Everyone is an expert when it comes to resolving the energy crisis. And it is a crisis. Watch what happens within the next twelve months. Has anyone really thought out the reasons and the consequences of this mess? I predict that 2009 will be one of the most difficult years for the poor that one can recall. What are the facts?
Through years of political infighting, we have allowed ourselves to become more and more heavily dependent upon foreign oil. The United States of America, the world's leader in technology and natural resources, at the mercy of foreign nations who increasingly hate our guts. The reason they are now charging $150.00+ for a $60.00 barrel of oil is not from their need, but from their greed and their knowledge that they have us over a barrel (pun intended). They can readily raise it to $200.00 and we can do nothing about it. Our energy costs directly affect almost every other product we use. Vegetables and produce, require considerable energy to plant, grow, harvest and transport to markets. With these costs doubling and tripling, our food has to increase accordingly. Try and think of anything that is not affected by energy costs.
I pumped $60.00 worth of low octane gasoline into my 1998 Dodge Caravan yesterday. Have you an idea what $60.00 means to a social security recipient? My tank was still not completely full. I just became hysterical and stopped there. A friend of mine told me he pumped over $600.00 worth of diesel fuel into his tractor-trailer rig! Good Lord, have mercy! Now, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional liberals are doing everything they can to add a $.50 per gallon gasoline tax! I thank God daily that there are still enough rational thinkers in Washington to block such idiocy.
We have enough oil off our shores, in Colorado shale and Alaska's National Wildlife Reserve to amply furnish us for thousands of years and can be gotten without any appreciable damage to the environment. The proposed drilling site in Alaska is only a miniscule amount of the vast preserve there and could be utilized with virtually no affect to the wildlife. The idiocy group in Washington says that the oil companies have millions of acres open to them for drilling but they won't drill on them. What they don't tell you is that those acreages show very little evidence of successful oil drilling and are cost prohibitive.
Over 70% of Americans want offshore drilling for oil resumed. But the liberal's know better than we, what we need. Any politician running for president, congress or any other office, who cannot propose some substantial means of resolving our dilemma, should be voted down. Our economy is now reeling from these lopsided, costs of living versus income, disparities and the wrong move on our government's part can send us into disaster. Along with a depressed economy comes weaknesses in all other factors…defense, health and so on. Voters should drop their partisan hatreds and vote for those with plans to help cure the things which ail us.
China and India are planning ahead and have begun to tie up as much future oil production as they possible can from any source they can. So our plight is not going to improve on it's own. We absolutely must come up with some viable alternatives to what we have. Oil baron T. Boone Pickens, staunch Republican and backer of the Swift Boat ads, has produced a thoroughly studied plan to divert much of our natural gas supplies to transportation use (where it is much cleaner than gasoline) while replacing that portion so diverted with wind energy. His plan sounds convincing, although there are skeptics (including this writer) that the wind energy proposal is viable . It has been tested and tried for years and has yet to be proven dependable and competitive in cost. Perhaps more research and development will prove worthy. He has gained the attention of his erstwhile arch-enemies, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. But this is quite understandable…they will try any plan to avoid compromising with the Republicans, regardless of how much it costs the taxpayers or how long it allows the outrageous energy prices to prevail.
The environmentalists, who have Pelosi and Reid under their thumb, strenuously object to offshore drilling for fear of oil spills damaging the ocean waters. There is no validity to this objection. Actually it is statistically much safer to do the oil drilling off our shores than to ship by tankers from distant sources. Some few minor spills have occurred but there is far less damage from this than from a ruptured oil tanker.
The biggest hoax is that it would take years for us to produce enough locally to lower the cost of imports. Wrong! With nothing more than President Bush lifting the executive ban on offshore drilling, which is meaningless in itself, OPEC almost immediately lowered the cost per barrel of crude. Once they see we mean business in producing our own, the price will fall drastically.
In 2006 China announced a private deal with Cuba for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico! As negligent and unconcerned as China is in almost every thing they do, how safe will our gulf be?
Everyone wants to help protect our environment, or should, but the stupidity of trying to put us back into the stone age, while other nations recklessly produce their oil is outrageous. We need desperately to make ourselves more self reliant by drilling with care until we are able to do adequate research into other sources. We were hit by an OPEC manufactured shortage of gasoline in the 70's when there were long lines at the gas pumps. But after hearing of government mandates for better gasoline mileage on new vehicles and other such measures, the shortage suddenly disappeared, but the increase in prices only partially vanished. They do not want us to become self reliant. They depend upon our dollars. Our problem is, that we back off when the crisis is reduced. We need to create a plan and follow through with it.
