Forty years ago, the Saudi Oil Ministry informed the Secretary of Defense that it would no longer supply fuel to the U.S. 6th Fleet. The OPEC oil embargo had begun. For the next five years, the U.S. made serious efforts to escape monopoly dependence on oil. Then, with the decline in oil prices, we fell asleep. Even when prices began to rise to the stratosphere in 2004, America kept on snoozing. Whenever voices from the military, who bear the heaviest burden, urge us to end oils stranglehold on our transportation system, the oil cartel and industry concoct a new theory to put us to back to sleep. This time, the sedative is the promise that huge, exciting, Saudi-sized oil production in the U.S. will achieve energy independence. Increased U.S. oil production, combined with more efficient autos pouring into the marketplace powered by the Obama fuel-efficiency regulations and a revived U.S. auto industry, are indeed lowering the volume of oil that the U.S. imports. But world oil prices have risen so much that the dollars and jobs we export to pay for imported oil are greater than ever. Well add another $4 trillion to our national debt from importing oil over the next 20 years. As long as the United States uses almost 20 million barrels of oil each day, increasing our domestic production by fracking a million or two barrels a day -- which are the projections -- still leaves us importing more oil than we did when the first embargo hit, at a much higher price. And new U.S. oil costs more than $90 a barrel to find and produce, so it only comes to market if oil continues to be unaffordable.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:24:05 +0000
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