Drill for Oil in Anwar

92 percent of the rest of ANWR could still be used as a wildlife refuge, what would be the problem with that. We have farms and ranchs bigger than the land needed to drill for oil. Alaska wants this, it is their land, so they should have the right to drill. The oil drilled from ANWR, using Chuck Schumer logic, should lower gas prices by 63 cents. Now if the most Liberal Senator believes that it might actually be more. Of course Chucky was saying this about Suadi oil, but oil is oil. If it was made in the USA it should be more saving, because of transportation cost. We could, if we wanted to be, completely North American independent of Arab oil, if we just drilled for our own oil. Of course we would still need oil from Canada and Mexico, but that would not be a big deal.

It is not just ANWAR, the U.S. also has proven reserves in Colorado that exceed the proven reserves in the Middle East and Canada also has proven reserves in Alberta the exceed those in the Middle East. Both of these are so called shale oil deposits in which the oil must literally be squeezed out of rock and such oil is not only expensive to produce and refine because unlike the Middle East where high quality oil (in the sense it is easy to refine) that is easy to reach and pump from the surface, shale oil is expensive to extract and to refine. However, with the price of oil in excess of $100 per barrel shale oil is becoming profitable to produce and oil companies are investing much of their profits in developing ways to extract this oil. Of course there is also oil off all three of our coasts (Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf) much of which, like ANWAR, is off limits to development. Finally, there are potentially huge undiscovered reserves in the waters of the Arctic as evidenced by both Canada and Denmark which despite their ratification of the Kyoto Accords, regularly send naval vessels steaming into the Kennedy Channel between Greenland and Canada's Ellesmare Island to tiny Hans Island to remove the other nation's flag and replace the bottle of other nation's adult beverage (which the crew apparently drinks) left at the base of the flag with a bottle of their own nation's adult beverage (see "A Very Civil War in the Arctic" http://hubpages.com/hub/_shamrocks/A_Very_Civil_War_in_the_Arctic). Also, oil cannot be used until it has been refined and, thanks lobbying by special interests (i.e. environmentalists)we haven't had a new refinery built in over three decades. Yes, gasoline prices are high and still rising. However, absent government meddling, the high prices will both encourage consumers to conserve (gasoline consumption in the U.S. has dropped 1% or more since the recent rise) as well as to encourage producers to find ways to increase the supply of the product while finding ways to reduce production costs. People forget the great whale oil shortage of the 19th century. Like petroleum today, people depended upon whale oil for a number of things including fueling the lamps that lit their homes. As the whale population declined, whale oil became scarce and the price rose accordingly. However, instead of wringing their hands, complaining to the government and preparing to decamp the cities and move into log cabins in the wilderness, producers and consumers found alternatives (electricity and natural gas) and went on to enjoy a higher standard of living than before. The fact is we don't have an "energy crisis" or an "oil crisis". The real "crisis" is Washington and the politicians whose only objective is to exploit the situation for their own political advancement.