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.)
The Energy Challenge, Alan Dowd, Front Page Magazine, 6/27/2007
If a family acted the way the United States government has been pressed to act by environmentalists, what might the rules be?
1. Sorry, children, we can't live in the house we're paying $3,000 a month mortgage payments for. We're keeping it clean for our great-grandchildren.
2. Sorry, son, the book you wanted to read is locked in the safe to keep the pages from yellowing. I'll give you the combination on your 75th birthday.
3. Sorry, kids, you can't go to school because you'll wear a path in the front lawn.
4. Sorry, dearest, you can't wear your clothes because we'd have to buy new ones.
5. Sorry, everybody, no dinner tonight. We're freezing the barbecue and cole slaw for July 4th, 2023.
6. Sorry, everybody, I know it's 14 below zero, but we're not using the furnace until it's 75 below and at least three of you are frozen to death.
7. Nope, honey, you can't take your heart medication this month because I don't feel like going to the drugstore.
Sound silly? Read Alan Dowd's article. The US is swimming in energy resources, but we don't use them.
A long time ago, Yellowstone Park was barely accessible except to camping expeditions by the very wealthy. It was being "preserved," and preservationists like Teddy Roosevelt made no bones about restricting access. Now while you might not like campgrounds by Old Faithful, fact is that the park is still there, still beautiful, and has better protections for flora and fauna than it had when only the Carnegies and Rockefellers could go there. Why is this so? Yellowstone Park was never "natural." Like Central Park in New York, it was segregated from the wilds and carefully protected (not to mention rebuilt after the occasional earthquake.) And we do that better now than they did a century ago.
Wake up, America. The "environmental protection" that's preventing energy development may not be much different than the old restrictions on Yellowstone Park that limited access to one train per day. It's far better to fill your tank with American oil extracted from Wyoming shale than to send troops to Iran or to kowtow to a thug in the Kremlin.
Luther
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