As we continue our soporific acceptance of the greatest heist

America's energy crunch is sadly, self-inflicted. We need oil and gas. It's the lifeblood of our economy. And fortunately we have lots of it. But because of Congress' unwillingness to go after it, we're leaving billions of barrels untapped, driving up prices and causing untold economic hardship. This madness must end.

Keep these facts in mind while reading the rest of this paper: The U.S. has a population of 290 million people, which is 2.5 percent of the world's total population, consumes 25 percent of the world's daily oil production, has 2.5 percent of the world's known oil reserves and has 85 percent of its natural resources off limits for exploration. At what price does a barrel of oil or a gallon of gasoline have to cost before the US Congress develops an energy plan that will let oil companies find and produce oil in America?

The western Gulf of Mexico represents the only United States waters where oil companies are allowed to drill. This is madness.

While demand for oil has grown, our domestic oil production has fallen into a sorry state. For years it was cheaper just to buy the oil from overseas than to pump it here. Now, we're paying — better than $4 a gallon — for that shortsightedness.

Annual U.S. oil production hit an all-time high in 1970 at 3.9 billion barrels (a barrel of oil is 42 U.S. gallons). Production has declined steadily since 1985 when the nation's oil fields produced 3.3 billion barrels. In 2007, domestic oil production was 1.9 billion barrels, down 43 percent from that peak. In 1985 we imported 1.3 billion barrels of oil; in 2007, 3.7 billion barrels — nearly three times as much.

David O'Reilly, the chairman and chief executive of Chevron, spoke about why the U.S. Congress should allow more access to offshore drilling in the United States;

"...It is a good thing. The president is going in the right direction here. But I would have gone even further and lifted the moratorium with a presidential order. But you also have to remember that the lag time between exploration and first production is still in the range of 8 to 10 years. Still, it would send a very strong message to the world that U.S. energy policy is shifting and is going toward a little more supply...."

Over the next 20 years, 90 percent of new hydrocarbon supplies will come from countries that provide privileged access to national oil companies. Thus, oil prices can only go up.

Non-OPEC output is also slumping due to steep declines in key production areas like Mexico's Cantarell Field and the North Sea. Aging fields, high taxes, gasoline subsidization, a lack of private ownership, and other misguided policies are also decreasing output. It is the awareness of the negative production trends and the exploding demand for oil that is driving investors to put their money into oil futures.

Even corrected for speculation, high oil prices adequately reflect current and future supply and demand of petroleum if access to oil remains restricted by governments, including in the United States and in the Middle East.

The environmentalist fringe believes that "the Senate bill that would cap greenhouse-gas emissions would by itself cut oil demand enough to enable the US to forgo further ocean drilling". Yes by making gasoline so expensive that no one will be able to afford to travel anywhere. How mendacious is this proposal?

In a recent demonstration of a complete lack of understanding of how the marketplace for oil operates, nationally and globally, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) recently said, “You cannot drill your way out of this.” What idiocy is this? Exploring for and drilling for domestic oil is precisely the way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil! Oil doesn't come into the refinery by itself, someone has to invest large amounts of risk capital to explore and drill for it. The Obama argument that gas prices will be only affected a few cents by new OCS offshore drilling requires us to believe the law of supply and demand has been repealed, and that increasing supply will not lower the price.

The biggest roadblock on the way to more U.S.-produced oil is the Democratic majority in the Congress and its fellow travelers. Oil-rich rulers, from King Abdullah I of Saudi Arabia, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hugo Chavez are probably opening champagne.

Obama the candidate of "change" shamelessly endorsed the most abysmally stupid of our energy policies and adheres rigidly to the no-drilling status quo. The Democrat's line is; "New Drilling Wouldn't Cut Prices. It would be years before production hits the market—and Big Oil would have to spend heavily. Even then, prices may not drop".

Yes if you haven't taxed big oil out of existence to pay for pork projects like windmills that only work at odd times, and the oil companies still had some money to invest in exploration. It takes time to drill and find oil and gas and build the infrastructure to bring new fields into production. But if you don't plant the seed, you don't reap the harvest. Its probably no surprise there are very few Democrat farmers. They would sit on the porch and say, "why would I plant seeds when it take so long to grow the crop?

The mere threat of US domestic supply competition will cause Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut their prices.

The U.S. Congress should take notice. Economics do work. Not just cutting demand, but robustly increasing supply of transportation fuels will get us out of the current oil crisis.

"....Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) deliberately sought to mislead Americans into believing that the oil leases held by U.S. oil companies mean that they could drill tomorrow to produce oil, but neglected to mention that oil leases are no guarantee that any oil would be found. A high percentage of wells that are drilled come up empty. It is a highly speculative and highly expensive business to find and extract oil.

This brings us to the fact that a vast matrix of environmental legislation slows the process by which oil can be accessed and, later, refined for use by consumers. The U.S. has not allowed a new refinery to be built in more than three decades as a result of this legislation. It takes, on the average, ten years between finding oil and making it available to consumers.

Voters paying $4 a gallon can thank the Democrat Party’s alliance with environmental organizations for the failure and refusal to allow access to our national reserves of oil and natural gas. Lying about it and shifting blame to the oil companies does not change this fundamental truth. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3562

WASHINGTON, DC, June 12 -- US Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Pa.) tried and failed again to have the oil and gas leasing moratorium affecting most of the US Outer Continental Shelf lifted.

"While the American people continue to endure pain at the pump, begging Washington for relief, Democrats on the subcommittee voted to keep the status quo and continue with 27 years of failed policy that restricts domestic production of oil and natural gas offshore," Peterson said following the vote.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that 430 million to 2.96 billion barrels of oil and 5.4 trillion to 27.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie off the mid-Atlantic coast from the Delaware-New Jersey state line to the North Carolina-South Carolina state line alone. We think the potential reserves are much larger.

Each of Blake Ridge and Bering Sea Abyssal properties are estimated to contain 100 trillion cubic ft of recoverable free gas, which is 18 billion barrels of oil equivalent. This is similar to the total amount of hydrocarbons the MMS estimates for the entire US continental shelf (OCS), currently under the most bizarre moratorium.

"...As the only developed nation in the world that restricts access to its offshore resources, the first element of a conservative energy agenda must be to lift the Presidential and Congressional moratoria on deepwater outer-continental shelf (OCS) energy exploration and production. Currently, 97% of America’s 2 billion acres of OCS are not being used for their energy potential, even though the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates that the outer continental shelf contains nearly 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas." http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26833 . That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years. The real economic oil and gas reserves are liable to be much higher, perhaps as much as 300 billion barrels OEL. Check this out; Raining hydrocarbons

"....Gasoline prices are shooting up faster than the gas station guys can scurry up the ladders to change the big numbers on the big signs...... Those soaring gas prices are being matched by soaring prices for all goods and services that at some point involve the use of petroleum, which is to say: Everything" http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/366518_schramonline11.html

Back in 1995, when President Clinton vetoed legislation to permit drilling in ANWR, environmentalists argued that it would do no good for Washington to permit drilling in the Alaskan refuge because Americans wouldn't see any oil for 10 years. Who doesn't want that oil now? "Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels," Bush said of the Democrats recently, "I ask them to reconsider their positions." Americans may have been willing to live in oil la-la land and oppose new drilling offshore or in Alaska when they thought a moratorium wouldn't cost them. Now they know better.

Rayola Dougher, an economic analyst for the American Petroleum Institute, estimated that there are 1 million to 2 million barrels of oil per day that could be drilled in now-restricted coastal areas - that's "that's 10-20 percent of what we're importing." That oil could be on the market in as soon as five years. Add natural gas from our Blake Ridge and Bering Sea Claim and America could be importing a lot less oil than today five years from now.

A very large part of the current energy crisis is greedy bureaucracy-government made. OPEC is holding back supplies on the production side, while Governments around the world have been increasing usurious hidden taxes on energy supplies at every step of the production chain, from overcharging billions of dollars for mere exploration tenements rights, to usurious gas taxes at the pump. For example;

By taking monies off oil companies from the exploration rights stage, all the way through transport and refineries to the gas pump, governments have artificially forced up the price of supplies to consumers and significantly reduced the percentage of income available for companies to spend on exploration and development, hence there is less development and lower supplies to the market, thus much higher prices.

Probably 75% - 85% of the retail price of oil and gas products today is government bureaucracy devised looting of the consumer's pocketbook, mostly by stealth.

Consumers are only now beginning to wake up to the way bureaucracies have been increasingly pillaging from taxpayer's pocketbook via hidden energy imposts. Bringing the effective average wage earner's tax rate up 50% above the published rates.

For the foreseeable future, electoral tolerance for politicians who propose to mount more punitive taxes atop the soaring oil price, will be hovering near zero. The US Democrats carbon cap and trade tax would add probably another $1-$2 to the already high price of gasoline. But the Democrats would have all that lovely new taxpayer's money to spend on their favorite "pork projects".

Raising taxes on energy producers. This is where a basic understanding of economics would help: Higher taxes and needless regulation lead to less production of a commodity. So by proposing "windfall" and other taxes on energy companies plus tough new rules, Congress makes our energy situation worse.

What, unfortunately, is not illegal is Congress' ability to gouge motorists and natural gas and heating oil consumers by preventing us from extracting more of our own oil and gas.

State government regulations require refineries to produce more than a dozen different types of gasoline for various regions of the country - raising costs and meaning that a shortage in one area cannot be compensated for by shipping gas from another state. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 require refineries to produce "Reformulated Gasoline" that contains either Ethanol or the carcinogenic* MTBE. These regulations forced the refining industry to spend more than $44 billion between 1989 and 1998 to comply with congress. Thousands of other crushing regulations on the production, refining, transportation, and storage of oil and gas impose tremendous burdens and increase the cost of fuel.

These same politicians who have deliberately caused the high fuel prices now look you straight in the eye and say that they feel your pain and are going to help. They believe you're stupid enough to not realize that they have caused the high oil prices, or will be placated by the looting of the oil companies' profits. They intend to distract you by blaming the oil companies and pointing to the high salaries of their CEOs, while they continue to pick your pocket with fuel taxes and do nothing to solve the problem.

"....the country has had a previous bad experience with "windfall profits taxes" on oil companies. In 1980, as a parting gift, President Jimmy Carter and Congressional Democrats imposed just such a tax. How did it work out? Not so well. In 2005, the Tax Foundation looked at the issue and pointed out that the Congressional Research Service...

Great idea, huh? But it gets even worse. In 2005 Congressional testimony, ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva cited the same CRS study as finding...

fewer profits means less investment in future development, more foreign oil imports, etc.

So not only does a "windfall profits tax" boost prices now, it reduces investment in oil exploration helping to keep prices high in the future. Let's call that a "lose-lose" for American motorists.

And by the way, just how much in taxes has Big Oil paid? Back in 2005, the Tax Foundation reported...

Meanwhile Congressman John Peterson (R-Penn.) is making a much more helpful proposal for eventually lowering gasoline prices-drop the Congressional moratorium on oil and gas exploration on the outer continental shelf (OCS). The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that the OCS contains nearly 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Note that the U.S. consumes roughly 7.5 billion barrels of oil and 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually."

why isn't Congress going after all of the people with wood burning stoves? Those tax dollars are going up in smoke, and here were are complaining about oil.

Producers are struggling to pump as much as they can to quench the thirst not only of the developed world, but fast-growing developing nations like China and India, the two most populous countries. To many experts, the steadily rising price underscored longer-term fears about the future of a system that has supplied cheap oil for more than a century.

“This is the market signaling there is a problem,” said Jan Stuart, global oil economist at UBS, “that there is a growing difficulty to meet demand with new supplies.”

Today’s tensions are only likely to get worse in coming years. Consider a few numbers: The planet’s population is expected to grow by 50 percent to nine billion by sometime in the middle of the century. The number of cars and trucks is projected to double in 30 years— to more than two billion — as developing nations rapidly modernize. And twice as many passenger jetliners, more than 36,000, will in all likelihood be crisscrossing the skies in 20 years.

All of that will require a lot more oil — enough that global oil consumption will jump by some 35 percent by the year 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, a leading global energy forecaster for the United States and other developed nations. For producers it will mean somehow finding and pumping an additional 11 billion barrels of oil every year.

And that’s only 22 years away, a heartbeat for the petroleum industry, where the pace of finding and tapping new supplies is measured in decades.

The pursuit of oil will be just part of the energy challenge. The world’s total energy demand — including oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear power, as well as renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydro power — is set to rise by 65 percent over the next two decades, according to the I.E.A.

China has now surpassed both Germany and Japan to become the second-largest car market in the world, and is set to overtake the United States by around 2015. China could have as many as 300 million vehicles by 2030.

William Chandler, an energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, estimates that if the Chinese were using energy like Americans, global energy use would double overnight and five more Saudi Arabias would be needed just to meet oil demand. India isn’t far behind. By 2030, the two counties will import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.

But petroleum, the dominant fuel of the 20th century, will remain the top energy source. It accounts for more than a third of the world’s total energy needs, ahead of coal and natural gas. Refined into gasoline, kerosene or diesel fuel, oil has no viable substitute as a transportation fuel, and that is not likely to change much in the next 30 years.

The chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, said recently, with some understatement, that, “the energy outlook does not look rosy.”

For one thing, the world’s oil supplies are already stretched. Countries outside of the OPEC cartel — which have been the main source of new oil discoveries and production since the 1970s — have said they expect little to no growth this year in oil production.

The North Sea and Alaska are slowly running out of oil and producers there are struggling to keep production from falling. Russia’s phenomenal oil surge is coming to an end; a top executive of Lukoil, the country’s second-largest oil group, said last week that the country’s production was unlikely to grow much. Nigeria is battling a violent militancy. And Mexico, the third-most-important supplier of crude to the United States, has been stuck in a crippling political debate over keeping out foreign investors while witnessing a dramatic drop in production that some analysts say may be irreversible.

What about OPEC? The 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries account for three-quarters of the world’s proven oil reserves. But for various reasons, most of those countries are making it harder, if not impossible, for foreign oil companies to invest within their borders. With energy prices rising, OPEC producers are seeing record revenues, which have reduced the incentive to dip into their supplies by boosting production.

Facing higher costs, those companies are also having greater difficulty locating new oil deposits. Despite spending over $100 billion on exploration last year, the five largest international oil companies found less oil last year than they pumped out of the ground. The big oil companies have been in a global dash to find and pump more oil. But it takes time, sometimes a decade, before the first barrels from a newly discovered oil field are pumped and sold.

At the same time, major oil companies like Exxon Mobil, BP and Chevron are finding it harder to compete worldwide, as national oil companies erode their once-dominant positions. Fourteen of the world’s Top 20 oil companies are state-owned giants, like Saudi Aramco and Russia’s Gazprom. That leaves Western oil companies in control of less than 10 percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves.

the United States has some of the lowest gasoline prices in the world, the least fuel-efficient cars on the roads, the lowest energy taxes, and the longest daily commutes of any industrialized nation. The result: about a quarter of the world’s oil goes to the United States every day, and of that, more than half goes to its cars and trucks. Rising prices and fears about the security of future supplies finally persuaded Congress last year to approve the first increase in fuel efficiency standards in 30 years, raising the average fleet-wide standards by 40 percent to 35 miles a gallon by 2020. The push, which was resisted by American carmakers for years, is underwhelming.

As we continue our soporific acceptance of the greatest heist, and transfer of wealth in human history ($700 billion per year) from US energy consumers to the the Organization of Petroleum Exportng Countries (OPEC).

The growing risks to our national security given the nature of the regimes benefiting by this transfer of wealth, the crippling impact on our currency (by the way since beginning 2007 the price of oil has advanced more than 110% whereas the dollar has depreciated less than 30%. Correlation?), on our balance of payments, on the steadily engulfing stagflation and the toll of our economic well being.

For the long suffering sheep-like EU consumers who happily pay $8 a gallon, most of it to their bloated EU governments via absurd 70% fuel taxes.

"The North Sea and Alaska are slowly running out of oil and producers there are struggling to keep production from falling. Russia's phenomenal surge is coming to an end".

John Hess, chief executive of the Hess Corporation, the international oil company, who warned at a recent energy conference that an oil crisis was looming if the world didn't deal with runaway demand and strained supplies.

USA ENERGY; our own in-house Congressional sabotage of the country's energy security.

The offshore drilling moratorium is needlessly locking up vast oil and gas reserves, forcing American consumers to buy overseas oil and gas, much of it from despots like Chavez, et-al, at usurious prices.

Many believe that in the US, the Democrats and overzealous environmental groups are the reason we have high prices at the pumps, and we’re not going to be able to alleviate that until we start producing again in America.

Oil is trading at record levels, in excess of $120 a barrel. Leading Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) both told the Business & Media Institute (BMI) energy prices would drastically increase if the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) is signed into law. The cap-and-trade legislation that’s been voted out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works Committee will be on the floor and according to the Environmental Protection Agency it will increase gas prices by $1.50. The National Association of Manufacturers says it will increase it as much as $5 per gallon.”

“...... 10 years ago, when President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to drill in ANWR. I said on the Senate floor that day 10 years ago that in 10 years we would regret this. It’s now 10 years later.” said Inhofe.

Thanks to the Warner-Lieberman bill's ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets and the lack of low-carbon energy sources in the short term, the U.S. can anticipate a massive switch from coal to natural gas by the power industry. Senate debate on the bill started Monday, and calls for 2005-level carbon emissions starting in 2012.

Switching from coal to natural gas will drive up both the demand and the price of natural gas (the only low-carbon alternative) to unprecedented levels, which will in turn further erode the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Limited natural gas supply capacity will pit power-sector purchases in direct competition with demand from the residential, commercial, farm and manufacturing sectors. There is nothing in the bill that will stop a potential national crisis, one that is already underway in anticipation of these carbon constraints.

Simply setting a cap on carbon emissions does nothing to remove the barriers to greater natural gas supply. The lack of low-carbon energy alternatives for power generation (at least until new nuclear and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture to reduce emissions become more commonplace) means that natural gas is the default low-carbon energy option. In fact, none of the potential low-carbon energy alternatives will be available by 2012 except natural gas, the year the bill first imposes these stringent limits.

Energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy will be helpful, but those options will not prevent the crisis that will ensue when companies are forced to decrease their emissions.

Because natural-gas-fired power generation is setting the marginal price for electricity in a growing portion of the country, as natural gas prices go up, so will the price of electricity. Homeowners, farmers and manufacturers could pay exorbitant prices, multiples higher than government forecasts.

It will make little difference, though, to most electric utilities if the price of natural gas goes up. Most state public-service commissions readily approve an automatic pass-through for energy costs to the rate payer. That means utility companies won't be adversely affected--but residential, commercial and industrial consumers will.

Most U.S. manufacturers compete on a global basis, and will thus be acutely affected by further increases in natural gas prices. Natural gas prices are about 50% higher than a year ago. These elevated prices have already contributed to the loss of 3.3 million manufacturing jobs; that's 19.2% of all manufacturing jobs since 2000.

The bill actually provides financial incentives for an electric utility to switch from coal to natural gas. If a power generator does make the switch, it could avoid having to purchase carbon allowances, or it could make a profit by selling the carbon reduction to other companies.

These perverse incentives will significantly increase electric power production from existing natural gas power plants that are currently only being used for peaking power.

None of this would be a problem if we had plenty of natural gas production capacity, but U.S. production of the commodity is fragile, despite record well completions. According to Energy Information Administration data, U.S. dry production from 2000 to 2007 is flat, while total demand rose 9.8%. It's surprising but true: Today's domestic natural gas production isn't much different now than it was in the 1970s.

The lack of globally competitive natural gas prices is already causing our country to import larger quantities of our products and displace domestic production. Products like chemicals, plastics, fertilizer, steel, aluminum and paper can be made here--and open up well-paid jobs to workers in those industries--or we can continue to increase our import dependency on other countries. Imports from 2003 to 2007 rose a staggering 78.3%, according to an analysis of 16 U.S. Census Bureau industry product categories.

In the end, the Warner-Lieberman bill could mark the final demise of the energy-intensive manufacturing industries that rely upon globally competitive energy to survive.

That is unfortunate, because these are the same industries that provide the enabling product solutions our country will need to meet the climate challenge in the long term: fiberglass insulation, lightweight materials for vehicles, plastic composites for wind turbines, silica for solar panels, fertilizer to expand crop supply and double-pane windows. Demand for these products will continue to increase; it's only a question of whether they will be produced domestically or imported.

Because the emission-reduction timetable of the bill does not coincide with alternative low-carbon options for the power sector, natural gas and electricity prices will rise substantially above government forecasts and emission-reduction targets may be achieved at the expense of manufacturers who will send their jobs offshore--along with their carbon emissions--to be another country's problem.

Note: Investors should short coal mining companies as coal miners will be the hardest hit as climate policy reduces our use of coal. Their employees and stockholders will also be unlikely to vote Democrat in the future.

The United States' largest public policy women's organization is urging citizens to contact their senators and urge them to reject the ratification of the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, which they believe would result in a serious loss of American sovereignty.

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, says thanks to pressure from high-ranking U.S. Navy officials, the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) could come to a vote in the Senate at any time. She believes if LOST is ratified, the U.S. would give up its sovereignty to un-elected international officials.

"These international bodies like the U.N. are made up of representatives of dictatorships and tyrannies, and they far outnumber the United States," she warns. "And so if it comes down to just a pure vote, the U.S. is most likely to lose out." She says the treaty, if ratified, would give those international bodies the right to tax Americans. And that concept, says Wright, would essentially result in taxation without representation -- something she is convinced Americans would not tolerate.

Wright says the Navy appears to be buying into the idea of "lawfare" over warfare. She argues that the Navy appears to want to resolve conflicts "through the law or through these international bodies" rather than asserting U.S. sovereignty and trusting "the strength of our own military."

The conservative leader is calling for concerned citizens to not only contact their senators and urge them to vote against the Law of the Sea Treaty, but contact their House members and encourage them to sign an open letter to the U.S. Senate urging senators to vote against ratification.

Signing on to LOST would transfer another $500 billion a year in new offshore oil and gas taxes from American consumers, directly to the UN International Seabed Authority (ISA) who plans to regulate and tax to the hilt, any deep sea oil and gas production, as well as go into the resources business in its own right. Substantial oil and gas resources are located in international waters adjacent to Alaska in the high Arctic Ocean Commons, (See; www.unoilgas.com ), in the Bering Sea Abyssal and elsewhere.

According to the Department of the Interior (DOI), huge onshore deposits of energy can be found on federal lands. Yet much of this energy is either explicitly off-limits or hampered by regulatory constraints that effectively make it so. Part of the solution to high oil and natural gas prices lies right under our feet, but Congress won't change the laws that keep this domestic energy locked up.

Federal lands are critical to the energy policy debate because most of America's onshore energy is located in the West and in Alaska, where more than half the land is under federal control. Such lands, DOI estimates, "contain 31 billion barrels of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas." Thirty-one billion barrels of oil represents 50 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to supply all of America's households for 46 years.

However, "just 8 percent of onshore Federal oil and 10 percent of onshore Federal gas are accessible under standards lease terms," DOI notes. The rest is either restricted outright or subject to considerable amounts of red tape. Among the former: Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lies beneath a few thousand acres at the edge of this nearly 20 million acre refuge.

Granted, few Americans want unrestricted oil and natural gas wells in our treasured National Parks or other areas of scenic, environmental or historical significance. However, the drilling restrictions on federal land far surpass such reasonable limits. This is especially true given the advances in drilling technology that have dramatically reduced both the above-ground environmental footprint and the risk of spills.

Even more energy lies offshore. Some 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are beneath America's waters, DOI says. Of those amounts, 19.1 billion barrels of oil and 83.9 trillion cubic feet of gas lie in federally-controlled territorial waters that are completely off-limits to leasing and development.

The actual volumes of onshore and offshore energy could be far greater - DOI's initial energy estimates tend to be low. This is especially true of the off-limits areas, which haven't been thoroughly explored.

Many anti-energy activists and politicians insist that America's untapped oil and gas reserves are merely a "drop in the bucket" and therefore not worth the bother. But these DOI estimates put the lie to this claim. As Congress once again addresses energy issues, it shouldn't ignore the significant amount of energy right here in America. It's time to make this energy available to the American people.

Look to Montana

The Bakken formation in eastern Montana and western North Dakota has been a minor producer of crude oil for more than a half century. But with the arrival of technologies such as improved horizontal drilling, it could be transformed from an inconsequential dud into perhaps the largest oil field on the planet.

...it is reasonable to assume that horizontal drilling and water-fractionation recovery techniques will continue to advance in the years ahead, making even more of Bakken's crude oil recoverable. Another 10-20 fold upgrade of Bakken's potential would make it a peer of Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field, currently the world's largest.

Long ignored, the Bakken formation is now the hottest development in US domestic oil exploration. Will it be the next Saudi Arabia? That remains hard to say. But it would take a tremendous oil price crash to prevent Bakken from being a significant development

We've been drilling out there for 70 years," said Schweitzer of the [Bakken] area. "People there like new oil production. In fact, the city of Sydney [the county seat] wants to build a refinery. Where else in America do you have a community that says, 'we want to build a refinery in our backyard?' "

Contemplate this the next time you spend $60 or more filling up your tiny little car with gasoline made from imported oil: The U.S. government knows where it can get its hands on more untapped petroleum than exists in the proven reserves of Iran or Iraq, which have 136 billion barrels and 115 billion barrels, respectively.

This unexploited stock of crude is greater than what the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports is in the proven reserves of Russia (60 billion), Libya (41.5 billion) and Nigeria (36.2 billion) combined.

It is more than is now known to sit beneath the waters and sands of Kuwait (101.5 billion barrels) or the United Arab Emirates (97.6 billion).

What cartel is holding it off the market, to drive up prices at American gas stations and American supermarkets? What insidious power is stifling the free market for this vital commodity and thus threatening the vitality of our economy?

It is us, of course. We are the culprits. We are responsible for artificially increasing oil prices. It is our oil that sits untapped beneath our deserts, our forests, our swamps and our oceans. It is our politicians - the ones we freely elected and re-elected - who are not allowing our oil to be drilled by us and sold to us.

In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, requiring the Department of Interior to inventory the oil resources that could be found onshore and offshore in U.S. territory. In February 2006, Interior's Minerals Management Service, or MMS, published the report on offshore oil resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. It determined there were 85.9 billion barrels of "undiscovered technically recoverable" oil sitting off our beaches.

Just this offshore portion of our undiscovered oil is more than all the proven oil in Venezuela, and more than all the proven oil in Russia, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain combined.

What does the government mean when it says this oil is "undiscovered technically recoverable" oil? It means that we can go get it with off-the-shelf technology but that the government makes no judgment about the profitability of doing so. This oil, the government says, is "in undiscovered accumulations analogous to those in existing fields producible with current recovery technology and efficiency, but without any consideration of economic viability."

Last month, with almost no media attention, the Bureau of Land Management released the report estimating the other part of America's undiscovered oil riches, the onshore resources. This added 53 billion barrels to the national petroleum pot.

"The nation's undiscovered oil resources total about 139 Bbbls," or billion barrels, says the report. "Of that total, the MMS estimates that 86 Bbbls are offshore under the OCS, comprising 62 percent of the nation's resources. State waters and nonfederal onshore resources are the second-largest potential source of production (21 percent), followed by Federal onshore oil resources (17 percent)."

Yet, so long as Congress and the president retain the federal moratoriums that forbid most offshore drilling, the 85.9 billion barrels of crude offshore won't be tapped.

The May BLM report explains why most onshore oil won't be tapped, either. Of the 279 million acres of federal land "with potential for oil or natural gas resources," 60 percent is off limits to leases as a matter of federal statute or administrative policy. An additional 23 percent is open to leases with "restrictions." These include such things as "lands that can be leased but ground-disturbing oil and natural gas exploration and development activities are prohibited" and "lands that can be leased, but stipulations ... limit the time of the year when oil and gas exploration and drilling can take place to less than three months."

The remaining 17 percent of federal land is open to oil drilling on more or less the same environmental terms as private land.

"All oil and gas leases on federal lands, including those issued with only the standard lease terms, are subject to full compliance with all environmental laws and regulations," says the report. "These laws include, but are not limited to, the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and National Historic Preservation Act. While compliance with these laws may delay, modify or prohibit oil and gas activities, these laws represent the values and bounds Congress believes appropriate to manage federal lands."

Paint, computer and television screens, cellphones, light bulbs, cushions, paper, mattresses, car seats, carpets, steering wheels and polyesters are all made with ingredients that chemical companies refine from oil and natural gas. Goodyear Tire & Rubber is trying to adapt. Its raw material of choice now is natural rubber rather than synthetic rubber, made from oil. Goodyear has raised prices of its tires by 15 percent in just four months.

Natural oils have been substituted for ingredients made from petroleum; for example, palm oil now goes into a variety of laundry soaps. But like rubber, the cost of palm oil and other natural commodities is rising.

There is going to be a large amount of wealth destroyed. Skyrocketing oil prices are changing everything, airlines may report combined losses of $6.1 billion this year, the worst since 2003. Airlines are also retrenching. More than a dozen have collapsed in the last six months. Continental Airlines Inc. said it would cut 3,000 jobs, slash capacity by 11% and remove 67 airplanes from its fleet because of soaring jet-fuel prices. The move followed similar moves to cut capacity by UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines.

Our whole economy reflects the relative costs of energy: the cars we drive, the houses we occupy, the kinds of factories we have and the equipment in them,'' says Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Dallas. ``I'm expecting relatively large changes in all of these things.''

``At $4 per gallon gas, $125 per barrel oil and $10 per million Btu natural gas, a lot of activity becomes uneconomical,'' says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

As gasoline prices climb, they eat up money that consumers might otherwise spend on appliances or movie tickets or vacations. That could force businesses, hit by weaker consumer demand and an increase in their own costs, to pare operations and cut more jobs in an already weak labor market.

Nationwide, home prices in neighborhoods with long commutes and no public transportation are falling faster than prices in communities closer to cities, according to a study by Joseph Cortright, an economist at Impresa Consulting. For example, his study found that prices in distant suburbs of Tampa fell 14 percent in the last 12 months, versus a 9 percent drop in areas nearer the city.

According to Chris Nelder's It Takes Two to Contango,"Global demand for oil is still greater than supply, and we believe that it will continue to remain so (with perhaps a few short periods of easing), so we think we'll be dancing the contango for a good long time to come-at least until global demand destruction sets in.

Ethanol is the nation's biggest "corndoggle." A flat out rural vote buying payoff to farmers in States with 3 times the presidential electoral college votes per voter. Consuming land needed for food and relying on a subsidy of $2 a gallon.

"...The best way to broaden our energy portfolio is through American ingenuity, not Washington bureaucracy."

"...We should be increasing our production of oil, natural gas, clean coal, and nuclear power — and those resources should come from America, instead of foreign dictatorships. Unfortunately, enacting this agenda won’t be easy. The Democratic Leadership in Congress is determined to “punish” energy companies with new taxes, even if the greatest victim of those taxes is the American consumer.

The Democratic presidential candidate — Senator Barack Obama — is eager to burden oil producers with a “windfall profits tax” — a euphemistic phrase that implies an undue or undeserved “profit.” As Alan Greenspan once said, “Whatever you tax, you get less of.” By raising taxes, and thereby, reducing the incentives to produce energy, the consequences of this policy are obvious: we will end up with a smaller supply of domestic energy. But don’t just take my word for it; take a look at history. In 1980, Congress passed a “windfall profits tax” and the consequences were devastating. In the six years following that levy, domestic oil production dropped by 1.26 billion barrels and imports of foreign oil rose 13 percent. The “windfall profits tax” was an unmitigated disaster, which is precisely why it was repealed. We shouldn’t make that same mistake again.

Instead of searching for scapegoats, we should be striving to create a bold, comprehensive plan for America’s energy security in the 21st century. Specifically, this will require overturning literally decades of Big-Government regulations that have prevented energy companies from tapping America’s bountiful natural resources. So many people in Washington have grown accustomed to the idea that we must either import oil from the Middle East or make an expensive transition toward homegrown fuels like corn-based ethanol. This is a false choice. One of the best kept secrets in politics today is that our country is one of the richest energy nations in the world, and is extremely capable of achieving energy independence — but only if we have the willpower to do it.

When investigating America’s assortment of energy problems, a common theme starts to emerge: the more you look around, the more you’ll find government taxes, regulations, and subsidies that distort the market, raise prices, and increase our dependence on dictators thousands of miles away.

Current federal law prevents oil and gas production in the deepwaters off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. These laws, which were first passed in 1981 when the price of oil was $35 per barrel, were a luxury at the time, but today, given America’s growing energy needs, they are indefensible. The fact is, these areas, along with another energy-rich section of the Gulf of Mexico, could contain as much as 115 billion barrels of oil — which is greater than Venezuela’s current reserves — and 565 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — which is greater than the combined reserves of Iraq, China, Yemen, Oman, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Federal laws also prevent us from exploiting one trillion barrels of shale oil in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah — an amazing amount that is three times what Saudi Arabia has on reserve. Our bill, the American Energy Production Act of 2008, would allow us to tap these resources with environmental safeguards.

As conservatives, we must unite to repeal one of the most misguided policies of the last decade — government mandates to increase the production of corn-based ethanol. These policies — which give incentives to farmers to divert their plantings from other crops to corn in order to produce ethanol — have been robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food.

In 2007, the oil industry’s profit margins were 7.6 percent of revenues, which is not much higher than the 5.8 percent profit margin for all U.S. manufacturing. In fact, if you exclude the financially troubled auto industry, the oil industry actually appears less profitable than most manufacturers, which are earning 9.2 cents on every dollar of sales. America’s energy problem isn’t oil company profits; it’s a changing global energy market — in which demand is surging while supply is remaining largely stagnant. As President Reagan might say, the simple solution is to increase the domestic energy supply to lower prices — precisely the opposite of what the Democrats are advocating.

This year, we will spend about $500 billion to import oil. All of those dollars should stay here in America, instead of being sent to corrupt regimes that are hostile to our interests. We need energy for Americans by Americans, and we need it now."

Kay Bailey Hutchison is the senior senator from Texas and the Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

Eight years ago, 15 percent of the price of an airplane ticket went to pay for jet fuel; now, it is 40 percent, according to the Air Transport Association, the industry trade group.

Each generation of aircraft is more efficient. Northwest's Airbus A330 long-range jets use 38 percent less fuel than the DC-10s they replaced, while the Airbus A319 medium-range planes are 27 percent more efficient than DC-9s.

U.S. Congresswoman Mary Fallin (OK-05) has announced her support and cosponsorship of three bills that would dramatically increase American energy production. Taken together, the legislation would open portions of both the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and gas production as well as repeal limitations on the development of American oil shale.

Fallin released the following statement:

"With gasoline approaching $4 a gallon, this Congress can no longer afford inaction. American families need a bold, far reaching energy policy addressing rising gasoline prices and our dependence on foreign oil.

"These three bills are the first step in that new policy. Ending these needless restrictions on our energy production can produce millions of barrels of oil each day. Experts tell us we have enough oil right here in the U.S. to power 60 million cars for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 120 years.

"Dramatically and proactively increasing our energy supply will boost our national security by lessening our unhealthy addiction to foreign oil. It will strengthen our economy by fighting rising gasoline prices and creating thousands of new jobs. Finally, it will help to ensure our long term energy security by providing a huge new source of funding for the research into and production of alternative energies."

€ HR6107: Opens limited portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production. Opening ANWR to energy production would yield a million barrels of oil a day. The bill also directs revenue from rents, bonus bids and royalties towards the research and development of alternative energies.

€ HR6108: Ends the moratorium on deep sea drilling. The Outer Continental Shelf is estimated to possess 8.5 billion barrels of oil and 29.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

€ HR 6138: Repeals bans on limitations to oil shale development. U.S. total oil shale resources are estimated at 2 trillion barrels.

A House panel voted 9 to 6 in a party-line vote against lifting the 27-year-old offshore drilling moratorium.

The amendment by Rep. John E. Peterson, R-Pa., would have opened drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast and off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina in now-protected areas 50 to 200 miles offshore.

Cramer was surprised to hear that Rep. John Peterson's proposal to extend offshore drilling from 50 miles to 200 miles off the coast was defeated. The bill has the potential to unlock 8.5 billion barrels of oil and 29 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, not including yet-undiscovered resources. With the country 67% dependent of foreign fuel, Representative Peterson thinks the U.S. can ill afford to resist such a bill, which would not interfere with the development of alternative energy. In addition, the U.S. no longer has a needed 8 to 10 million barrels stored for emergencies. Although the bill was defeated by the Subcommittee on the Interior and the Environment, it has another chance with the Appropriations Committee and the floor of the House. Cramer urged viewers to write their elected official in support of the bill.

According to the Energy Information Administration, solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour and wind energy by $23.37.

By contrast, natural gas gets a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59. Wind and solar, despite all their subsidies, contribute less than 1% of our total electricity generation.

Barack Obama wants to increase gas prices through a windfall profits tax that consumers will wind up paying and, as it did in the Carter era, decrease supply and increase our dependence on foreign oil.

In his latest gaffe, Obama told CNBC he didn't really object to $4 gas, just that it occurred too quickly. Obama said: "I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment."

Rather than a slower increase in gas prices, as Obama prefers, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., prefers a rapid increase in domestic oil supply.

He says he will push for an amendment to an upcoming spending bill that would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles offshore. Fifty miles is how far off the Florida coast China and Cuba are drilling for oil.

"Tapping America's huge reserve of deep-ocean energy helps us fight terrorism and increases our domestic energy supply, which will help put downward pressure on energy prices," says Greg Schnacke, president of the aptly named Americans for American Energy. "With Americans suffering at the gas pump and with higher energy bills, it's a no-brainer that the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) should be developed."

The Department of the Interior estimates that there are 112 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil beneath U.S. federal lands and coastal waters. That's enough oil to power 60 million cars for 60 years. That's not counting the trillion barrels locked up in shale rock — three times the total oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

WASHINGTON -- A congressional proponent of more oil drilling off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts promised to continue his fight yesterday, after being dealt yet another defeat.

A House panel voted 9 to 6 in a party-line vote against lifting the 27-year-old offshore drilling moratorium. The amendment by Rep. John E. Peterson, R-Pa., would have opened drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast and off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina in now-protected areas 50 to 200 miles offshore. His measure also would have opened the Pacific coast to oil drilling. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that 430 million to 2.96 billion barrels of oil and 5.4 trillion to 27.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie off the mid-Atlantic coast from the Delaware-New Jersey state line to the North Carolina-South Carolina state line. If the maximum estimates for mid-Atlantic field are correct, the area could have enough oil to supply U.S. needs for 144 days and enough natural gas to supply the country for just over 12 months.

Virginia manufacturers who use large amounts of natural gas have pushed the state to back the lifting of a federal moratorium on drilling in the Atlantic. The General Assembly passed a bill in 2006 endorsing federal efforts to assess the energy potential off Virginia's shore with a 50-mile buffer for natural-gas drilling only. A 1987 study (very old) by state and federal geologists ranked the potential for offshore Virginia oil and natural gas as "fair to poor." Peterson argues that opening up more offshore drilling would send energy markets a message that "vast amounts of our own oil and natural gas supply are now in play." He said that would dampen speculation in oil markets. Opponents argued before the vote by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies that much of the federal land already leased to oil and gas drillers is not being aggressively developed. Environmental issues have also been raised.

Contact reporter Billy House at bhouse@mediageneral.com or at (202) 662-7673

When Ronald Reagan accepted his party’s nomination in 1980, he said that America’s energy policy was based on the sharing of scarcity, and that our great nation had to get to work producing more energy.

“Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy, he said. “It must not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth which often finds friendly ears in regulatory agencies for its obstructionist campaigns.”

When Ronald Reagan spoke these words he was describing President Jimmy Carter’s disastrous policies that ransacked family budgets, cost jobs and robbed Americans of hope. They could just as easily be spoken today about the Bush Administration, the Congress, and the candidates vying to become president this election year. On the energy front, it seems, the classically successful principles of less government and more self-initiative been replaced by a myth of resource scarcity and helplessness. Government now, as then, has created a massive energy problem. And now, as then, it wants people to believe it also has the solution. Well, as Reagan put it, “government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.”

Ronald Reagan initially made some progress against energy suicide of the 1980’s by using the tools he had to reduce regulations and direct more energy development on taxpayer-owned federal lands. But the Congress struck back, and in 1982, added a rider to a spending bill that prohibited energy leasing on 85% of the outer continental shelf surrounding the lower 48 states.

For the twenty-six years since, Congress has voted each year, every year, to continue these bans and continue our dependency on foreign oil. And, to burnish his kinder, gentler credentials, President George H.W. Bush imposed his own moratorium in 1990, which President Clinton extended until 2012, and which President George W. Bush has yet to repeal, despite the looming promise of economic ruin for families caused by our energy supply imbalance. Today, America remains the only developed country in the world that shoots itself in the foot in such fashion.

Today, America only uses 3% of its offshore areas to produce energy, and only 6% of government lands onshore. The US now imports more oil than ever, produces less oil than it did before WWII, and is sending over half a trillion dollars a year to a lot of people who don’t like what our country stands for.

Ronald Reagan’s stand that our nation’s future “should not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth.” Is as true today as it was when he uttered it 28 years ago. That tiny minority has hidden their agenda behind the environment movement and thus grown to control our nation’s energy decisions made in Washington, and it shows in every American’s energy bill.

They say “we can’t drill our way to cheaper gasoline” to hide the fact that they won’t let anyone drill here in the US.

Free the American people to use their brains, technology and hard work to access the energy that government has put off limits.

Let’s actually make it economically attractive to produce energy at home. Legalize the coal, oil shale, oil sands, methane hydrates (a frozen natural gas that dwarfs all other energy resources on earth), uranium, hydropower and all of the exotic alternative energy potential we have, and get off the backs of all the people whose job it is to supply this country with the energy that provides us the capacity do work. Americans will respond and go to work putting America to work. We will produce energy…a lot more energy. The result will be enough of our own energy to keep the lights burning in the Shining City on a Hill for a long, long time.

At one time, General Motors was considered the pre-eminent US corporation, a giant among giants. Now, due in large part to its habit of making gas guzzlers and the lack of sales of such items, GM the world's largest auto maker has a stock market value of only about $7 billion. That compares with a market cap of about $56 billion in 2000, when the stock was at its all-time high of $94.62 a share. GM is now 1/66th the size of Exxon.

Drilling The Future

Energy: America's energy crunch is sadly self-inflicted. While others around the world engage in a mad dash to find more oil reserves, the U.S. seems to think $111-a-barrel oil won't be affected by more supply.

It's Domestic Energy, Stupid!

Energy: A leader in Congress sees a need for "obviously more production" from America's abundant energy reserves. Is Rahm Emanuel, head of the House Democratic Caucus, joining the "drill here, drill now" bandwagon?

The Gouge Party

Energy: America was saved Tuesday from a Democratic Congress determined to do more damage to our economy and raise oil prices still higher. Energy taxes and eco-extremism make Democrats the real oil gougers.

The Drill-Nothing Congress

Energy: The average price for regular gas hit $4 a gallon over the weekend. Gas prices have risen 75% since Nancy Pelosi took over. Where's the energy independence Democrats promised two years ago?

Crude Scapegoats

Energy: It's now a cliche: fat-cat oilmen control our destiny by holding back supplies, letting prices soar, then pocketing the profits. But if any fat cats are to blame for the energy crisis, it's those on Capitol Hill.

Crude Mistake

Energy: With the price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC's No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress.

Wood Mac report says climate bill makes gas uneconomic