http://www.heritage.org/about/lfa/energyandenvironment.cfm
Energy and Environment Americans are increasingly concerned about energy. Demand is increasing faster than supplies while much of the world’s oil is delivered in a restrictive market dominated by unstable or hostile nations. Meanwhile, many Americans harbor misunderstandings and myths about energy, the environment, and market forces. They want low prices and plentiful supply, but resist steps that must be taken to achieve these goals. They want to protect the environment but most plans have huge costs and questionable benefits. This confusion leads Congress to enact conflicting policies that harm the nation’s ability to meet its energy needs. Sound policies must enable America to obtain supplies from a wide range of sources in a way that is best for the economy and also addresses homeland and national security considerations.
A lot of truth. There is also a lot of truth in the fact that we have the energy reserves to stop the ever spiraling upward trend of gasoline prices and the ever spiraling stupidity of our congressional representatives in Washington in outlawing of drilling and producing our own reserves.
Sign this petition:
http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659
and become a participant in the new American Revolution. Sign it now. Send it to everyone you know and every elected representative you know of. Drill here, drill now and pay less. They also need to allow the building of refineries and nuclear power plants. I too am an environmentalist, but I ain't stupid. Look at the Alaska pipeline that was supposed to disrupt the caribou. Look at the jobs lost. Look at the wealth shipped not to our own country, but to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the other countries that are praying for our downfall.
Like Chuck Norris, lets show them that WE are the boss.
One thing Brazil and the U.S. have in common is the price of oil: It is priced in dollars, and everyone in the world now knows what the price is. Another commonality is that each country has vast oil reserves in waters off their coastlines.
Here we may draw a line in the waves between the serious and the unserious.
Brazil discovered only yesterday (November) that billions of barrels of oil sit in difficult water beneath a swath of the Santos Basin, 180 miles offshore from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The U.S. has known for decades that at least 8.5 billion proven barrels of oil sit off its Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with the Interior Department estimating 86 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources.
When Brazil made this find last November, did its legislature announce that, for fear of oil spills hitting Rio's beaches or altering the climate, it would forgo exploiting these fields?
Of course it didn't. Guilherme Estrella, director of exploration and production for the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, said, "It's an extraordinary position for Brazil to be in." Indeed it is.
At this point in time, is there another country on the face of the earth that would possess the oil and gas reserves held by the United States and refuse to exploit them? Only technical incompetence, as in Mexico, would hold anyone back.
But not us. We won't drill.
California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill – in 1969.
We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of – the caribou.
In 1990, George H.W. Bush, calling himself "the environmental president," signed an order putting virtually all the U.S. outer continental shelf's oil and gas reserves in the deep freeze. Bill Clinton extended that lockup until 2013. A Clinton veto also threw away the key to ANWR's oil 13 years ago.
Our waters may hold 60 trillion untapped cubic feet of natural gas. As in Brazil, these are surely conservative estimates.
While Brazilians proudly embrace Petrobras, yelling "We're Going to Be No. 1," the U.S.'s Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama, promises to impose an "excess profits tax" on American oil producers.
We live in a world in which Russia's Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez use their vast oil and gas reserves as instruments of state power. Here, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid use their control of Congress to spend a week debating a "climate-change" bill. This they did fresh off their subsidized (and bipartisan) ethanol fiasco.
One may assume that Mr. Putin and the Chinese have noticed the policy obsessions of our political class. While other nations use their oil reserves to attain world status, we give ours up. Why shouldn't they conclude that, long term, these people can be taken? Nikita Khrushchev said, "We will bury you." Forget that. We'll do it ourselves.
Putin intimidates Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states and Poland with oil and gas cutoffs, while Chávez uses petrodollars to bankroll Colombian terrorists. Cuba plans to exploit its Caribbean oil fields within a long tee shot of the Florida Keys with help from India, Spain, Venezuela, Canada, Norway, Malaysia, even Vietnam. But America won't drill. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said just last month he's afraid of an oil spill. Katrina wrecked the oil rigs in the Gulf with no significant damage from leaking oil.
Some portion of the current $4-per-gallon gasoline may be attributable to the Federal Reserve's inflationary monetary policy or even speculators. But we can wave goodbye to the $1.25/gallon gasoline that in 1990 allowed a President Bush to airily lock away the nation's oil and gas jewels. This isn't your father's world of energy. New world powers are coming online fast, and they need energy. We need to get back in the game.
The goal shouldn't be "energy independence," a ridiculous notion in an economically integrated world. It's about admitting the need to strike a balance between the energy and security realities of the here-and-now and the potentialities of the future. Some of our best and brightest want to pursue alternative energy technologies, and they should be encouraged to do so, inside market disciplines. But let's at least stop pretending the rest of the world is going to play along with our environmentalist moralisms.
The Democrats' climate-change bill collapsed last week under the weight of brutal cost realities. It was a wake-up call. This is the year Americans joined the real world of energy costs. Now someone needs to explain to them why we – and we alone – are sitting on an ocean of energy but won't drill for it.
You'd think the "national security" nominee, John McCain, would get this. He's clueless – a don't-drill zombie. We may mark this down as the year the U.S. tired of being a serious country.
And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.
Dear Senator McCain,
If you want to become President of the United States you will support the Drill here, Drill now, and pay less program. You will support production of oil here. You will support the building of new refineries. You will support the building of new nuclear power plants. You will also support the securing of our borders and ensuring that there is no "amnesty" plan.
Our country is "rich" in petroleum reserves. Our elected officials are evidently "rich" in stupidity for not being the number one energy producer in the world. The problem is, "We, The People" have been participating in that stupidity for not voting them out of office. But, with the current situation with our economy and energy, I think that situation may soon change.
We need refineries. We need nuclear power plants. We need to drill and produce our reserves rather than kow Tow to the Arab/OPEC Sheiks and petty foreign dictators.
I believe the American people are speaking quite clearly. Our government does nothing to earn or deserve the gasoline tax it imposes on the American people. The oil companies foot every penny of the bill to drill and produce where they are allowed.
I pay the 18+ cents federal tax on every gallon of gasoline I buy, then I am taxed again on the money I spend in order to be able to produce an income (ie the gasoline I buy)when I file my income tax return. That seems like double taxation to me. Why am I not allowed to deduct one or the other at tax time?
I am a retired US Army Warrant Officer who wants the best for this country. I thank you for the great sacrifices you made for this country during Vietnam.
I greatly prefer you, Senator McCain over the alternative, as President of the United States, but fear that unless you make some drastic changes in your politics where they come to immigration, energy production and distribution here at home, you may be in for a losing battle when it comes to the conservative, independant, and the Reagan Democrat vote.
Respectfully,
Lloyd H. Reeves Jr. CWO, US Army Ret.
I agree Bobg. We had the same fusses and aggravation over the vietnamese who came to America after Vietnam. The Vietnamese did, however, assimilate into American culture. I remember the shrimpers in the gulf of mexico gripeing and complaining about the Vietnamese boat people "taking over the shrimping business". Well, the Vietnamese took advantage and acted on opportunity, went together and bought shrimp boats, the whole families lived on the boat, worked hard together to make a go of it and make a success out of shrimping.
If Americans were as willing to be deprived, sacrifice, and work as hard and as long to do those things that the Vietnamese did, and the Mexicans are now doing, it would paint a whole new picture. All things are possible to them that believe. Americans know that, but only do it if they want to. The Vietnamese and the Mexicans do it because they can, because they need to, because they want to, and believe that they can.
My entire family was raised on a farm. We made it by working together doing hard manual labor. We produced everything we needed ourselves. We worked the land. Money was in short supply, but we had everything we really needed. And, we ate well.
Americans today have it too easy. They are spoiled.