Don't Get Me Started

Don't Get Me Started

Andy Hefty

Andy’s energy policy, part two

 By ANDY HEFTY

Drilling.

JACKSONVILLE, FL - On December 6, 1960, almost nine million acres were set aside as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The acronym ANWR (pronounced Ann-Wahr) was born. Twice since then, the size of the refuge was expanded. Its current acreage tops nearly 20 million. According to various laws and statutes set in place by Congress, half of this portion of land in Alaska is official wildlife refuge. There is a central swath of land, covering eight million acres, designated as a wilderness.

The remaining portion, one and one half million acres, is the area set aside for drilling on the northern coast of Alaska. This is known as area 10-02. According to anwr.org, this site has been specifically "defined and separated by Congress for oil and gas exploration due to its well-known geological evidence of potential large hydrocarbon deposits."

And the part of the land set aside for drilling is no happy home for frolicking caribou, moose, and polar bear either. In fact, it is a barren heap. In the winter, the place is a sheet of ice. In "summer" (if this region of the world really has one), it resembles a Wal-Mart parking lot. Flat, solid rock as far as the eye can see.

So why aren’t we doing anything?

In short, there is plenty of blame to go around. But I want to focus on four of our major roadblocks that can quickly and easily be lifted to begin the process of short-term oil independence.

Congress

Too many in Congress are afraid of the screaming banshees in the environmental movement. They are unwilling to stand up and tell the new home of modern-day socialism to step aside. Our esteemed members of the top lawmaking body in America are more lazy than anything else when it comes to dispensing the truth about ANWR to constituents.

Congressional leaders spout the tired line that "we can’t drill our way out." HORSERADISH! If a homeless man is starving, are you planning to tell him that he can’t eat his way out of hunger? When that line is debunked, they hit us with "it’ll take ten years to get anything." So? My only other question is this: So why haven’t we started ten years ago, when we were still paying a buck a gallon?

Answer? Bill Clinton. He vetoed legislation in 1998 -- ten years ago -- that would have had this crisis completely averted. Thanks, Mr. President. Nice legacy you’re spreading around. But I digress.

Then, Congress tells us we need to buy hybrids and compact fluorescent bulbs to save energy. Fine, we can let the market decide that, but we won’t produce a single drop of black gold by mere conservation. I’ll cover conservation in another couple weeks.

President Bush

George W. Bush has hosted the Saudis a number of times, and he has personally travelled to the desert "kingdom" at least thrice for the specific purpose of requesting increased oil output. Each time, he has been told to go pound sand. Some friends, these Saudis.

They imprison women for sitting in the front seat of a car. They confiscate Bibles. They produced eleven of the nineteen terrorists who killed three thousand of our countrymen on September 11, 2001. They have been known to fund terrorist organizations around the world. They hold our nation’s energy economy hostage with high prices and low output.

And President Bush goes begging, hat in hand, for more oil. It’s funny how he wants more production from other countries, but then won’t press Congress to do more here at home.

Environmentalists

The rabid environmental movement had better reconsider their ways. They have been flagged as the new home of modern-day socialism. They don’t want any progress of any kind. They tout wind power, but oppose it when an energy company tries to plant a wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. They demand we take advantage of solar power, but the materials required to generate it aren’t "earth friendly." They tell us to stop driving SUVs, but won’t say a peep when Arianna Huffington has an entourage of GMC Suburbans escort her to the airport. We are mandated to turn off lights, adjust our thermostats, and stop watering our lawns. But those howls don’t keep former Vice President Al Gore from using 24 times the energy an average home uses each year.

They get all up in arms when a conservative owns a private jet, but whistle discreetly as their liberal heroes jet across country at will. Environmental movement, thy name is hypocrisy.

Reasonable environmental safeguards should be a goal that everyone has in mind. But if the environmentalists don’t join the energy companies by helping them work for a sound energy policy that is also environmentally friendly, they are going to be forsaken as a historical footnote.

Media vs. Market

How many times do you see discussion on the evening news about ANWR while they show dancing, prancing wildlife? Know this: when you see it, the media outlet is lying to you. The portion of ANWR set aside for drilling is a barren heap.

Of course, the media is also trying to tell you that ANWR drilling will kill half the state of Alaska. That’s also a lie. Here’s more from anwr.org:

To say or suggest then that "the Refuge" (meaning ANWR’s entire area) would be opened for oil and gas exploration is completely false. The Congressional definitions of "refuge" and "wilderness," which comprises over 92% of the ANWR area, forbids any development of any kind. To further specify the definition of land that could be used in ANWR Congress has limited any future development footprint size to 2000 acres. This means that within the 1.5 million acres of the 10-02 Area and with in the total 19.6 million acres of ANWR …..ONLY 2000 ACRES CAN BE USED! That’s less than ½ of 1% of the total area of ANWR.

Picture if you will the state of South Carolina. Now superimpose Delaware on the northernmost edge of South Carolina. That’s roughly the scale of the 1.5 million acres set aside for exploration. And since 2,000 acres is all that can be used, place a tiny dot about the size of the city limits of Macclenny on that map.

There. You now have a picture of how a tiny plot of land can yield an abundance of energy. And I haven’t even discussed Montana’s recent discovery, the shale oil in Colorado, or the reserves just waiting to be tapped off the coasts of Florida and California.

But if we start drilling for these resources now, we will begin to wean ourselves from foreign oil. Prices will immediately drop because of competition. The United States will become the top oil producer in the world, allowing us to tell OPEC to take a flying leap. And we will have purchased for ourselves more than immediate energy. We will have bought time to allow the free market forces to develop a new frontier on energy.

Next Week: Nuclear Power.

Photo and information courtesy of Arctic Power. On the web at http://www.anwr.org/

 

Andy is a father of 13 children who lives with his wife of over 23 years in Baker County, Florida. His opinions usually center around mixing politics and religion with hot-button topics as his specialty. You can contact him at  ACHefty@yahoo.com.