Tap our oil supplies

I am tired of paying too much for gas, and hearing how it is all the oil companies fault. Several reports I have read state the oil companies get between $.08 and $.12 per gallon, while government gets around $.50 per gallon.

The Senate wants to raise the tax even higher on oil companies. All this will do is drive cost up more.

Even with that, the main problem I have with the way things are going is that we are making countries who hate us rich. We provide the money these countries use to promote anti-American policy, and aid to terrorism.


We do not have to do this:

One contributing factor in America’s apparent foreign-oil dependence (we will discuss the oil realities below) is the diminutive size of the US nuclear power industry, which remains too small for a country with the energy needs and appetite of the United States. Bush says that energy experts believe the US needs to build three new nuclear plants per year starting in 2015, just to keep pace with the country’s nuclear energy needs.

Yet the US has not ordered a new nuclear power plant since the 1970s. In fact, there were 112 reactors operating in the US in 1990; today, there are just 104. Bush wants to change that, forecasting construction of dozens of new nuclear plants by the end of this decade. In fact, as Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) observed during the Senate floor debate, thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2004, “over 30 nuclear power plants are in the works…We went more than two decades without a single one applying, and we have now over 30.” Hailing America’s “nuclear renaissance,” he notes that once operational, “these plants will provide enough electricity for nearly 30 million American homes.”

As far as the oil goes:

The Energy Information Administration, a sub-agency of the Department of Energy, reports that, at this moment, the US has 29.9 billion barrels of oil. In other words, the US actually possesses more oil than oil-exporting countries such as Mexico, Norway and the UK.[3]

Plus, there are vast, untapped oil fields and other energy sources inside the US:

Just off the coast of Louisiana, Chevron has found an oil field—the “Jack 2” well—with 15 billion barrels of oil.

The nonpartisan research firm RAND estimates that Colorado, Utah and Wyoming sit on a goldmine of oil-shale deposits, once thought to be too expensive to convert into petroleum. These states hold between 500 billion and 1.1 trillion recoverable barrels. As RAND’s James Bartis explained in 2005, “We’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East.”[4]

As The Economist has reported, drillers have discovered a billion barrels of oil in Sevier County, Utah, alone.

Plus, the so-called Greater Rocky Mountain Region holds between 165 trillion and 260 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which explains why geologists are calling this swath of the US, “the Persian Gulf of natural gas.” (Iran, by way of comparison, sits atop 26.7 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.)

In fact, when we add America’s existing proven reserves to the new finds along the Gulf and in the Big Sky states, the US possesses more oil than all the smug, petroleum-producing headaches of the world—combined. More than Saudi Arabia, more than Iran, more than the UAE, more than Venezuela, more than Russia.

We need to tap into our own oil, quit buying from these countries that hate us.