David

Karki

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June 23, 2008

Hammer Obama on Energy, and Maybe the Gutless Old Party Can Win After All

Just when it looked like all Democrats had to do to win big in November was run out the clock on this year, it now appears for the first time like they might actually be vulnerable. Gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon and the Democrats' utter lunacy and denial have combined to get the Gutless Old Party back up off the mat to take a much-overdue swing or two.

President Bush held a press conference to call for offshore drilling, oil shale development, refinery construction to handle this new supply and provide greater flexibility in the system, and even opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which up until now has been something on which he's treaded lightly (heaven only knows why). He indicated his willingness to rescind executive orders if Congress would repeal their bans on development of all of the above.

Think about that for a second. Congress outright banned even checking for energy supplies in these places, much less retrieving any of what might be found there. The same goes for nuclear power plants, which John McCain has rightly been calling for (and hybrid car aficionados should realize are needed to run the auto fleet if it goes significantly electric). None have been built since the late 1970s, thanks to Congress ridiculously thinking every plant is merely a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl waiting to happen.

Which makes America the only nation on Earth that puts its energy resources completely off-limits by force of law. And contrary to popular mindless liberal talking points, there are potentially enormous amounts to be found.

ANWR contains enough crude that once online – if it ever gets online – it would produce enough annually to match what we currently import from Saudi Arabia. Not that we would forego Saudi oil, I'm sure, but it would be nice to have the option of using this supply. And that will result in big price drops, both from the Saudis wanting to ensure we stay their best customer and speculators unable to wager on a chronically crimped supply line.

Furthermore, utilizing current side-drilling techniques, the footprint would only be 2,000 acres out of 19.6 million. That's 0.0001 percent by my calculator. And that land is not the green forest the enviro-wackos would have you believe. It's a frozen hunk of tree-less rock, dark for two solid months in winter and melting just enough in the 24-hour sunlight of summer for its puddles to serve as a massive breeding ground for insects.

There is simply no reason whatsoever not to get everything we can out of this deposit. The Trans-Alaska pipeline runs nearby and has excess capacity, and Prudhoe Bay is immediately to the west. So we have transportation infrastructure ready to go. All Congress has to do is get out of the way. Their objection that it'll take 10 years is abjectly stupid. The only reason it's not running now is that President Clinton vetoed the then-GOP Congress's attempts to open it in the late 1990s. And continuing to block it certainly isn't going to speed things up.

Drilling off the continental shelves in the Atlantic and Pacific and developing shale oil stand to be even more lucrative that that. The Green River Formation in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming is estimated to hold 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels, more than triple the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Why would Democrats hold all of this domestic energy hostage? Two reasons, the former of which leads to the latter. First, they are completely in hock to the Sierra Club and the rest of the radical environmentalist crowd. The green lobby is at the peak of its power, and if Democrats were to break with them for political expediency (which I do not at all expect, as they're otherwise in total agreement) they would be all but committing political suicide.

Second, the Democrats and the enviro-wackos simply don't want energy and actually like high gas prices – as evidenced by Barack Obama criticizing the speed of the price increase, but not the increase itself – the better to forcibly remove our main means of transportation and personal independence. And that's the real motivation here – a citizenry with plentiful, cheap energy is one that can't possibly be controlled from the top.

This is why you see Democrats respond with knee-jerk denials of reality and threats to nationalize oil companies and refineries. Their response to Bush's press conference was to take over refineries so as to better control the supply and flow of oil. Rep. Maxine Waters threatened oil executives with “socializing” and “government running” their companies; Rep. Maurice Hinchey proposed nothing less than a federal takeover of the entire industry!

Make no mistake – the purpose of this seizure would be to kill the oil business forever. And while we can at least appreciate the Democrats being honest for once, we should also be very frightened at how blatantly they are trumpeting communist doctrine. This is nothing less than a mortal threat to America itself.

So, to summarize the two positions from which we'll choose this fall:

McCain and the GOP – increase domestic energy supplies and infrastructure, the practical and economic effects of which will lower and stabilize prices. This in turn will promote individual freedom and independence.

Obama and the Democrats – keep all domestic supplies locked up, raise taxes on oil companies, have government forcibly take them over, and foist alternatives upon us that can't possibly be an adequate substitute and which will have noxious side effects of their own (e.g. ethanol and food prices), all in service of the radical environmental lobby and to help them gain an iron grip on all our lives.

If McCain and Republicans can screw up the nerve to hammer the Democrats on this every single day until November, perhaps they can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat after all.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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