According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the need to open more of the US to oil exploration is a hoax. Last week in a press conference she said, “This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax, it’s an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and this administration.” One would have hoped she was talking about man-made global warming – but no such luck. The contorted pseudo-science of secular progressives sees the hoax (man-made global warming) as real and the common-sense truth (the need to drill off-shore and in ANWR) as a hoax. Perhaps we should blame our weak university system for the liberal politicians’ misguided thinking. But the fact is that they have become the pawns of the powerful and radical environmentalist lobby that sees the human race as a virus attacking Mother Nature.
The left continues to obfuscate the issue by repeating over and over again that the oil companies are causing this crisis by not drilling on US lands they have already leased. They obviously believe that if they repeat this often enough, they can brainwash the American people into believing it. I will attempt to offer our secular progressive friends a simple logical explanation for this: There is not enough oil under these lands to make it worthwhile to drill there. The oil companies lease land from the US government if they think there is a possibility oil might be there. Once they lease the land; they explore it. If exploration does not yield positive results, the land is returned to the Federal Government when the lease expires.
In the meantime, the price of oil, gas, and related consumer products continues to rise. We hear excuse after ridiculous excuse why we should not drill while Nancy Pelosi and friends block the issue from even coming to the floor for a vote. The real hoax here is that the liberals in Washington care how much you have to pay for gas and food. They say they do, but their actions say they don’t. They don’t understand economics and, even worse, they legislate impediments to our economic growth.
Another excuse for not drilling we continue to hear is that it won’t help reduce prices right now anyway. This is the sort of fuzzy thinking that that got us into this situation to begin with. It is the equivalent of telling a farmer not to plant vegetables because they won’t be ready to eat at tonight’s dinner. A farmer must look to the long term results of his efforts. If we want to lower gas prices by increasing the supply in the near future, we must begin drilling in our richest reserves right now. Lower prices might not be the immediate result of beginning drilling, but it will reduce gas prices in the future.
More oil is the most immediate solution to the downturn in our economy. Alternative fuels that are economical (this leaves out corn ethanol) and alternative energy production on the scale to meet the magnitude of our economy’s real needs are still many more years in the future. Our technology needs more time to develop in these areas before our country can make the truly significant scientific leaps which will be required to realistically convert even 51% of our energy needs to reasonably priced alternative power sources. I believe these alternatives are at least a minimum of 30 to 50 years in the future. In the meantime, we have abundant oil deposits off our coasts and in ANWR to make us virtually energy independent over the next century. Continue reading . . .
