Well reality is, we aren't held hostage by the Middle East.. honestly I am more worried about that idiot down in Venezuala thatn I am the Middle East when it comes to oil supplies.
Yes, they contribute large amounts of OIL to us daily, but Canada and Mexico export moil oil to the US daily than the Persian gulf. 3.2 MBBL/D vs about 2.4 MBBL/D
Here's the DOE's #s from last month, in Thousands of bbl per day.
CANADA 1,705
MEXICO 1,616
SAUDI ARABIA 1,598
VENEZUELA 1,292
NIGERIA 1,012
IRAQ 608
ANGOLA 397
ALGERIA 292
ECUADOR 288
UNITED KINGDOM 269
COLOMBIA 227
BRAZIL 212
NORWAY 194
KUWAIT 184
CHAD 136
As you can see the VAST majority of oil is coming from THIS hemisphere, and from relatively stable countries.. Saudi Arabia is the one exception, and VENEZUALA is the true problem in terms of stability of supply.
Saudis, like them or not, are not unstable.
I agree I'd love to see SA replaced, and honestly, we produce nearly 50% of our oil consumption domestically.
We aren't beholden to the Arabs, obviously if we lost SA/IRAQ and KUWAITS oil it wouldn't be fun... but we should do more to tap existing reserves in NA/SA before subsidizing shale... that's a pretty big chunk, I estimate a $15/BBL subsidy would run us about $17 BILLION per year or more recurring cost.. MOney would be better spent finding and tapping liquid crude reserves in this hemisphere.
Thanks for the breakdown. From the news you would think half our oil comes from the middle east.
Oh, and just as an AHA/interesting point:
ANWR predicted production would range anywhere from 650 to 1,900 BBL/DAY... (DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY REPORT: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html)
Which on the low end would replace ALL current IMPORTS from IRAQ.. and on the HIGH END, replace nearly ALL IMPORTS from SAUDI ARABIA & IRAQ combined.
Unfortunately though the report also states it will take an estimated 7 to 12 years to bring it online. So, just to give persepective, if it would tak 7-12 years to get a liquid reserve online... SHALE would be even longer.