Letter to the editor:

Anti-drilling arguments ignore reality

William Mulholland, Las Vegas

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

An editorial in Friday’s Las Vegas Sun (“A new push for oil: Bush administration’s latest effort to open sensitive areas to drilling should be stopped”) is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Gas and oil prices are up, and rising on a daily basis. All costs for energy and all goods and services requiring energy must continue to rise. Consequently, consumer spending is down. The travel industry is taking a big hit. The bottom still has not been found in the housing market. The war on terrorism will continue with its associated astronomical costs, both financially and in human suffering.

The mess that has been created by our leaders in the ethanol-gasoline boondoggle is in the media constantly. Suffice it to say that the ethanol-gasoline boondoggle will increase the deaths of millions because of malnutrition and disease.

The industrialized world that has existed for the past 100 years has made energy producers in all of their forms, including oil and its byproducts, a necessity in modern and convenient societies. To pretend otherwise is not logical.

And it is a buyer’s market in the global economy. Prices for energy will continue to be bid upward by booming economies in India, China and other nations. We absolutely cannot get ourselves out of this mess with conservation and/or energy alternatives alone.

However, increased domestic production, in both drilling and refining, brought on line quickly (actually this should have been done at least 20 years ago) will have many benefits. Absolutely, it will be a psychological boost that we all need. Our full-fledged commitment to this must reduce prices. A balanced energy policy encompassing all alternatives is simply logical.

It seems America and our leaders have, over time, constantly made mistakes simply by not looking forward. This is the time to ask: Where do we want to be 10 or 20 years from now? And then make intelligent policy decisions based on that profile!

Ask yourselves: What good are clean air, pristine coasts, a burgeoning polar bear population, etc., to those who absolutely will die as a result of the high costs of draconian environmental rules and regulations?

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By Teaser

5/28/08 at 10:10 a.m.

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And I'm tired of your type of argument. Fine, so we need to drill. BUT . . . just exactly when WILL people ALSO start to genuinely, actively seek additional, alternative forms of energy so that we do not need to have a repeat of this scenario? All I hear from the "drill Alaska" proponents is "drill Alaska." Why are you not also advocating that we take extreme additional measures so that maybe, just maybe, we can also try to salvage some of the rest of the planet before it's all spoiled?
By JohnF

5/28/08 at 11:23 a.m.

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We DON'T need to drill Alaska. There is no shortage of oil. Have you seen any gas stations running out? Is Wal Mart out of 10W - 40?

THE SPIKE IN PRICES IS BEING DRIVEN BY DEMAND. Why should OPEC sell a barrel of oil for $65 when we keep showing them we will gladly pay twice that amount? For that matter, if we allow Exxon to drill Alaska, why would they ever charge $65 for that barrel of oil when they know full well they can get $130? We all gripe about the price, but we never do anything to conserve. If we raised CAFE standards to 30 mpg we would save far more oil than Alaska would ever provide. Wake up!
By NVMakz

5/28/08 at 1:51 p.m.

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Demand drives the prices higher around the world, while choking available supplies of oil / nat. gas products BY US is simply constipating the economy, inflaming our politics and making America's enemies fat, rich and happy to stick it to us.

I disagree with the rest of "JohnF's" rest of the second paragraph. As we've gone 'round about before.

The committment to explore, drill, produce and refine WILL break the backs of those who we RELY upon to serve our oil up for us financially, politically and emotionally. Not taking action to make our own solutions - and depending on America's enemies to serve us as we please - is simply a loser of a solution.

NOT effecting a supply-side upstroke will keep us in our current situation or much worse.

Conservation will do nothing for us, as the excess we do not use will simply be sent to China, India and Asia = some of the most polluting, dirtiest places on the planet.

America has never "conserved" our way out of any product or service, let alone the fuel which runs our society.

Higher CAFE standards will, as they have in the past, result in lighter, weaker and less safe vehicles == more and more highway and traffic deaths. I'd read, a year or so ago, the rise in highway deaths from smaller, weaker vehicles in regards to this.

"JohnF"?? I'll have to look up the 30mpg/Alaska thing. But once again, it's only a conservation answer, which is less than half of the solution to this issue.
By JohnF

5/28/08 at 2:45 p.m.

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NVMakz,

You forget one thing; we don't have enough oil under American soil to serve our needs for any great stretch of time. Further, even if we did, the oil companies are not going to sell it to us for anything less than the going rate, and that going rate is determined by worldwide demand.

Oil conservation is only a start. As long as worldwide consumption rates continue to progress exponentially any supply-side fix to the oil problem will buy us only a few years at best. We need to develop alternatives to oil. That's the only way to be free of the Saudis and the Venezuelans.

Perhaps we may never be 100% free of oil. But doesn't it make sense to use as little of it as possible? That means not only finding alternatives, but making the things we have to use oil for as efficient as possible. That's how conservation will help.
By NVMakz

5/28/08 at 10:53 p.m.

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Pete and repeat, I see? I don't forget anything! Learn about supply, as well as demand. Conservation does little to nothing to effect prices due to the growth of the most dirty, polluted and primitive nations on the planet soaking up any excesses these days. A lot of them don't like "us' as well.....

"We" have a hundred + years, all in = as alternatives are developed and brought on-line.

Your side chokes current financial and economic might to pay for developing alternatives. It weakens and shrivels......

Hammer the supply side huge, and the balance will soon return to "our" side. It WILL break our dependance, it WILL lower world prices and it WILL crack those who want us dead.

What you wrote, I've seen parroted many times before. And, it's just as small and short-sighted as its ever been. It serves our enemies purposes, though!

Although, I am ALL on your side re: fuel alternatives. It serves no one but the internally corrosive Am-lib and America's global enemies to choke off our economy, our economics, our livelihoods and our national security.