Jon Utley is The American Conservative associate publisher, and a former foreign correspondent for Knight Ridder newspapers.
In "Alaska Oil Abundance Versus Washington's Wasted Billions: The case for new oil drilling in Alaska and off America's coasts," Utley explains that 80% of American oil consumption comes from imports, costing some $300 to $400 billion yearly. "They wreck our trade balance, subsidize many of our enemies, and add to our already mountainous foreign debt," Utley says.
While analysts are forecasting $100 dollar-a-barrel oil within a year, the Obama Administration continues to block offshore drilling (even though it was approved by Congress last year) and wants to raise taxes on the oil companies, Utley says.
"New oil drilling in Alaska and off America's coasts would create hundreds of thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars in real tax revenue for Washington," Utley writes in the article. "Compare that to government spending to create jobs, which costs some $200,000 per job."
Solar power, Utley says "involves billions of dollars in costly subsidies which add to the ballooning budget and trade deficits" while wind power will cost the taxpayers $10 billion. "Ethanol was similarly hyped by Washington -- another gigantic boondoggle with severely damaging consequences for food prices and tens of billions of dollars of wasted resources."
"Major technological breakthroughs make vast new oil production possible -- once Washington permits it," Utley says. Natural gas is "already abundant and promises to stay cheap into the foreseeable future. . . . there exists tremendous potential for natural gas in auto and truck engines. . .many trucks, buses, and taxis could easily be converted to run on natural gas, costing less than a dollar a gallon."
"Research drilling has made vast new oil production possible," Utley says. "Horizontal drilling allows wells to reach into oil reserves as never before and to produce far more oil from each field. . . .a traditional vertical well might expose 200 to 300 feet of reservoir rock [while] a new well using multiple horizontal sections can expose over 20,000 feet of reservoir rock."
"The Obama Administration is a prisoner of its 'base,' which includes extreme environmentalists doing all they can to delay and handicap new oil and gas drilling. If just a fraction of the $700 billion stimulus bill was spent on subsidizing natural gas fueling facilities at interstate truck stops, America could use more of its natural gas to avoid tens of billions of dollars of oil imports," Utley said.
See the entire article at Reason Magazine on-line: http://www.reason.com/news/show/136265.html
SOURCE Reason Magazine On-line
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