Posted on 06/20/2006 12:06:24 PM PDT by thackney
In 1974, U.S. Sen. Roman Hruska of Nebraska argued, "There are a lot of mediocre people. They're entitled to a little representation, aren't they?"
Fortunately, Congress rejected Hruska's appeal for mediocrity on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, ongoing "debates" on energy policy suggest that mediocre people are over-represented in today's Senate and House of Representatives.
U.S crude oil output has declined 43 percent since 1985 as demand increased by 31 percent — and imports have skyrocketed to 58 percent of the oil we use (compared to 28 percent just prior to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo). Meanwhile, China and India's booming economies have intensified global demand for oil.
Not surprisingly, crude oil is now more than $70 a barrel. But why are U.S. supplies so tight and prices so high? It's not because we are running out of oil and natural gas. In fact, using U.S. Minerals Management Service projections, the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security calculates that our offshore Outer Continental Shelf contains enough natural gas to heat 100 million homes for 60 years, and enough oil to power 50 million cars for 60 years.
MMS also says Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could hold another 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That's 30 years of imports from Saudi Arabia. However, even after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — which affected a fourth of our production and refining capacity — Congress cited flimsy environmental arguments and voted to keep U.S. oil and gas locked up: off our Pacific, Atlantic and Eastern Gulf of Mexico coasts, and in Alaska (including ANWR), the Rockies and Great Lakes.
As Will Rogers famously observed, "Every time Congress makes a joke, it's a law. And every time it makes a law, it's a joke." If we could simply harness congressional hot air, America's energy problems would be history.
Until then, however, consumers will have to dig deeper into their pocketbooks — or try to live more like the average family in China or India.
How did this get past the AJC editorial staff?
Everybody on vacation or something?
Doogle
zzzzzzzzzzzz
That is the sound of snoring by the people that can make it happen.
If a crisis like Hurricane Katrina shutting down one fourth of our oil production is not a wake up call, the idiots who are ignoring the inevitable will never wake up.
Just the fact that American oil production has dropped by half and imports have risen over the past 30 years tells me that the people who are in control of energy policy have no plan to alleviate the crisis before it kills our economy and renders us helpless to defend ourselves.
In fact, a report I heard just yesterday said that every oil producing nation had increased output and production EXCEPT FOR ONE. AMERICA. What does that say for intelligent decision making?
And the failure to drill in ANWR for absolutely no demonstrable reason is a national embarrassment. Folks, left wing thinking gets people killed and it damn well damages our economy big time.
There is still drilling going on into new fields offshore of Texas, Louisiana and Alaska.
My US Rep, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), is reputed to be the 5th most p0werful man in Congress. Recently, he blocked drilling in ANWR from coming to the foor for a vote. He says it is because all the oil would go to Japan, China, or CA and wouldn't benefit WI. I tried to explain that oil is a world commodity and that it doesn't matter who uses a particular drop of oil, but he wouldn't listen. He is so out of touch that he has lost my support, and I am a loyal Republican.
The US does not export Alaskan crude. Why would it; Japan and China are farther from Valdez than California or Washington. He should visit the ports in Washington and California some time.
100% of Alaskan North Slope oil is kept in America. This has been the case for all but 4 years of the nearly 3 decades of Alaskan oil production. Between 1996-1999 5.5% of North Slope oil was exported to Asian countries. These exports were overwhelmingly supported by the US Congress and by the Clinton Administration to offset an oil glut in California at the time. In June 2000 Alaskan North Slope oil again ceased to be exported, and 100% of Alaskan production has stayed in America.
If the other Reps took this attitude we wouldn't drill anywhere.
The stone age didn't end because we run out of stones.
We need to develop our immediately available resources now. The royalties that are generated should be used to help produce our future energy sources such as shale oil, oil sands, nuclear, coal, renewable and other alternative energy. It would take 10 years to bring a place like ANWR into production. No one can predict the oil industry 10 years into the future. It was not reasonable in 1988 to think we would have $10 oil. It was not reasonable in 1995 to predict $70 oil.
Sensenbrenner claims that because there is no pipeline to the midwest that the midwest would not benefit from Alaskan production. I think he is very short sighted. In any case, he is a US Representative FROM Wisconsin. He is supposed to be concerned about the welfare of the US as a whole -- not just Wisconsin!
In fact, I think he is so shortsighted that I wonder if there is another agenda there. I can't really believe that he is that stupid! I was genuinely shocked at his attitude, because he's generally OK on most votes.
He also gave me a little speech about how lucky we are that we have a coal fired electrical plant in Pt. Washington (his district) and access to a vast supply of coal via Lake Michigan. I pointed out that the state had forced the electric company to change that plant to natural gas (just before the price went out of whack) even though it was a renovated, extremely clean burning plant.
So he huffed and said that my gripe should be with the state! He's seriously out of touch with his district.
In addition to being from Wisconsin, he should also consider himself American. And $111 billion from Taxes in Royalties would be raised for America and not sent to a foreign govenment. Along with jobs and material from many different states. Structural Steel, Wire, Pipe, insulation, and many other building material would come from the lower 48. I suspect oil field kitchens even use some Wisconsin cheese.
Absolutely. I was aghast at his comments. I argued with him the best I could and walked out of his Town Hall in anger. Then I phoned as many Republicans as I could to tell them to question him at his next 2 Town Hall appearances. Unfortunately, they are all afraid to take him on. "He may be an A$$, but he is OUR A$$!" seems to be the attitude around here. This happened about 4 months ago, and I am still mad about it.
Good for you.
If just one person at each of his town halls stood up to say that, you can be sure he would take it seriously.
Points 1-5 of post #9 are indeed true.
But from that point I disagree. Any production we can add to our current output is strategic and critical to our national defense and economy. As long as foreign entities keep sucking money out of America , they get the idea that they need to build nukes and add hardware to their military. Shifting the balance of power in certain regions of the world is a great security risk. America cannot police the world, nor should it. But because we are the humanitarian, rich, superpower, we are expected to solve the world's problems, while concurrently getting blamed for those problems.
America consumes the most oil in the world because we are the most productive nation in the world. We not only produce a huge percentage of consumer goods, we feed much of the world as well. We give a lot of ag products away.
Spiking oil prices will hurt the American economy as well as the world economy.
Yes, there are developing nations like China that are competing for oil. Are we going to let them overtake us because they are getting oil we need to continue our productivity? It is senseless that we should compete for natural resources when we have everything we need within our boundaries. It makes good sense with national defense because we can more easily protect our energy supply than deploy troops worldwide to protect some other unstable supplier.
We may not ever have cheap gasoline again. But there is no need to have supply shortages and price spikes because of a hostile threat from Iran or the threat of hurricanes, when we can have production elsewhere that can overcome a shortfall.
You must be one of the very few people in the world that consider today's price of oil cheap. At today's prices alternatives are being expanded and developed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.