Don't buy into offshore drilling to lower gas prices

Bush’s latest plea to Congress to open more of our country’s coastline to oil drilling will not lower the price of gas. We consume 25% of the worlds oil deposits, but have only 3% in reserves. With those numbers, it is mathematically impossible to drill ourselves to lower gas prices. Besides, it would take 7-10 more years to bring the new offshore fields into production. It has also been reported that the oil companies have only explored 25% of their present leases. What Bush’s present plan will do is give the oil companies more leases in environmentally protected areas. This is just a last minute gift in the form of future oil leases from Bush and Cheney to their pals at the big oil companies. Congress should respond with a bill that requires oil companies to explore a lease within a reasonable set amount of time or loose the lease. Quite frankly, I am not opposed to drilling along coast lines and ANWAR, but selling or inferring this as a fix to today’s high gas prices is simply not true, but typical of this administrations practices.

The only solution to lower energy prices is to wean us off of oil by curbing our consumption now and by switching to renewable sources of energy. Some of this is already happening. People are driving less and using more fuel-efficient cars. Much more can be done with a forward-looking energy strategy that encourages and rewards renewable energy and conservation. We need to immediately begin approving new nuclear power plants and encouraging other means of energy generation such as wind and water. The automakers who sell cars in the US should be forced to triple (or at least increase) vehicle gas mileage rates.

Furthermore, Congress needs to do everything in its power to push more US research into alternative sources of energy. Whichever country makes this happen quickly will benefit by having developed the necessary technology, which can then be profitably exported to other nations. We can be that country. If we continue to bury our head in the sand by listening to oil companies excuses (which are designed to make them more money), we will end up trying to catch up to other countries.