Facts are facts. No matter how one tries to spin them otherwise the plain and simple fact is that The United States has an oil based economy period. Every aspect of our economy from transportation to food finds a basis in some form or another in oil. Like it or not we need oil to survive as a Nation and whether that oil comes from foreign sources or domestic sources, we have to have oil.
The recent rise in the price of oil and the effects that it has had at the grocery store, the pump, the Airline Industry and even road maintenance proves how dependent we are as a Nation on oil. Here in my State of South Carolina it was announced last week that much needed road improvements that had been slated for this year have been drastically cut because the price to pave a road has risen from $ 70 K per mile to $100 K per mile because of the increase in oil prices.
Good bad or indifferent we are a Nation that consumes and is economically dependent on oil. The question now is whether we will continue to follow the road of no control over our economic destiny, "oil wise that is, " and purchase nearly 48 % of the oil we consume from other countries or take control of our oil based economy and begin using our own resources.
We consume approximately 389 million barrels of oil each day which means that roughly 187 million barrels are imported from other countries each day with Mexico and Canada being the top two oil importers to The United States. Yes our own hemisphere and NOT the Middle East take the top two slots.
The search for alternatives is all well and good. I would love to drive a hydrogen fueled vehicle in the future but that as well as most other alternative sources will not be viable for decades. Ethanol is a joke because the process to refine into ethanol uses a gallon and a half of oil for each gallon of ethanol made and because of huge government subdues to encourage farmers to field their corn for ethanol, food prices rise and a shortage of corn on the food market has become a reality.
So with alternatives either a joke as with ethanol or well into the future we need oil. The only way to decrease our dependency on foreign oil an reduce or better yet eliminate that 48 % that is imported is to drill from our own resources. An accounting of those resources add up to billions of barrels in the Continental US with billions off shore and billions more in Alaska. A total of more than 1,238 BILLION barrels of oil and that is a conservative number This is more than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq Du far and Venezuela COMBINED! All right here at home.
The industry that drills off shore because of the 30 year ban is almost non existent but the equipment is easily acquired from other sources and can be started fairly quickly if the ban is finally lifted. Their are deposits in the upper mid west states especiall Montana that are located on sites in which we are currently drilling and with new technology that allows horizontal drilling from already existing sites this oil could be available within months and not years as with offshore deposits.
Of course those on the left who bow to the environmental lobbies claim that the environmental impact offshore would be devastating yet after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf and went through an area off of Louisiana containing more than 135 oil rigs, destroying two not ONE DROP OF OIL was spilled. The advancement in safety of these rigs is so far superior than the technology 30 years ago that spills are a thing of the past.
Yet the left in their backward thinking still claim environmental impact from offshore drilling. Anwar which has been so controversial is another left wing cry for environmental impact. The claim is that it will damage the pristine wildlife preserve yet the area of the oil deposit is in a non wildlife region of the preserve and is minuscule in size. In fact if you take your morning paper and call the front page Anwar then pick any one letter in any one story that has normal not headline print, that is the size of the Anwar drilling area in the preserve.
Add to that the fact that drilling would take place only in the dead of winter and trucks to carry the oil will be using an ice highway more than SIX FEET thick and anyone can see there IS NO environmental impact. Even the Caribou who inhabit the rest of the preserve have shown that they actually breed more frequently around oil entities. Those in the areas of the Alaskan Pipeline have increased in number because the heat of the pipeline actually encourages breeding and the numbers of Caribou have actually grown since the building of the pipeline. Additionally the reason that Alaska was purchased in the first place was for this country to use in massive natural resources including OIL!
So the next argument that the left spins is that oil will not be available for years. I have already mentioned the deposit available by angle drilling from already existing sites which counters that. But even setting this aside, if we don't not start now than ten years from now the problem will be far worse.
In 1993 the Congress passed legislation allowing drilling in Anwar and Bill Clinton VETOED the bill. Had than not happened we would have one million barrels per day of domestic oil for our consumption today.
The next argument by the left is that domestic drilling will not reduce the price because futures markets are controlling the barrel price today. There is a resemblance of truth to this but it is only a half truth. While the oil future speculators are driving the price of oil rather than supply and demand with supply still out distancing demand, the left neglects to mention that future action in bringing oil to the market WILL effect oil prices.
Right now the future prices are being driven by panic over the huge consumption by China and India and their willingness to pay any price for oil and their recently acquired gluttony for the product. Although China has tried to slow their use by increasing pump prices by 25% last week speculators still fear a shortage in the future because of the huge increase by China and India.
So it stands to reason that if The United States the largest consumer of oil in the world finally begins to drill for oil adding to future supplies as well as taking a large percentage of US oil consumption off the world market and shifting it to our own domestic market, the future panic will quell as speculators realize that more oil will be available ? With some of that oil , if deregulated by the government actually available in months and not years.
The market will react positively and the price of a barrel of oil will reflect that positive response! With our oil based economy needing a massive infusion of black gold from our own resources then the only logical answer from our government, our representatives and the oil industry is to drill. Recent polls show that more than 60% of Americans both conservative and liberal agree that drilling is the answer.
The environmental lobby has controlled this situation far to long and the price at the pump is the result of that control as Democrats have catered to this lobby for 40 years. We are an oil based economy and it is time to take back control of the very substance that drives that economy and drill!
Ken Taylor http://theliberalslies.blogspot.com
There is no REASONABLE argument to be made for NOT drilling for our own domestic use. Additional oil, available next month, next year or even next decade will ONLY benefit the American people.