crude oil production – TRUE

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | W/o GOM crude oil, gas would be $14 (a gallon) – UNCONFIRMABLE

SEN. McCONNELL: As horrible as this is, it’s important to remember that we get 30 percent of our oil from the Gulf and, if you shut that down, you’d have $14 gasoline.

So we are going to try something new with this fact-check. Because Sen. McConnell’s statement is vague enough to be misleading, we have fact-checked both possible meanings of it, which hinge on what the definition of “our” is. If Sen. McConnell means that 30% of the crude oil that the US consumes comes from the Gulf of Mexico, then his statement is FALSE. If Sen McConnell means that 30% of the crude oil that the US produces comes from the Gulf of Mexico, then his statement is TRUE.

According to the US Energy Information Administration:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oog/special/gulf/gulf_fact_sheet.html

The entire US domestic production of crude oil accounted for 28% of US liquid fuel consumption in 2009.

Gulf of Mexico crude oil production accounted for 8% of US liquid fuel consumption in 2009.

Gulf of Mexico crude oil production accounted for 30% of overall US crude oil production in 2009 (and makes up 19% of US reserves).

Another interesting fact from crowd-sourcer kcars1:

In addition, US has only 2.2% of the world oil reserves and GOM accounts for 19%, so GOM accounts for 0.42% of world reserves. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-wo…

Regarding the $14 a gallon gasoline, we were unable to find data to back up or refute that. That also means we were unable to find the data Sen. McConnell would be able to use to cite that number. Additionally, if GOM crude oil production equals only 8% of total US liquid fuel consumption, it seems unlikely that the loss of that 8% would result in a 466% increase in gasoline prices. (Gas currently averages around $3/gal) Regardless, until more information can be found or made available, Sen. McConnell’s statement cannot be confirmed at this time.





Special thanks to crowd-sourcers kcars1 and Joshua for assisting with this fact-check.





This fact-check took a combined 2.5 hours.