A glimmer of hope By John Bender As those of you who read my essays regularly know, there has been plenty of blame on both sides of the political isle for our oil problem. Both liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats have kept our nation from being not just oil independent, but a major oil exporter. But that seems to be changing. George Bush has changed his position and is now in favor of drilling offshore. McCain now seems to be in favor of drilling offshore although, like Obama, he is still irrationally opposed to drilling in ANWR. But the big change seems to be coming in Congress. More and more congressmen are feeling the heat from an increasingly outraged public and getting serious about fixing our oil problem. The liberals still have the votes to keep us from becoming energy independent and to keep the cost of heating and cooling your home, driving your car, and buying anything including food, artificially high. Just last month our Democrat-led Senate Appropriations Committee voted to block environmentally sound development of oil shale in Colorado. The Democrat-led Congress, with the help of a few liberal Republicans, is still fighting every attempt to develop the vast oil and natural gas deposits we have offshore. On top of that, they are still making the totally bogus claim that “we can’t drill our way out of the problem.” Newt Gingrich is championing a program he calls “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.” Members of Congress are starting to come onboard as they feel the wrath of the little people back home. There are several bills either languishing in the bowels of Congress or almost ready to be introduced that will allow us to develop our vast supply of oil and natural gas. This trend will continue as the little people are economically squeezed more and more. The public is becoming outraged as more and more people find out that we have more oil than the whole Middle East, and the only reason we are being gouged on energy prices is because liberal politicians are refusing to let us tap that oil and gas. The Baken Oil Formation, that covers North Dakota as well as parts of South Dakota and Montana, alone, contains at least as much oil as there is in Saudi Arabia. Most geologists believe it contains much more oil than Saudi Arabia has. The Destin Dome has proven natural gas reserves that equal about a 20 year supply at our current rate of use and it is estimated that it contains more oil than there is in ANWR, but liberals blocked tapping those rich reserves and put them off limits to development. Americans are barred from tapping the oil and gas deposits within 150 miles of the Florida coast, so Red China is developing a huge oil field 60 miles off the Florida coast. The list goes on and on, but only now is the truth getting to the American people. And therein lies the glimmer of hope. An outraged public can get the politicians to do the right thing even when those politicians would rather not. Just look at what happened when the people got outraged about turning our ports over to foreigners and when the people got outraged over the liberals pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. We won! In both of those cases, the people were out front on the issues. Then talk radio jumped in front of the parade and really fanned the fires. Once the major talkers were onboard, the word spread fast and wide that “We the People” were getting screwed yet again and Congress started getting scared. We need to repeat that process. The American people overwhelmingly support more domestic production of energy including drilling offshore, in ANWR and building nuclear and coal fired power plants. We need to call the big talk shows. You may not get on, but if they are getting calls on the subject they will start talking more about it. We need to write to our newspapers, blogs, and politicians demanding more domestic drilling for oil and gas, more nuclear and coal plants to produce electricity, and let everyone know that politicians who oppose drilling, nuclear and coal plants will be sent home come Election Day. We also need to support Gingrich’s Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less campaign and make sure it gets publicized far and wide. (http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659) We’ve seen what “We the People” can do once we are sufficiently outraged. Defeating the Bush/Kennedy/McCain amnesty for illegal aliens showed that if the people get energized and motivated they can defeat the liberals. It just takes some real effort. We will never turn the most radical leftists like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, but we will turn the more astute liberals, and those who want to stay in office more than they care about keeping America dependent on oil from despots. We have the numbers to win this fight. All we need now is the will and the effort. We may be seeing the will and effort appearing as people have to choose between gas to get to work and food for their families. John Bender is a freelance writer living in Dallas. He is a past staff writer for EtherZone. His columns have appeared in both Internet and print publications and have been quoted by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.
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