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Energy Independence
The current energy crisis in this country is the
greatest crisis to confront this nation in decades.
There is no part of our economy unaffected by our
current energy dependence and shortage.
We are taking billions of dollars per year out of
our capital formation and sending it overseas to our
enemies in the greatest transfer of wealth in the
history of the world. This devalues our dollar,
devastates our credit markets, real estate markets
and strengthens our enemies.
America must make “Energy Independence” our top
priority.
We must get to work producing more energy. We must
put everything on the table. Do them all; explore
them all—solar, wind, nuclear, oil, natural gas,
coal, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, hydrogen.
Energy is what fuels our economic growth.
Several of our political leaders seek control of our
energy production by appealing to people’s emotions,
instincts, and prejudices in manipulative and
dangerous ways. They offer us empty promises with no
true ideas. They preach doctrines they know to be
untrue to us because they believe us to be idiots.
They mix apples and oranges, use half truths,
provide false authority or false dilemmas to further
their agendas. They use demonization, straw men,
loaded questions and if all else fails personal
attacks to keep us from energy independence. In
short “Demagoguery”.
They deny the existence of supply and demand
although supply and demand is perhaps one of the
most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the
backbone of a market economy.
They say they are for drilling although they want to
exclude 85% of the available areas in which we could
drill. If they are really for drilling why shouldn’t
everything be on the table for environmentally and
economically viable development.
They say that even if we open up all areas for
energy development it would take ten years to get to
market. They are either uniformed or dishonest
because the truth is it would take 1-2 years for
most offshore development, 6 years for some areas,
it would take 3-6 years for oil from
ANWR.
They ignore another generally accepted truth of
economics, one most recently used by R. Morris and
Gary M Pecquet, in their work on “The effect of
opening up ANWR to drilling on the current price of
oil” where they show that current actions that
increase future supplies cause oil producers to
bring more oil to market now while prices are high
verses the expected lower prices of the future
because of the increases in future supplies. The
inverse of this economic concept is true as well,
which contributes to our high prices.
They say that we need to eliminate our dependence on
foreign energy. Their solution is to raise taxes on
domestic energy producers. They again deny the
existence of the basic economic principle that
provides if you want less of something “Tax It”. If
you want more domestic energy and less imported
energy, reduce taxes on domestic production and
increase taxes on foreign energy.
It is time for change. It is time to look beyond
party politics. It is time for America to become
energy independent. We have to quit demagoguing the
issue. We must quit pointing the finger of blame or
creating more legislation restricting the production
of energy.
Our energy policy is based on the preservation of
scarcity. As we face the worst energy shortage in
history we are told to use less. As if running out
of energy a little more slowly is a solution.
Conservation is of course a wise and productive
policy. Maximizing the efficiency of our available
energy is to the benefit of all energy users.
However conservation cannot be the singular answer
to our energy needs.
In fact there is no singular solution to solving our
current energy crisis. All solutions need to be on
the table. Our energy problems are critical and
unending yet all we hear from our political leaders
are more of the same old tired proposals for more
government control, regulation and radical
ideology—all of which is what led us to this problem
in the first place.
We have large amounts of oil and natural gas beneath
our lands and off our shores that we cannot access.
It seems our government would rather offer the
American people more regulation, taxes and controls
than energy.
We have the world’s largest coal reserves. We have
massive shale oil reserves with potential greater
than all of the Middle East. Nuclear energy offers
tremendous opportunities. We could supply
electricity for thousands of industries, millions of
cars, jobs and homes. It is time we stood up and
said no to the tiny minority opposed to economic
growth who have found friendly ears in the
regulatory agencies for its obstructionist agendas.
Please understand that we must not allow the safety
of our people and environment to be endangered,
however we need to recognize that the economic
prosperity of our nation is a fundamental part of
our environment.
We talk of price gouging by the energy producers but
we say nothing of the price gouging by the energy
deniers. The nearly 50¢ tax on a gallon of gas is
“Government Price Gouging”. The endless and many
times senseless environmental rules are “Regulatory
Price Gouging”. The placement of most of our energy
producing properties off limits to the production of
energy is “Environmentalist Price Gouging” and
Legislation that forces us to use so called
politically correct renewable resources is
“Ideological Price Gouging”.
The important thing now is that we shall come to
agree on certain principles and free ourselves from
some of the errors which have governed us in the
recent past. However distasteful such an admission
may be, we must recognize we have reached a stage
where it is more important to clear away the
obstacles with which human folly has encumbered our
path and to release the creative energy of
individuals than to devise further machinery for
“guiding” and “directing” them – to create
conditions favorable to progress rather than to
“plan progress.” The first need is to free ourselves
of that worst form of contemporary obscurantism
which tries to persuade us that what we have done in
the recent past was all either wise or inevitable.
We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much of
what we have done was very foolish.
If we are to become energy independent, we must have
the courage to make a new start – even if that means
to take a step backwards to get a better start. The
guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the
individual is the only truly progressive policy
which remains as true today as it was in the
nineteenth century.
Footnote:
Oil was discovered
on the north slope of Alaska in 1968. Construction
of the pipeline began in April 1974 and completed in
June 1977. Pipeline construction from Prudhoe Bay
required transiting a route where much of the
right-of-way was on federal and state lands.
Legislation (the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization
Act [P.L. 93-153]) was required to end what had
become a stalemate over the route. This right-of-way
legislation enabled the pipeline to be constructed.
Environmental studies for the
pipeline were started and applications for permits
submitted in 1968. In 1970 as the oil companies were
poised to start construction on the pipeline, suits
were filed by environmental groups and others to
block pipeline construction, successfully blocking
construction for four years.
In October 1973 in retaliation for
U.S. support of Israel in the Mid-East Yom Kipper
war OPEC imposes an oil embargo. Overnight, the
price of a barrel of oil rises from $3 to over $5.
Gas at the pumps will soon rise from 30 cents per
gallon to $1.20, and drivers will wait in long lines
to fill up their tanks.
On November 16, 1973, in direct
response to the oil crisis, President Nixon signs
the Trans Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into
law. Nixon introduces "Project Independence" in a
televised speech: "Throughout history, America has
made great sacrifices of blood and also treasure to
achieve and maintain its independence. In the last
third of this century, our independence will depend
on maintaining and achieving self-sufficiency in
energy."
It took six years to get permits to
build the pipeline and three years to build it. The
same arguments used against the trans-Alaska
pipeline are currently being used against ANWR.
The 48-inch special cold-weather
steel was ordered from Japan in April 1969. The
building permit for the pipeline was issued in 1974.
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