By Steven Milloy, FOX News
Liberals have done a U-turn on conservative billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens. Formerly reviled for funding the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” campaign against Sen. John Kerry, he’s now adored by the Left - unfortunately, for trying to gaslight the rest of us on energy policy. This column recently spotlighted Pickens’ proposed plan to get America off foreign oil by substituting wind-generated electricity for natural gas-generated electricity and then using the natural gas to replace gasoline.
Already having addressed the proposal’s flaws - and Pickens’ plan to profit at taxpayer expense from it - let’s consider how Pickens’ marketing shades the truth. On his Web site and in TV commercials, Pickens tries to frighten Americans about being “addicted to foreign oil.” “In 1970, we imported 24 percent of our oil. Today, it’s nearly 70 percent and growing,” he intones. Aside from the fact that the Department of Energy (DOE) puts the import figure at a more moderate 58 percent, Pickens gives the impression that imported oil is scary because it all comes from the unstable Mideast. His TV commercials feature images of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and he likens the annual $700 billion cost of foreign oil to “four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.” But hold the phone. Only 16 percent of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf - barely up from 13.6 percent in 1973, according to the DOE. Imports from OPEC countries are actually down - from 47.8 percent in 1973 to 44.5 percent in 2007.
Contrary to Pickens’ assertion that oil imports are growing, the DOE expects oil imports to decrease by 10 percent by 2030. Pickens tries to shame Americans because, “America uses a lot of oil ... That’s 25 percent of the world’s oil demand, used by just 4 percent of the world population.” Some might think these figures make us sound greedy and wasteful. But what Pickens omitted to mention is that the size of the U.S. economy in 2007 was about $13.8 trillion and the size of the global economy was $54.3 trillion. This means that the U.S. economy represents about 25.4 percent of the global economy. So what’s the problem if a nation that produces 25 percent of the world’s goods and services needs 25 percent of the world’s oil output?
Would he prefer that we shrink our economy by 84 percent to match our share of world population? Pickens plays the hope-squasher. “Can’t we just produce more oil?” he asks. “The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone,” he responds. But there are hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in the form of oil tar sands and oil shale in North America, not to mention the more than one hundred billion barrels of oil in the outer continental shelf of the U.S. and on public lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR). And don’t forget that coal-to-liquids technology can convert our 268 billion tons of coal into 20 times the nation’s current crude oil reserves, according to investment analysts. We have liquid fuels to burn. While producing this oil may not be as easy as it was in 1859, when crude oil bubbled out of the ground in northwest Pennsylvania, it is much more feasible and far less expensive than Pickens’ fantasy of replicating the entire existing U.S. wind supply system every year for the next 15 years in addition to building the national infrastructure for natural-gas filling stations. Read more here.
Also see how water is another resource this entrepreneur hopes to make into the new oil here.
By Collin Levy, Wall Street Journal Online
Former Vice President Al Gore recently took his climate-change show on the road for the benefit of liberal bloggers, Sunday morning TV aficionados and other innocent bystanders. This week he laid out his demand for a miraculous transformation in U.S. energy use over a mere 10 years. As for drilling for more oil? “Absurd,” the Nobel Laureate scoffed. “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” The same might be said for Mr. Gore. For while his message hasn’t changed, the political realities of the energy debate have. Suddenly, Mr. Gore’s inconvenient speechifying only tightens the vice Democrats find themselves in over drilling.
Voters’ pocketbooks are now involved, making them more skeptical about climate change—and about the utility of any policies aimed at influencing climate change. The environmental movement is facing a critical moment. Democrats who support the greenies in their most ambitious goals, and scariest pseudo-scientific rhetoric, suddenly seem woefully out of touch with American voters.
Back in June, Barack Obama made hay of John McCain’s comment that while opening lands to drilling might not have a short term direct impact on oil supply and prices, it would have a “psychological impact” by sending a signal to consumers and the market that the country was expanding its own resources. “In case you’re wondering,” Mr. Obama said, “that’s Washington-speak for ‘it polls well.’”
Ho, ho. But oil prices have fallen since President Bush announced his support for more drilling. And polls these days are shifting overwhelmingly in favor of it. More than two-thirds of Americans support expanding drilling along the coasts, and 59% approve of drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, according to a Reuters-Zogby poll. The worst news for Democrats is that support for drilling is now a majority opinion even in their own constituency. The quandary for Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi et al. is how to keep irate environmentalists inside the tent while still meeting voter demand for lower prices. Raging against oil companies and Wall Street may get you through a news cycle or two, but it’s not a solution. Read more here.
EPW Blog
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, gave a floor speech on America’s energy policy today. Selected Excerpts of Inhofe’s Energy Speech:
“I believe that America is not running out of oil and gas or running out of places to look for oil and gas. America is running out of places where the Democrats in Congress are allowing us to look for oil and gas. Again I ask, why should producing America’s own resources be a partisan issue? It shouldn’t be, but it is. The Democrats in Congress refuse to increase our supply of energy, and gas prices keep rising. I call on the Democrats to act to expand refinery capacity and to open the nation’s access to the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, and the Rocky Mountain oil shale, and preserve access to Canadian oil sands. Today’s American oil producer operates with the most sophisticated environmental technologies and policies on the planet. 67 percent of the American people recognize the need for development and support action. It’s time to end the Democratic Party’s obstruction. The American public must demand that the Democrats in Congress allow us to produce our own resources.
Americans are clearly embracing the need for expanded domestic production. Recent polling data from Rasmussen shows that 67 percent of American voters support offshore drilling - only 18 percent oppose. The same poll also found that 64 percent believe that if offshore drilling is allowed, gas prices will go down. Another poll from The Polling Company Inc. found that 81 percent of Americans support greater use of domestic energy resources
But even though the American public strongly supports expanded use of American resources, oil and gas exploration and production is currently prohibited on 85 percent of America’s offshore waters. The Pacific and Atlantic regions of the Outer Continental Shelf which hold an estimated 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of gas are off-limits. 14 billion barrels of oil are equivalent to more than 25 years’ worth of our imports from Saudi Arabia. Looking to Alaska, ANWR is estimated to contain 10 billion barrels of oil - about 15 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia. If President Clinton hadn’t vetoed legislation allowing environmentally sensitive exploration on the Coastal Plain of ANWR ten years ago, today we would have 1 million additional barrels of oil a day coming from ANWR. Turning to oil shale, the potential energy development from these resources is truly massive. But, once again, Democrats are blocking development. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 established a one-year moratorium on the necessary funding to complete the final regulations for commercial leasing of oil shale.
In an effort to hide their true record of blocking access to America’s own resources, the Democrats are engaged in a campaign of shifting blame claiming that there are 68 million acres in America where oil and gas companies have bought the right to drill and they are sitting on them. Very simply, not all leases contain oil. Sometimes at the end of the day there is no oil or gas found on a lease. For example, between 2002 and 2007, 52 percent of all the exploration wells and 8 percent of all development wells were dry.
By opening the nation’s access to the reserves of the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, and Oil Shale, we could cut our nation’s trade deficit nearly in half. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. spent more than $327 billion to import oil in 2007. These oil imports accounted for 46 percent of the nation’s $711 billion trade deficit last year.”
Read the full testimony here.