Environmentalists Making America Less Safe

Like it or not, in the foreseeable future America will need oil. It would be nice if we could use our own oil instead of depending on the oil supplied to us from international places. That dependence is making our economy less stable and our citizens less safe. So the next time some legislation comes up to allow for domestic oil exploration (e.g. drilling in ANWR) I think it is in our best interest to tell our political leaders that we not only want it passed, we need it passed.

I am not going to take the time to once more research the facts about domestic oil reserves. The truth is, we passed the point of maximum production recently, and are on the way down the back side, using up the last of our resources.
But even if we COULD increase production enough to significantly lessen dependence on foreign oil, which I consider highly unlikely, we would just be putting of the inevitable...and not for long.
You are absolutely right that dependence on foreign oil is making our economy less stable and our citizens less safe BUt the answer is not to just blithely continue wasting the stuff. The Europeans correctly concluded years ago that consumption of oil should be discouraged, not encouraged, and they solved the problem...they tax the Hell out of it. Result...their cars and their economy are a lot less wasteful than ours. What does our government do? They SUBSIDIZE oil consumption with oil depletion allowances, encouraging consumption. This is not in our national interests, it increases pollution, global warming and enriches people who are funding our enemies.
To me this is just plain insanity.
Drilling in the ANWR...which I suspect is what you are advocating...would have an insignificant effect on our long-term problem: We need to break the oil habit.

And what does any of it have to do with environmentalists? I don't think the author made his point nearly as well as Bert made his in the response.

" We could stop using so much oil, obviously. Yet that is problematic, at least in the short term. Conservation would work to a point, but that would only take us so far. "

better gas mileage would take us the rest of the way.

wonder why there is not 50mpg minimum? can it not be done?

and rob - how about answering to your posts, chicken little. you're getting slammed around here and you don't even try to defend the tripe you post. clicking your name on gather shows that in the last week you've posted sixteen articles, and only one comment.


talk is cheap. can't you afford it?

To be honest with you, martin, the comments on my main site take up most of my time. I cross-post a lot here, but don't really have the time to respond. Plus, the responses I get on my own site are of a much higher quality, both from the left and the right. I find the community here to be fairly one sided, and not far up from illiterate if a lot of the rambling, spelling-and-grammar challenged comments are any indication.

There are exceptions here, of course. I've met some very nice, level-headed and intelligent people on Gather. It is just that not many of them comment on my posts.

i practically wrote that "too busy" response for you this morning, rob - as part of my post above, but i deleted it in the interest of fairness. saw it coming a mile away though.

i've seen your site. elementary school tripe. in fact, i noticed that one of the biggest contributors to the site uses this for an avatar:


that's speaks to the level of discourse on your site.

Well, whatever martin. I'm certainly ducking you, and if you think I am you give yourself far too much credt.

oh, i didn't think you were ducking me. i said "defend your posts." there's a difference.

you haven't, by the way.

"So the next time some legislation comes up to allow for domestic oil exploration (e.g. drilling in ANWR) I think it is in our best interest to tell our political leaders that we not only want it passed, we need it passed."

so we can get one year's worth of oil? that's a plan?

We'd get more than a year of oil out of ANWR. You're either ill-informed or lying, which is why I don't respond to many of the comments here on Gather.

riiight.

Protecting ANWR, Again
Winston-Salem Journal
Thursday, December 29, 2005

U.S. senators of both parties who blocked Sen. Ted Stevens' latest heavy-handed attempt to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling struck a good blow not only for the environment, but also for a more honest and better government.

Stevens has been crusading for a quarter century to open the refuge to oil drilling, which he figures will provide at least a temporary economic boon to his home state of Alaska. It has been both a blessing and a curse for the refuge that oil drilling there has become an emotionally charged symbol for both advocates and opponents. Both sides have come to view drilling in ANWR as a test of whether Americans consider the long-term preservation of any wild area as more important than the short-term economic advantages to be gained from exploiting or developing that area. Is it worth it to intrude on a rare wilderness to gain enough oil to keep America in fuel for, at best, another year and a half or so? Stevens and his allies think it is; environmental groups and a lot of other people disagree.

This has been a hard-fought war. Stevens' latest ploy was one of his worst: He attached the drilling provision to a defense-spending bill that had nothing to do with the Arctic, but which was needed to pay troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It can be tough, as Stevens well knew, for a member of Congress to explain a vote against a bill to pay the troops. And, since Stevens and others - including some in the Bush administration - have worked diligently to make Americans wrongly believe that drilling in ANWR will help bring down the prices of gasoline or home heating fuel in the near future, it can be tough to justify any vote against drilling. It didn't help that the vote came as senators were in a hurry to get out of town for the holidays.

But there were enough senators with principles and vision to block a vote to end a filibuster. The language authorizing drilling was then stripped from the bill before it was passed.

Their courageous stand rebuked Stevens for cynically jeopardizing the troops' wages by attaching the measure to an unrelated defense appropriations bill. It was a blow for honesty because it didn't allow the drilling authorization to become law without full debate on its merits.

Ideally, it will also prove to be a blow for a more realistic and forward-looking energy policy.

Another year-and-a-half's supply of domestic oil isn't going to solve America's energy problems. This country needs strong leaders and bold thinking to promote conservation, develop practical alternatives and make America a world pioneer in breaking the costly dependence on oil. If Stevens and his allies would devote half the passion to that end that they've poured into trying to drill in ANWR, everyone would be a lot better off.

again - drilling for oil in a pristine wildlife reserve - great plan for the future, rob.

from my comment above, rob:

" We could stop using so much oil, obviously. Yet that is problematic, at least in the short term. Conservation would work to a point, but that would only take us so far. "

better gas mileage would take us the rest of the way.

wonder why there is not 50mpg minimum? can it not be done?

there was your chance to defend your post.

in fact, the chance has just presented itself again.

good luck.

..........(crickets chirping).......