With the price of gasoline over $4.30 per gallon in the Hudson Valley, it’s clear that working families are facing a crisis that threatens their economic security. The situation requires serious solutions that will deliver real results.
Unfortunately, the oil companies and their allies in the Bush Administration aren’t interested in advancing such solutions. Instead, they have chosen to exploit the anxiety Americans are feeling to make another push to open lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling.
The facts show that drilling in ANWR is not a solution to spiking gas prices. Even under the most aggressive Department of Energy projections, almost 20 years from now ANWR oil would only lower gas prices by a nickel. The companies selling oil would benefit, but American drivers need help now.
To bolster their efforts, oil industry advocates try to create a false choice between drilling in places like ANWR and not drilling at all. The reality is that many in Congress, myself included, would like to see oil companies drill right now, in the right places.
Oil companies already hold leases on 68 million acres of federal lands that aren’t being drilled. If they were, the oil companies could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil per day, nearly doubling U.S. oil production, cutting imports of foreign oil by one third, and far exceeding ANWR’s potential output. The government has already given them the green light. Over the last eight years, the number of drilling permits has gone up by 361%. The question is: Why won't the oil companies start drilling?
That’s why I’m a cosponsor of the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act. This bill will force the oil companies to put their money where their mouths are by telling them to use the leases they already hold or lose them. Companies holding leases would have to start working to produce, give up their leases so someone else can do the job, or be barred from obtaining any more leases. The overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for this bill in June, but not enough Republicans, many of whom claim to be advocates of domestic drilling, supported it to ensure its passage.
Although responsible domestic exploration must be part of the answer, we cannot drill our way to energy independence. We are the world’s biggest oil consumer, but have less than two percent of its proven reserves. As long as we are dependent on oil, we will be at the mercy of the oil companies and OPEC.
I have been working hard to advance new energy solutions and consumer protections. I co-sponsored a law to bring about the first fuel economy increase in 32 years, and supported increased production of cellulosic biofuels. I pushed for sweeping new tax incentives for renewable fuels and advanced vehicle technologies, and advocated for bills that go after price-gouging and market speculation at home and abroad. These are the steps we need to take for a comprehensive, forward-looking approach to break our oil addiction. By rejecting oil company rhetoric in favor of real solutions we can achieve this vital goal together.
Sincerely,
John Hall
Member of Congress
It is unfortunate that we have a growing subculture, even in America, which chooses to demonize those who succeed; that chooses to embrace Marxist delusions as to the evil of capitalism and capitalists. The reality is, that it is precisely because the ninnys on both sides of the aisle in Washington have embraced so much of Marxist and other Socialist theory today, that we may have a price structure in a state of collapse in the near future; that not only oil prices, but most prices may become unpredictable. It is Socialist involvement in education, health, consumer stimuli--even subsidizing the birth rate among the least productive--at home, and trying to remake the world overseas, that our dollar is completely suspect today.
Of course, the answer is not more of the same. The answer is to boot out of office all the quacks, who seek to buy votes with other people's money--even by passing on a debt to unborn generations of productive Americans.
William Flax
What is Rep. Hall's source for such numbers? I'd tend to believe those who say those places don't have much useful oil over those who say they do.
On second thought, after reading that diatribe, I am not sure he could pass the drug screening...
It's near common knowledge that the rats favorite energy,wind and solar, can't even shore up 20% of our energy needs and that's over the next 10 years from all the stuff that I have read over the past month.
Meanwhile accd. to Kudlow, Rush, FNC and here, our 30 year old pipeline in Alaska is in jeopardy if we don't start drilling in Anwar soon.
Anwar is less than 80 miles from the existing pipeline which once pumped out 2 million barrels per day(and probably could again) but is in decline today. Currently it pumps around 700,000 barrels per day.
Once it gets to 300,000 the pipeline is shut down.
If the rats don't fast track everything to do with Anwar and allow big oil to do what it does best,drilllll, a huge part of our energy security, the Alaska Pipeline could be lost forever.