The Chinese are drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba -- just 45 miles from Florida -- and I don't like it. Neither does Rep. Michele Bachmann, Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. John McCain and other righteous Americans who are so ticked off about the China connection that we can't see straight.

Or think straight, either.

Do you want to know the problem with the Chinese taking offshore oil from Cuba while American oil drillers sit on their hands because pansy global warming freaks won't let us punch more holes in the ocean and we pony up $4 a gallon to fill the family Hummer?

The problem is it isn't true.

To see how deeply we are addicted to oil, check out the election-year pandering of the politicians promising to restore our God-given right to cheap gas by making sure the Chinese don't buy Cuba's.

What a pathetic country we have become. It's like watching a drunk search through his pockets for enough nickels and dimes to buy one more quart of Ripple. Only, we're the drunk.

We think we could solve our troubles if we started drilling on the outer continental shelf. Then we might be able to lower the price of gas to $3.98 gallon. Twenty years from now.

That's because oil is priced in a global market, where the extra production would amount to a tiny drop in the world's bucket -- about 200,000 barrels a day. Whoopee.

Contrast that miniscule difference with what might be achieved by improving fuel efficiencies for cars and light trucks.

According to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, the United States could cut consumption by 3.3 million barrels a day (16 times the effect of expanded drilling) if the average auto fuel efficiency was 32 miles per gallon.

That reasonable goal would almost have been achieved if Washington had required fuel efficiency to improve at a paltry rate of four-tenths of a mile per gallon per year since 1985.

Instead, the average fuel efficiency remains just 20 miles per gallon. Now, the politicians are panicked by voter anger. But instead of doing something that will make a difference, and strengthen the country for the future, they are promising fixes that don't work and raising the Chinese-Cuban Bogeyman.

Cheney started it in a speech last month, claiming that the Chinese were drilling off Cuba. His office later admitted he was wrong, after industry experts, newspaper reports and Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, himself a Republican, debunked the story, with Martinez comparing Cheney's tall tale to an "urban legend."

But the legend, unfortunately, lives on, spread by advisers to John McCain, the presumptive GOP candidate for president, and by candidates for Congress and the Senate -- most of them Republicans -- including some in Minnesota.

"With the help of Cuba, China is procuring oil 45 miles off the Florida coast," Bachmann, the Sixth District congresswoman (who supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore drilling, too), claimed in a video released by her office.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., supports opening the outer continental shelf to drilling, but opposes it in the Arctic. He also has brought up the China-Cuba claim, but finessed it more artfully than Bachmann:

"The Chinese are able to begin operating 90 miles from our shore by working for Cubans," he said last week in Mankato. "American companies should tap into those resources."

What Coleman meant, according to press secretary LeRoy Coleman (part of the ever-expanding Coleman Clan, LeRoy is no relation to me, or Norm), was: China is in "better position to drill for oil off our coast than we are."

I don't agree with Cousin Norm about that. We already are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and other offshore areas, and the effect on the United States of Chinese drilling --if they were drilling -- is doubtful. But the way Norm framed it, the issue is worth debate. So here are the facts from surveying the news reports, best as I can understand them:

1) The Chinese have done some seismic testing -- but no drilling in Cuba. 2) They have done that on land, not offshore. 3) Cuba is letting some countries, including Norway, Canada and Spain (but not China), search for offshore oil. 4) No drilling has begun.

So, voter beware. There is no quick fix for our gas headache. Claims that the Chinese are taking Cuban oil won't give consumers lower priced gas, but it might help oil companies pad their profits.

That, my friends, is old-fashioned American politics.

They may be talking about petroleum, but what they are selling is only snake oil.

Nick Coleman • 612-673-4400 ncoleman@startribune.com