WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush's decision to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling around the United States has a lot more merit than environmental groups and his Democratic opponents claim, but it is unlikely to last long beyond January, whoever wins the U.S. presidential election.

Oil prices fell Thursday to close at $129.29 per barrel on the New York market, the lowest closing price since June 5. The $5.31, or 4 percent, drop came despite pipeline pressure problems in Nigeria that caused a temporary suspension in 47,000 barrels of oil exports from that source, the Oil Voice Web site reported.

The most immediate reason the price fell may well have been the anticipation of Bush's decision to lift the ban on offshore drilling and on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Critics claim that lifting the offshore drilling ban will not produce remotely enough oil to affect global oil prices and that it will take many years before any new-found oil comes online anyway: The usual time lag before new oil supplies would significantly come on line is usually put by the critics at seven years.

In fact, such claims are wild guesstimates, and the people who make them, and who simultaneously call for a "crash program" or "New Manhattan Project" in alternative energy development, never note that the new energy initiatives they call for will likely take vastly longer than seven years to have any positive effect at all, if they ever do.