WE MUST EXPLORE FOR MORE AMERICAN ENERGY
Over the past two months a number of proposals have been tossed around by lawmakers of both parties in response to the record energy prices Americans are facing. These ideas have ranged from a gas tax holiday to increasing our refining capacity. Some of the ideas are a step in the right direction, such as exploring for more energy sources and increasing our refining capacity.
In order to develop a real, commonsense energy policy for the American people we need to focus on a number of issues. More than anything, we need to focus our attention on exploring new American energy through drilling, technology and new development.
Congress needs to understand that the path to lowering prices lies not in windfall taxes or gas tax holidays. It lies in opening up the vast, untapped reserves that are under our lands and oceans. The Department of Interior estimates that there are “112 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil beneath U.S. federal lands and coastal waters,” which would result in enough gasoline to power 60 million cars for 60 years. While Congress has yet to move restrictions on drilling in many offshore areas, China and Cuba are setting up off shore drilling rigs just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.
According to an American Solutions nationwide survey, 69 percent of Americans support lowering energy prices for U.S. consumers by using U.S. domestic energy sources, such as clean coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska. I realize that there is a legitimate concern for the safety of our environment when we talk about drilling in places like ANWR and the ocean. I share these same concerns, but want you to know, that these proposals can be done in an environmentally safe way. The Washington Post recently reported that of the more than 7 billion barrels of oil pumped offshore in the past 25 years, .001 percent-that is one-thousandth of 1 percent-has been spilled. You should also be aware that only 8 percent of ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, would be considered for exploration. The remaining 17.5 million acres will remain permanently closed to any kind of development. If oil is discovered, less than 2000 acres of the over 1.5 million acres considered would be affected by production capacity. If this exploration takes place and is developed, between 250,000 and 735,000 jobs are estimated to be created.
Opening up new reserves will increase our supply and bring prices down at the pump. The new exploration and production will provide new jobs, and increase in our supply of crude and natural gas is the quickest and most commonsense remedy to our high energy prices, which are a result of increased global demand. So why the opposition to more drilling? While many in Congress would have you believe that oil companies are to blame for high gas prices, they fail to realize that the large part of the problems lie within drilling obstacles. Republicans have a plan for relief that includes environmentally safe exploration of American energy. It is my hope that Democrats will work with Republicans on this plan to deliver relief to the American people.
June 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Mr. Carter,
While I applaud your interest in the pending US energy crisis and I am quite aware of the political demands that you must face given the recent increases in fuel prices, I find expanding exploration of petroleum to be a short-sighted response to what will be a long-term issue. As a resident of the 31st district of Texas, I would like to take a moment here to express my concerns and offer a few general alternatives.
It is impossible to deny that the acquisition of petroleum is the only alternative given to our country to deal with short-term energy demands, but we must not allow ourselves to subscribe to this myopic view of the world. You noted here that US territory sat atop enough petroleum to provide gasoline to 60 million cars for 60 years. Ostensibly that sounds like an impressive statistic; however, the US DOT reported in 2006 that there were 250,851,833 passenger cars and trucks in the country. That means that the 60 million automobiles that could be powered for 60 years actually only represent 23.9 percent of cars on the road. Given the actual quantity of automobiles in use, the number of years these oil reserves would provide gasoline to US citizens would be reduced by approximately a factor of four; 15 years, if the population of automobiles does not increases. Is a policy that delays increases in fuel prices, and a potential energy crisis, by 15 years really a response to our current dilemma? I would certainly argue that it is not.
What are our options? I am in no position to begin to hypothesize; however, our state is blessed with two of the best research universities in the country. I would suggest that we begin there. Public investment in technology to meet these challenges seems to me to be an apparent first step. Changing the incentives of the business and industrial sectors to invest in these technologies is a second step. As we both know, people are driven by incentives. If we need a technological advance, make the incentives difficult to turn down until the technology is produced. Increased production of petroleum will decrease prices and subsequently decrease incentives and public pressures for the creation of alternative technologies. Augmented production is not the solution to this issue. You are in a position to alter incentives and to drive change; take advantage of it.
Even if it proves to be detrimental to our fellow Texans employed in the production of petroleum, our current resources must be focused on non-petroleum alternatives. While the immediate political costs may be high, the long-term political and social fall-out from not pursuing alternative sources of energy will prove to be much more malevolent.
Expansion of petroleum production is not a long-term alternative; alternative energy sources potentially are. I urge you to consider the long-term necessities and repercussions of the decisions you are making; the continued economic growth our state, the livelihood of our children, and possibly even your political career depend on it.
Good luck to you and God bless.
Sincerely yours,
J.B. Tate
June 24th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I am from Georgetown, Texas. I spent a considerable amount of time today, listening to some ranting and something short of name-calling, regarding the blocking of proposed exploration for oil at Alaska National Wildlife Refuge…..that’s WILDLIFE R-E-F-U-G-E. It means that all wildlife in this area are protected from harm and endangerment. This area is the nesting grounds of untold number of species of birds. It is also the mating/nesting area for Polar Bears. Now the Polar Bear is already endangered, just by loss in numbers, probably caused by global warming. To “explore” any area for places to drill for oil/gas requires this pristine area to be abused by trucks and cars and people. There is no way you can disrupt these vital reproductive areas of wildlife, without there being significant damage, even loss of life, of the animals inhabiting the area. Please inform your colleagues that just because no people live there, does not mean there is no life there. THAT is why concerned citizens, like myself, and hundreds of thousands of others, are pleading with Congress to LEAVE THE ANWR free of habitation by humans for any reason. ‘Special interest groups’? Our special interest is for the wildlife who would be destroyed or irreparably harmed with human intrusion. Thank you for allowing me to speak my concerns for the already endangered species, and the species that will be in danger, with human intrusions. Sincerely, Ms. Johnnie D. Herber
June 25th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Mr. Carter, I agree whole heartedly with all your comments.
With the blockage of drilling and statements by Polosi and Maxine Waters- The need to socialize oil companies-, lend me to believe the Democratic Congress does not want relief for the American Poeple, no, instead I believe that they want the dollar to continue going south, to join a global currency, and control american lives.
I have served this country and what we are becoming worries me. I have defended less threats than we are facing on our own soil.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I am sorry to say that I missed most of your Town Hall conference call last night. We had previous plans. I am on record as being for more drilling to get us over the gap between where we are now and developing alternative fuels for a long term solution. Ethanol is NOT the answer for alternative fuel. Note the floods in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. I have seen what Mother Nature has done with not just flooding, but significant amounts of rain. I was in Indiana and Illinois last month and corn fields in both those areas were significantly impacted. The wet fields kept the farmers from getting into the fields to plant in April and early May. Corn was barely out of the ground in late May. The impact on corn yield will be pretty bad. We need time to develop alternative fuels that can withstand these kinds of impact.
I also believe we need to get out of the middle-east and our dependency on foreign oil. I subscribe to the reason that when we pull out of the middle-east, Iran will take over with Syria’s help. Saudi Arabia will cave and then Iran will decide that they and the middle-east will not sell oil to the US and other countries. If we aren’t prepared by doing something now, we will be in serious trouble if that happens. I don’t think we want to gamble on the alternative. People who don’t see that we are in WW III are paying attention. The radical Muslims are out to destroy all religion outside of their own. They are not a country and they don’t wear uniforms, but they are creating trouble all over the world.
More importantly, however, I am simply outraged at the GRIDLOCK in Congress. If my approval rating for my job was 11% I would be fired. Keeping people in Congress for all these years and seeing no benefit to Americans really bothers me. My tax dollars pay for these people and we deserve better. There is NO “Statemanship” in congress anymore. It is just a battle of people’s will. PAC’s and Lobbyists need to be abolished. Earmarks and any other means Congressman use to get funding for their pet projects that keep them in Washington should be abolished. This is non-funded spending that doesn’t even get voted on. This is just plain wrong.
Both parties need to let Congressman be what they are, and that is representatives of the people in their district. This is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Y’all have lost sight of that, completely. The parties need to stop the “orientation program” that maintains if you don’t go along, you will be considered a “Rogue Representative”. This needs to stop!!
I know that the only thing that controls Washington is POWER. He who has the power has the control. We need to get rid of Senators and Representatives that are too old. There should be a mandatory retirement age. Robert Byrd, Senator from WV is so senile that he can’t even be remotely considered competent. There should be a limit to how long people can serve. If Congress doen’t start acting like the represent us, we should vote out of office every incumbent, and make the playing field level for real.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:34 am
I agree we need to drill here and drill now.. Thak you for fighting for us.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I have questions that are not being answered, and I perceive the debate in Congress as nothing more than political posturing at best, and at worst a rouse to extract more of my labor for unappropriated allocation for revenues in order to subsidize inefficient energy sources. I am
skeptical about what the political motives are, here..
I believe that the expense/cost of a product is the same, whether or not you pay the market value at the point of purchase, or whether a portion of that cost is forcibly extracted from you in taxes that are distributed to the companies producing the products. Quite to the contrary, the subsidies INCREASE the real cost, because the citizen must bear the burden of the administration of the disbursement of the revenues and the resulting growing Federal Government monster.
Do oil companies DESIRE to drill in areas that are closed to such activity (the OCS our ANWR in particular)? I have not heard any press relating to any corporation banging down the door to harvest these resources. I do hear that there are millions or billions of acres of Federal land or available leases that are NOT being exploited, at this time. I would like to hear some testimony on this issue. Why? Do the geological structures in these areas prevent cost-effective
production? If they are not being exploited, my guess is yes.
Congress doesn’t need to “do something”, they need to “do less” or undo the terrible mess they have facilitated by unconstitutionally interfering in the free market, devaluation of the currency (which has no tangible value), and engaging in wars in which our own representatives voted against in the House of Representatives.
The price of oil is not the problem, it is the SYMPTOM of many problems that all relate to the violation of the rule of law, the United States Constitution.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
This is insane! The American culture as we know it now is being destroyed by rising energy costs. Action needs to be taken today by our government to slow down surging oil prices. Increased drilling as you propose is not the solution. Dependence on any oil is the problem, be it from the Middle East, Mexico, Canada, or the United States. You need to announce that within 5 years, the word ‘oil’ will be used in the same venacular as ‘typewriter’ and ‘polaroid.’ Oil will not be part of the energy solution. Why is Congress taking a holiday break, when our country is in a crisis mode?
Vote Obama!!
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Mr. Carter,
Thank you for your efforts in decreasing our dependence on oil from other countrys.
It saddens me to see our country destroyed by environmentalist who are more concerned about a lizard or bug than human lives. Congress needs to man up and repeal the laws which prevent us from drilling for oil in our own country and off our shores. Further we need new refineries and stop importing refined oil.
I appreciate your work in congress.
Thank you,
Morris Clopton
July 4th, 2008 at 3:12 am
It is obvious that we can no longer rely upon gas for fuel into the future. I think that exploring alternative fules is the way to go to ensure a strong future for both the economy and environment. Hopefully it will only take a good viable solution for the volume of drivers to switch and then the rest of the road vehicles will follow. Kinda like Beta to VHS to DVD.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
It is time we quit letting these tree hugging democrates dominate the common sence of the rest of the world, ever day we put of drilling that is just one more day we pay through the nose for our energy. The idea that no one is drilling on land already under lease is simple you don’t plant your garden on a rock for the same reason you don’t spend millions of dollars drilling dry holes or wells that will barley pay the drilling cost just to satisfy some bleeding heart. We have to drill where there is large quanties of crude to put our country back to energy independance while we develop other sources of energy. I believe someone said it correctly last PM in the forum when he said if we didn’t do something we were soon going to be eating all the endangered species just to survive. Thank you for your effort we support you just don’t let Harry and Nancy win the battle. We will get them voted out so you will have some help.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I still fail to see any proposals for raising the driving age to 18 or 19 years which will save 5000 lives a year and spare nearly a half million injuries. I hear all the “yeah, but…” resonding in my ears but it can be done promptly and can save millions of gallons of gas. This can be a first step on the path to changing our life styles. Then how about electrifying the existing railroads. That will require very little change in infrastructure. In fact the only changes in infrastructure I see is the stucture of our thought processes.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I love this Blog.
To J.B. Tate: good points, but public investment in new technology is best left to the private sector. Supply and demand in the marketplace is much better than any political solution.
Johnnie Herber: Good spouting of the “left”, but please read on your own. It is the ARCTIC National Wildlife Refuge. It is over 19.6 MILLION acres and in 1980 less then 10% was designated for future oil and gas exploration. For some FACTS go to http://www.anwr.org
Jeff Willett: Wow. You say to get out of the Middle east and then state Iran will take over. Maybe that is WHY we need a stable Iraq and a US presence? Then you criticize a GRIDLOCK. Some would say the LESS our government does the better. Maybe if government got out of the way things would improve?
Dick Hamilton: Reducing oil dependency is a great idea, but why do Democrats block nuclear power generation options? The only solutions I see from Mr. Obama (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/) appear to be many government “investments” (smells like tax and spend).
Our current “crises” has been brewing for decades. Some leaders had a vision in 1980 when they set aside oil exploration sites in ANWR, when they removed “windfall” taxes, and when they deregulated. Over 200 years ago our heroes in Washington recessed from early-Summer until December and somehow the United States thrived. Maybe we can learn from history? Less Government could possibly be a good thing? Did the Government “invest” in the ingenuity of Robert Fulton? George Washington Carver? Charles Goodyear? Thomas Edison? Nikola Tesla? The list goes on and on.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Great article from Anchorage-based Petroleum News – “Gull Island buzz: 200 years of oil from Alaska’s North Slope?” It includes a map and deals with all the legends and allegations about the oil potential of Gull Island, which is offshore the North Slope in Prudhoe Bay.
Here’s the link to the article in html (text): http://www.petroleumnews.com/pnads/690171677.shtml
Here’s the pdf version that shows article and a map http://www.petroleumnews.com/pdfarch/543591276.pdf#page=1
I called them and PN executive editor Kay Cashman is looking for more information on Gull Island kaycashman@petroleumnews.com. The newspaper is going to continue follow the subject.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Sir:
If you have to look at a poll to make your decision on this particular issue, I question your logic. The future survival of our people, our country, and our planet should not be dependent upon if the people thing it is a good idea or not. It takes the wisdom of a child to see the overall problem is due to the fact that we are dependent upon a non-renewable resource for our power. This problem has been blatantly apparent for the last thirty years. Now that we are feeling the financial effects of our poor decisions, your rhetoric is to continue upon the same path that put us here in the first place? What happens in sixty years when my children have to deal with this problem Sir? What happens in 120 years when my grandchildren have to deal with this problem Sir? Where will we go to find oil then?
How dare you weaken our security? How dare you empower our enemies by elongating our dependence upon their products? How dare you refuse to rise to the occasion in this most-important of policy decisions?
July 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I hope all realize that oil companies have not drilled on 80% of the leases they already own. I’d like to know the real reason they want to aquire more land leases. We should be going forward with renewable energy and applaud the texas legislature for going forward with a wind farm. There is a lot of technology out there that will free us from oil and the false manipulation of it’s cost. This is the direction this country should be headed. Lets take politics out of this and do whats right for this country and the earth we live on.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Guess what? We start moving towards more drilling…the price drops. Amazing how that works. Let’s quit fighting with one arm tied behind our backs. Drill here. Drill now. And please, don’t go “D.C.” on us.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I live in Georgetown also. I don’t give a damn about some remote arctic bird refuge, polar bears or a half frozen caribou herd in ANWR. I also don’t give a damn about surveys (who funds those BTW, taxpayers?), or public opinion polls. This is a common sense economic and national security issue. Drill now, drill everywhere. If there’s oil under the Capitol building in D.C., we should be tapping into it. We have enough oil shale reserves in the Rockies alone to provide this nation over 200 years of self reliant petroleum energy if we have the collective will to harvest and refine it. We also need more refinery capacity. Every major metro area in this country should have multiple refineries so we don’t have to freak out every time a hurricane hits the gulf coast. Oil companies are reluctant to make those investment risks due to the litigation quagmire facing them from environmentalists every time they try to work a new oil lease or consider opening a new refinery on our shores. It’s time to kick these enviro-whackos to the curb and bury them back under the luddite rock they crawled out of.
So, John- drive on, and tell McCain he needs to get with the program too and quit soft peddling ANWR for votes, and he needs to trash his looney Cap and Tax plan for the same reason.
I’ll see you on the conservative high ground- wherever that is these days.