Gregory D.

Lee

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June 2, 2008

Want to Lower Oil Prices? Try Drilling Oil, Not Grilling Oil Executives

Congress recently launched hearings in which they hauled in the nation’s top oil executives to explain why gasoline prices were so high. “People we represent are hurting, the companies you represent are profiting,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, told the oil execs.

When asked, J. Stephen Simon, the executive vice-president of Exxon Mobil Corp. replied that his total compensation package was $12.5 million. That’s a bargain for a guy that helped his company earn $40.6 billion last year and can’t hit a 90-mile-per-hour fastball. Look at some of the salaries sports figures and actors command, and yet none have individually produced profits for their employer’s equivalent to over 3,000 times their salaries.

Upwards of 40 percent of Americans own some form of stock in oil companies, and their share values have compensated them for the high price of gasoline they are paying. Leahy makes about $150,000 and couldn’t run a business without driving it into the ground because he doesn’t understand the most fundamental of economic theories – supply and demand. The oilmen attempted to give him that basic economic lesson, but Leahy and the other liberal Democratic committee members instead wanted to focus on the evil profiteering these men represent.

Here’s how to lower gas prices: Increase the supply of domestic oil. Let’s start with opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Some estimate that field alone could produce as much oil as America has imported from Saudi Arabia in the past 35 years. As an added bonus, think of all the good-paying jobs that would create, and the taxes these workers would be paying. We were at the verge of drilling there when President Clinton vetoed the bill.

One reason the Democrats and John McCain give for not drilling is to protect the caribou. That’s laughable. Ever been to Alaska? Herds of caribou saunter past the Alaskan pipeline and don’t even realize it’s there. Just like cows grazing near power line platforms.

Other huge oil deposits have been discovered off-shore near Florida and elsewhere. We could probably halve our dependency on foreign oil within 20 years if drilling was allowed. Instead, it seems the liberals want to exhaust the rest of the world’s supply before tapping into our own.

How about substantially more nuclear plants to generate our electricity? That would reduce oil demand. Why do we insist on feeding imported oil to our antiquated power plants to produce electricity? If France can generate upwards of 80 percent of its pollution and greenhouse gases-free electricity by this means, why can’t we?

The eco-left and other liberals insist that instead of drilling, alternative energy sources should be developed to lessen our dependency on crude oil. I couldn’t agree more. But such a Manhattan Project will take many years to complete. Why can’t we increase oil production while developing alternatives? Why is it always one or the other with these people?

Now the Democrats have seriously proposed suing OPEC for restraint of free trade and price fixing, as if that’s going to lower gasoline prices. Most liberals are all for bio-fuels produced from corn. The result is an unprecedented increased demand for corn that has produced world-wide food shortages and food riots in some underdeveloped nations. How many other bonehead ideas will they come up with before liberals finally concede that increased oil production is the obvious solution to the problem?

Barack Obama recently spoke to tree-hugger supporters in Oregon and said: “We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us.”

I’m not worried about these other nations. I’m worried about America. Who says we can’t keep driving SUVs or keep the air conditioner on? Since when can’t America do anything it sets its mind on? Obama is echoing the Jimmy Carter mantra of wearing sweaters instead of turning up the furnace.

We use 25 percent of the world’s energy because it’s a reflection of our high standard of living. A standard of living that shouldn’t be sacrificed because liberals don’t have the political will to do the right thing.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist for North Star Writers Group. He can be contacted through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.

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

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