Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less

I’m personally outraged by the high cost of fuel lately. Largely because it doesn’t have to be that way. More than the price of fuel, I’m outraged at the complacent lackluster shrugging of shoulders from my fellow Americans.

Folks, you better wake up… if $4/gallon doesn’t do it for you, you might as well hand the keys to the country over to our enemies and their socialist friends in Europe. I once worked for an English chap who seemed to mockingly suggest that America has had it “too good for too long” because the English, and most of Eurpoe, like fools, paid $7/gallon. He seemed to intimate that we were getting our “just deserts”. What I can’t understand is Americans who passively think the same thing.

I don’t care if you are a right-wing fanatic, or a left-wing liberal loon. This madness has to stop. America has ample resources to be completely energy independent, and yet we are walking about, wringing our hands in despair? Outrageous! We are handing away our sovereignty to dictators who are using our imported purchases to fund their regimes, oppress their citizenry, and keep millions of people living in the dark ages — and in fear. What political party supports that? If you think I’m kidding about the oil prices helping to support those who our enemies, I’d encourage you to read the remarks of Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a consultant on Islamic terrorism, in his policy briefing, The High Cost of Oil Dependence.

To my environmental friends who keep passing measures that prevent Americans from drilling in environmentally “sensitive” areas, I say they are the biggest hypocrites of all. What country in the world is going to drill with more care and less damage than America? None.

So, instead of allowing us to tap into our own resources with the technology and effort that only America can bring forth, they would have us buy oil from some other country that doesn’t have the environmental awareness and concern for our planet that America does? Huh? What kind of environmentalists are they? Do they think Saudi Arabia is protecting the desert (an important part of our ecosystem)? When I lived there, oil spills were common. Nearly half the time, we could not swim in the Persian Gulf due to oil slicks in the water. For all the fuss about the Exxon Valdez, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the spills over there.

By way of comparison, it would be like an animal rights activist choosing not to kill animals for the purpose of eating them (and I suppose growing lovely soy gardens instead), but having no problem with buying hamburgers from Burger King. Of course, I’m not aware of any such animal rights activists. Despite them often being wrong, they are, at least, consistent.

In just the same way, today’s anti-drilling environmentalists are practicing the same kind of foolhardy behavior as my example. They prohibit the United States from drilling in known oil reserve areas, but by doing so, force the U.S. to purchase oil from people who destroy the earth (and often their own people) in far more damaging and irrecoverable ways than the good people of the United States would.

Now, of course, some might make the point that some environmentalists are enjoying the higher costs of fuel, that their “ultimate goal” is to break the U.S. of it’s love affair on oil (and energy overall), and that once fuel simply becomes unaffordable that we’ll have no such choice but to give up all the trappings of modern society that makes us the world’s largest consumer of oil. Some might believe that environmentalists, by way of revenge for ignoring their warnings in the 60’s and 70’s, would happily watch a United States become a third-world country.

Maybe so. Maybe that will happen. Because, as I see it, there are very few Americans standing up to these environmental tyrants. Certainly not enough. There are very few Americans willing to kill a few turtles or scrub jays or owls to get some oil - or to build a nuclear reactor. And there are even less Americans willing or capable of drilling their own oil and refining it on their own property. Although, this guy in Indiana did it - building his own oil drill in the backyard for a cool $100,000, but pumping out three barrels a day (which means that, at today’s oil prices, he’ll make $40,000 the first year and be debt-free… except he’s just using it to heat his home and sharing it with a few neighbors so far. But he’s building four more this year. Sadly, with most of America coveting and buying treeless 1/4 acre lots and calling it a “home”, we are going to have to rely on the farmers of this country to do what the rest of us would like to do. Maybe all these family farms that the government is subsidizing, for the purpose of nostalgia, could be better serving our country by converting them to oil farms.

Environmentalists who are prohibiting America from drilling into places like the Colorado Rockies (which contain an estimated reserve three times greater than Saudi’s) are placing our country’s future in jeopardy. Worse, they prance about thinking they have protected the world from some “rape” of the earth, when all they do is force us to buy the needed resources elsewhere - from places that don’t take important precautions and the necessary protections to conserve the planet - all the while funding undemocratic countries, and in some cases, evil regimes - while at the same time costing the American family thousands of dollars a year. That they are not a friend to America is clear. But they aren’t even a friend to our own beloved planet which they preciously place at the peak of their priorities.

I’ve had enough.

Newt Gingrich, who I’m no huge fan of, has an organization called American Solutions which is, well, pretty good. And they have started a petition, which I’m also no huge fan of, to let good Americans voice their anger and frustration right to the halls of Congress. Calling it the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign, it’s focuses on the outrageous prices we are paying, but there are links and some interesting other information there. I highly recommend every good American go sign it. It takes less than 30 seconds.

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