This ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) stuff is enough to drive one crazy. A sane person, that is. We have some oil here that, from worst case to best case, would provide the U.S. with a year to maybe two years of oil — and that’s only if the price of oil went so incredibly high that it made getting some of the oil out economically feasible. And it would take 10 years and untold billions before we saw a drop of that oil anyways! Our dependence on foreign oil would not be reduced by any appreciable margin for any appreciable time.
So let’s just drill the effing hell out of it anyway! At least that’s the Republican plan. And today’s vote in the Senate didn’t help matters any.
As I heard someone opine on MPR this evening, the Republicans operate from a “supply-side” mentality (just find more oil), while the Dems are preaching the demand side (let’s find ways to reduce our dependence). Do you think it’s because searching for more oil here would provide a temporary boost to the oil industry folks and the local economy (emphasis on temporary)? Or is that just too cynical?
What in the godd*mn hell is wrong with incenting businesses to produce more efficient cars and develop alternate energy sources (like fuel cell technology, wind power, solar power), incenting consumers to use these alternate sources (with tax breaks, subsidized costs, etc.), educating folks about how we’re killing ourselves slowly if we don’t do this, and penalizing the living sh*t out of anachronistic companies that refuse to work towards these goals? Does everything have to come to a crisis before people act? Maybe that’s a rhetorical question…
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