Over the past two weeks, The Oklahoman has published a series of articles promoting expanded domestic oil and gas drilling, claiming that increased U.S. production would limit the price volatility of gasoline and lower prices for consumers, even though experts agree that expanding American oil production would not mean lower gas prices and would still leave us “vulnerable to any shocks to the system.”

From The Oklahoman (emphasis added):

[Rayola Dougher, senior economist at the American Petroleum Institute] said it is nearly impossible to predict what will happen to the price of oil if domestic production in the United States continues to rise, but an increasing supply of oil likely would apply downward pressure to prices and benefit American consumers.

Lower oil prices could translate into reduced gasoline prices.

As TIME magazine pointed out in April, even if we could produce all the oil to meet our currently large demand, it wouldn't actually lower or stabilize oil and gasoline prices. From TIME:

While unconventional sources promise to keep the supply of oil flowing, it won't flow as easily as it did for most of the 20th century. The new supplies are for the most part more expensive than traditional oil from places like the Middle East, sometimes significantly so. They are often dirtier, with higher risks of accidents. The decline of major conventional oil fields and the rise in demand mean the spare production capacity that once cushioned prices could be gone, ushering in an era of volatile market swings.

[...]

[C]ontrary to what the drill-here, drill-now crowd says, oil companies could punch holes in every state and barely make a dent in gasoline prices. Even a more energy independent U.S. can't control prices, not with a thirsty China competing on the globalized oil market. “Energy security is fine, but it doesn't have that much meaning in a globalized economy,” says Guy Caruso, a former head of the EIA. “More production adds fungibility to the world market, but we're still vulnerable to shocks in other countries.” The oil the U.S. uses may be American, but that doesn't mean it will be cheap.

Guy Caruso, the U.S. Energy Information Administration Chief for six years under former President George W. Bush, has stated that “energy independence” through increased oil production is a “political slogan” and that the U.S. would still be “vulnerable to any shocks in the system.”

These facts didn't stop The Oklahoman from pushing energy independence in its article on lower prices and less volatility. Instead they cited an economist from the American Petroleum Institute who said that energy independence would lower gasoline prices and an economist from Oklahoma City University who claimed that developing our own product would “help us smooth out that [price] volatility.” The Oklahoman did not disclose that Agee is also an oil executive.

The Oklahoman regularly touts energy industry sources, something they did over 43 percent of the time in part one of their series, while leaving out the consensus of more neutral experts across the political spectrum that increasing domestic drilling would not lower gas prices. This is unsurprising, given that oil and gas magnate Philip Anschutz owns the newspaper.