In the last few days the Republicans have come up with a new talking point. Oil companies are not drilling on the 68 million acres they have leases on because it's too difficult to drill there. 4 weeks into the debate and they finally give us a reason why. Shouldn't this have been their argument in the first place? Why did it take 4 weeks to finally tell us why they can't? These are important questions in my mind. After all, if there is a reason why then it should be common knowledge by the people making the argument. Instead, for 4 weeks we got the argument that it would help drop oil prices. As I stated in an earlier blog, all the experts say this is false. I think the only reason they are now saying this is because they finally thought of an excuse.
Excuses are the republican fallback argument lately. For example, the building of new oil refineries, they say government regulations make it too expensive and difficult. To me, that's code for we don't want to be told do it right. We want to do it the old fashioned way with no regard for safety and the environment. Government regulations are there to protect the American people from the problems that you hear about in movies like "Erin Brocavich". It's an excuse to save money. They say Sen. Obama is against Nuclear energy. This is untrue. What he has said is that we need to work out the safety and security problems, as well as, the big problem of disposing of the nuclear waste. Sen. McCain on the other hand is saying "all of the above" without thinking about all the consequences; Even though consequences are a key part of his energy independence argument.
Energy independence won't happen by drilling for more oil. Even if we open up the 88 million acres, the oil will go back on to the world market where America will have to compete with China, India, Europe, and every other nation on the planet for it. At best, this means that all we will be doing is buying less from foreign countries, but how much less? Something tells me it won't be that much less. We are the largest consumer of oil in the world at 25% and only have 10% of the world's oil reserves. The Middle East has 66% of the world's oil and so long as we are dependent on oil we will have to buy most of our oil from them, like it or not. The real answer is conservation and speeding up development of alternative energy sources. This is something Sen. McCain was against until he started running for President. In the past he voted against funding for alternative energy sources on a regular basis and looked at it as wasteful government spending. Maybe he has finally realized that it wouldn't have been wasteful spending and his judgmentwasn't correct on the Energy issue all those years.
