by Kerry Thomas
July 17, 2008
Everywhere you turn, the media are reporting on the energy crisis. Gas prices are at record highs. We’re facing an economic recession. People are losing their jobs. Businesses are closing. Rampant inflation is driving prices higher every day.
That’s the way it was – in 1979.
Every night the old media stalwarts told us how bad it was
in America. We had double-digit
interest rates. Inflation was running
rampant. The top tax rate was 70%. We faced the threat of nuclear annihilation
on a daily basis. The Democrats ran
America, controlling the White House, the House of Representatives and the
Senate.
We were told that renewable energy was our only answer. Everyone was supposed to conserve
energy. A nation-wide 55 mph speed
limit was imposed. Solar panels
sprouted on homes across America.
Fast forward to 2008.
The remnants of the old media are giving us the same daily
reports about how bad it is in America.
They tell us we’re facing a mortgage crisis, even though 94% of all
mortgages are being paid and 15-year fixed mortgages are averaging
5.72%. We’re fed stories about massive
layoffs, even though the unemployment rate remains at 5.5% and more than 154
million people in America are employed in the workforce.
The price of
gasoline has hit record-highs, yet Americans are still driving. Tourist meccas are still open and doing
business. People are still flocking to
the Indian casinos. Las Vegas and
Disney World haven’t shut down. The
Mall of America is still open.
And in the midst of all this, we’re in the middle of an
election year.
The Democrat candidate for President collected $52 million
in donations in June alone. Bob Beckel,
a Democrat strategist, is predicting they’ll raise $350 - $400 million in this
campaign. That’s just one candidate. So much for a recession in Democrat circles.
The Democrat Presidential candidate actually has a platform
that includes raising your taxes, limiting your energy consumption, and forcing
(not asking) you to conserve energy.
You may not yet know about this, but the energy bill the
Democrats just passed includes provisions to outlaw the old-fashioned Edison
incandescent light bulbs by 2014.
You’re going to be forced to buy the Chinese-made (they’re only
manufactured in China) mercury-filled compact fluorescent bulbs, whether you
like them or not. (Read the EPA’s
guidelines fro cleaning up any broken CFL lights here.)
Democrats are quick to blame President Bush for escalating
prices and an energy crisis. Yet for
the first 6 years of President Bush’s term, we had relative stability, even
allowing for 9/11. It wasn’t until
after the November 2006 elections, which saw Democrats put in charge of both
houses of Congress, that prices began to skyrocket.
I’ll remind you that part of the Democrats 2006 national
campaign platform included a promise to control rising energy prices.
So what’s the Democrats’ solution to the energy crisis? Some new unidentified miracle technology
will come along to fix the problem.
They call it green energy. Yet
ever since the energy crisis of the 1970’s we’ve been waiting for this new
technology to emerge. Where is it? Billions have been spent on research, yet
none of the experiments have proven fruitful.
Where’s their miracle solution?
Even if this miracle technology is invented, how long will
it take to come to market? It’s been 30
years, and we’re still waiting. Even
that Guru of the environmental movement, algore, says it’ll rake at least
another 10 years to bring any new technology to market.
T. Boone Pickens
isn’t waiting for the politicians to come to his rescue. He’s investing billions of dollars of his
own money (actually investing, not taxing other people and spending their
money) to develop wind power to supplement natural gas fired generating plants,
and is further gambling/speculating/betting that natural gas will replace
gasoline as an automotive fuel. But
even he says his plan, his business model, is going to take 10 years to
implement.
Meanwhile, Cuba is developing join ventures with China and
other countries to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, just 40 miles from U.S. shores.
The Democrats say we can’t drill for new oil and natural gas
because it won’t solve the problem or bring down prices. They must not have ever learned about the
laws of supply and demand. Just this
week, when President Bush simply lifted the executive order banning off-shore
drilling, the price of crude oil dropped by $12/barrel. Only the Democrats in Congress stand in the
way of further exploration.
Democrats are sticking to their claim that any new drilling
won’t produce new oil for another 10-30 years.
But industry experts who’ve actually been asked say they can have new
oil in production in as little as 9 months where there is existing
infrastructure in place, and in no more than 6 years from scratch, where there
is currently no infrastructure in place.
They estimate drilling on the outer continental shelf will produce oil
in about 2-3 years. The Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) could be producing oil in 1-2 years.
And as for the Democrats’ “environmental” concerns over oil
drilling, consider that 2/3 of all oil tar that washes ashore on beaches is
from naturally-occurring sources, such as seepage from the ocean floor. Consider that when Hurricane Katrina blew through
the Gulf of Mexico, a thousand oil platforms were damaged or destroyed. Yet not one of these platforms leaked. The oil that spilled from storm damage came
from oil that was in pipelines, not from the oil wells.
Contrary to the Democrat mantra that we can’t drill our way
out of this crisis, we actually can drill our way through this energy
crisis. Oil drilling technology has
advanced tremendously over the past 40 years.
It’s rather hypocritical to demand OPEC nations increase
their oil production, when Congress refuses to allow exploration and
development of our own resources.
Those of us who believe in the freedom of capitalism know
about the law of supply and demand. We
know that if you increase the supply of energy, the price will come down. If you do nothing, and the demand side of
the equation keeps rising, with no corresponding increase in the supply side of
the equation, prices will continue to rise.
The only short-term solution we have to the energy crisis is
to increase energy production. Yes,
continue to pursue alternative energy sources.
But, until that green miracle is found, our only choice is to increase
supply. Drill here, drill now.