In school we were taught there are no questions, except there are. One is, why should we drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or offshore if it takes so long to develop? Are we that shortsighted and addicted to instant gratification? President Clinton used this excuse when he vetoed opening the refuge in 1995. That was 13 years ago -- now it can be done in six, but we're still hearing the same lame excuse. If farmers used this logic, we would starve to death. If this excuse was used in the past, we'd all be riding horses.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could replace our total import from Saudi Arabia for 60 years. We only need 2,000 acres. This is literally a postage stamp on a football field, and the technology is so good that when Katrina destroyed 1,000 platforms, there were no oil spills.
If California can live with 50,000 oil wells in its backyards, we should be able to tolerate a few hundred in the backyard of the continent -- a place where almost nobody visits. The North Slope, nor the pipeline, disrupted the caribou, and neither will drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
We also haven't built a refinery in 32 years for two reasons. There is not enough profit in returning to wade through the red tape, and there's also the "not in my backyard" mentality. South Dakota wants to build one, but is meeting the same resistance from greens who don't seem care that we are increasingly dependent on countries that don't like us and could destroy us overnight if they quit selling us oil or quit buying our debt. When it comes to dealing with greens, it's no longer about logic, but about religion. They want nothing defiling their "sanctuary," while they live in houses and drive to their "church" -- the wilderness.
China may not be drilling off the coast of Florida, but it should be if we are dumb enough not to.
