Here we are, in yet another winter season wherein high home heating oil and gasoline costs are being decried, and no one can seem to see the simplest solution to the problem:  go get more and let supply and demand do the rest (the monopolistic cartel of OPEC notwithstanding).

 

This is even more mind-boggling in the wake of two cataclysmic events which put America's energy supplies at grave risk:  9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Both of these exposed for everyone to see just how vulnerable her energy infrastructure is, and how reckless it is for Congress to continue ignoring (if not actively aggravating) that problem. 

 

America at present has the raw oil and natural gas supplies available domestically (in Alaska and under the ocean, among other places) to avoid dependence on potentially hostile trade partners. We also have the ability to turn those supplies into consumable end-product.  But we do not either obtain these resources or build the refinery capacity to reformulate them. Why? There aren’t any external forces out of our control which prevent us from it; rather, it's entirely due to our own lack of will.

 

Bluntly put, we need to stand up to the effective propagandizing of the "environmentalist" (read: energy hating) left and show that usage of resources and responsible stewardship of nature can not only co-exist, but mutually thrive. And even more importantly, that America's national security depends upon it. 

 

• ANWR  --  The Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge could supply 1 million barrels of oil a day. Only a very small portion of the overall parcel would be needed, and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields immediately to the west have proven that the caribou can keep reproducing next to oil facilities and pipelines just fine, thank you. 

 

• OCS  --  The Outer Continental Shelf, both in the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, holds more than 400 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Modern technology makes it possible to retrieve this with very little to no environmental disturbance.

 

One would think that natural resources from the above two areas could be easily obtained (they aren't "resources" unless actually used, after all), but since the Sierra Club has folks convinced that Bambi and Flipper will be exterminated in the process, its hired Democrat minions (and northeastern Republican-In-Name-Only allies who seem determined to force their constituents to needlessly pay higher home heating oil bills) can kill bills ad infinitum.

 

• Refineries  --  Katrina showed that America has dangerously little excess refinery capacity to utilize in the event of a natural disaster. The result was instant $5/gallon gas, lines at stations, and of course, the usual economically ignorant cries of "price gouging" from the very politicians whose refusal to bolster our energy infrastructure caused those problems in the first place. (And never mind that even if Halliburton, et. al. were raking in the dough, one-third of it would get taken away by Congress via a 35% corporate income tax, the world’s highest.³)

 

One would think that at least a small number of refineries would get built in the wake of something as huge as Katrina, but not even that was enough to get common sense to trump "environmentalist" hysteria. (And even if it had, the endless red tape, government regulations, and frivolous lawsuits needed to be endured would probably have killed the refinery baby in the cradle, so to speak.) 

 

• The Resulting Alternative  --  Dependence on countries that are at best nominally amicable and at worst outright hostile toward America for oil and natural gas (the proceeds from which very possibly help fund terrorism against her), and a continuing loss of refinery capacity to companies and countries in Europe and Asia where minimal government interference yields a competitive advantage. This puts America's security at risk, both physically and economically.

 

America has plenty of resources under its own soil, and plenty of investment capital, know-how, and manpower to utilize them to the full, with minimal risk to flora and fawna, and yet Congress and the "environmentalist" lobby would prefer to outsource the whole thing, consequences be damned.

 

And then they have the unmitigated gall to whine about "energy independence," when they have both caused our dependence, and spend most of their waking hours blocking that which would most effectively bring about the very independence they claim to want.

 

At least the "environmentalist" lobby could cop a plea to "reckless disregard"; so blinded are they by their hatred for energy and the internal combustion engine (witness Al Gore once comparing it to atomic weaponry in his book “Earth In The Balance”), they could plausibly claim to have honestly missed the consequences they cause. They certainly haven't considered that the electric hybrid cars they worship would require a major boost to the national electricity grid in order to power, which they also reflexively - if hypocritically -block. The idea of more nuclear power plants for electricity - cleaner than coal or natural gas fired plants - causes "environmentalists" to go nuclear, the need for them proven by the recent northeastern blackout notwithstanding.

 

But there can be no generosity extended towards the “environmentalist” politicians of both parties who put re-electoral support from the radical Green lobby over the national interest; they are criminally negligent at best and outright treasonous at worst.

 

America must stop the Green lobby and the political allies from holding her energy hostage; the entire economy, not to mention her security, hang in the balance.