Love IT!!!
What the hell is going on with the gang of 10 in the Senate. Always stabbing us in the back.
Energy Surge
Lessons from an all-American tour.
By John Boehner
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzRjNTIxNWQwNzFkYzk4YTQxYjVjMjgyYzQ4YTJkMmQ=
. First, and perhaps most strikingly, we learned that the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, which carries petroleum from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope 800 miles south to Valdez, on the Gulf of Alaska, is in a state of decline. Officials in Alaska warned us that in ten years, if the pipeline continues its current rate of decline in transporting oil supplies, the pipeline will be processing less than 300,000 barrels of oil per day, compared to nearly 720,000 today.
Experts agree that at that level — without adding new supplies of oil — the pipeline could not continue to operate, shutting down all production in the North Slope and turning a multi-billion dollar asset into scrap metal. It’s a “pipeline deadline,” if you will.
The reason the pipeline is in a state of decline is not due to a lack of adequate supply. Rather, it is a combination of lawsuits, time-consuming permitting processes, and the Democratic Congress’ refusal to lead that has slowed the flow of supply out of the North Slope. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) “10-02 Area.” Designated by President Carter and Congress nearly 30 years ago for energy exploration and production, the 10-02 Area’s 2,000 acres (out of ANWR’s 19 million acres) contains some 10 billion barrels of oil, and possibly more, which is currently being held hostage by a Democratic leadership that is shockingly out of touch with the wishes of a large majority of Americans. Their reasoning? More often than not, they claim it is because of the pristine and wildlife-filled lands of ANWR.
That leads into our second lesson. The fact is, my colleagues and I saw plenty of wildlife on our visit to the North Slope. Caribou were abundant. We saw them running atop the permafrost in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (where Democratic leaders suddenly support drilling, by the way), roaming near the pipeline, and one even made its way onto the runway of a small airport near Prudhoe Bay just as we were about to take off for the 10-02 Area. (We were told earlier in the day that caribou have the right of way.) Musk oxen were scattered about. And we even heard that a polar bear wandered onto the Endicott petroleum production facility grounds, which sits on an island in the Arctic, during our tour.
The point is, wildlife and environmentally-safe energy production successfully coexist in the region — and it could elsewhere as well, including in the 10-02 Area. I found the sheer amount of respect energy producers have for the land and for the native Alaskan way of life — of which wildlife is a key part — to be simply remarkable. Moreover, the new technologies energy companies use to reduce the “footprint” on the environment is equally impressive. Those on the Left who cite these companies’ “insensitivity” as a reason for stonewalling more production in the region either suffer from a complete misunderstanding of the issue or are purposely twisting the facts.