It’s doubtful that any other issue has prompted a more irrational response than the endlessly repeated “we can’t drill our way out” of the current energy crisis. Whatever grain of truth there may once have been behind that banality, it no longer means that drilling is pointless in America.
The fact is we should be able to drill for as much as 4.3 billion barrels of new oil in the Bakken Formation under North Dakota and Montana, 5.6 billion barrels under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and 86 billion barrels off the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. History suggests there are probably billions more barrels in those locations than is now officially estimated. So, gas costs $4 a gallon not because America is running out of oil but because too many politicians have run out of common sense.
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Many GOP partisans only blame Democrats. It was President Clinton who in 1995 prevented exploration and production in ANWR. It is also true that in recent years an average of 86 percent of House Democrats opposed measures to increase production of American energy, while 91 percent of House Republicans voted for the measures. Those figures came from the House Republican whip. (If House Democrats have contrary data, it will be promptly published here).
And just this week, congressional Democrats were hell-bent on resurrecting Jimmy Carter’s discredited 1980 windfall profits tax that the Congressional Research Service says decreased U.S. oil production 6 percent and increased U.S. dependence on foreign oil 16 percent. Is this what Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama means when he says he prefers “gradual” increases in the cost of gas?
Before Republicans get too cocky, however, they, too, share blame for the dire energy situation. President George H.W. Bush signed a 1990 executive order removing most of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf from oil production. And numerous Senate and House Republicans — including GOP presidential nominee John McCain — joined Democrats in blocking ANWR initiatives. Thingswould also be vastly better today if, instead of using their 12 years in the congressional majority approving record numbers of earmarks, Republicans had repealed obsolete federal regulations that have prevented construction of any new refineries in this country since Gerald Ford was in the White House.
So, how much longer will Washington politicians force Americans to pay $4 per gallon for gasoline, while barring U.S. energy companies from drilling where they know they will strike oil? Only so long as voters allow it. By the way, China will soon be drilling 60 miles off the Florida coast. This madness must end.
