Frankly Speaking

I'm sure everyone has heard by now that Bush made the largely symbolic move of lifting the executive ban on offshore drilling. Symbolic because congress still has to do something about its ban. This led me to again ponder what increasing domestic drilling would do for us.

First, let's hear from that voice of reason, the Speaker of the House:

“Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil. The Bush plan [to open more offshore oil drilling] is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence... If the President wants to bring down prices in the next two weeks, not the next two decades, he should free our oil by releasing a small portion of the more than 700 million barrels of oil we have put in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Okay, so according to Nancy, increasing domestic production won't help consumers at the pump at all. Obviously she doesn't understand supply and demand and the effect increased supply has on speculators, who are mostly responsible for the dramatic increase in the price of oil.

Maybe Nancy and those like her should have been thinking about this over the last 20 years. You know, every time Republicans tried to relax restrictions on oil companies so they could actually poke some holes in the ground and take advantage of all that sweet black gold our nation is floating on.

What affect would that have had on domestic prices? Well, right now in Saudi Arabia they are paying 45 cents a gallon for gasoline. I don't know about you, but if we increased production enough to bring gas down to $2 a gallon I would be thrilled to death. If it dropped back to $1 a gallon, where it was roughly a decade ago, I would do a little dance. And record it. Maybe even post it on Youtube for all the world to see.

Labels: conservatism, inconvenient truth, presidential politics, rise and fall of American culture