Now Can We Drill In Alaska?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Energy Policy: Alaska's governor attacks President Obama's hostility to oil states and warns that ever-higher oil prices will doom economic recovery. The polar bears are doing fine. The American economy is not.

He didn't say "drill, baby, drill" in so many words, but the point made by Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, Sarah Palin's successor, in a speech at the National Press Club was the same.

"This is the moment our government must re-examine its 'no new wells' policy when it comes to oil exploration and development here at home," Parnell said in a speech in which he declared the Obama administration "openly hostile" to oil-producing states.

As we have noted, the administration's mindless pursuit of green energy at all costs is coupled with an unwillingness to put downward pressure on oil prices by increasing domestic supply, leaving the U.S. perilously dependent on Iran, Libya, Venezuela and the rest.

As crude tops $100 a barrel, Parnell noted, "the U.S. foolishly imports more than 63% of its oil. That leaves us vulnerable to the economic shock of disruption of these oil supplies, and it drives down that economic recovery." Indeed, we are hemorrhaging jobs and revenues to overseas thugs.

The Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency are "driving America's foreign policy," Parnell argued, and this has made America "dependent on an open . . . Suez Canal, a canal through an unstable region, the security of which has been purchased through our taxpayers' dollars."

Indeed, the Energy Department produces no energy and seems tirelessly dedicated through the efforts of its secretary, Steven Chu, to lock up our energy resources. With more than 100,000 federal and contract employees and a budget of $23 billion, it would be a good place to look for spending cuts.

According to the DOE, America's energy needs increased by 17 times in the past half-century while our domestic energy production decreased 40%. The slack has not been picked up, despite huge subsidies, by wind and solar; it's been picked up through imports.

Parnell talked about Interior's recent announcement to review more than 80 million acres of federal land in Alaska for "wild lands" status and condemned the administration's moratoriums through regulations and a deliberate slowdown in leasing and permitting. "If it looks like a moratorium and walks like a moratorium ... maybe it is," he said.

Parnell criticized the Obama administration for not issuing an air-quality permit to a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell to drill exploratory wells on two leases in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's northern coast.

"The other Arctic nations are moving ahead without us. Only the United States, which is sitting on the largest untapped, technically recoverable (supply) and has the greatest environmental oversight, is sitting this one out," said the governor.

Writing recently in Foreign Affairs, Scott Borgerson, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted: "The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Norwegian company Statoil Hydro estimate that the Arctic holds as much as one-quarter of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas deposits."

Alaska's Chukchi Sea alone is estimated to hold 1,600 trillion cubic feet of undeveloped natural gas, or 30% of the world's supply, and 83 billion barrels of undeveloped oil, 4% of the estimated global resources.

Much of the region has been designated as critical for polar bears even though Doug Vincent-Lang, the state's coordinator for endangered species, says the bear population is at an all-time high.

The harm these bans and moratoriums do to the Alaskan and national economies are devastating. Parnell pointed out that federal inaction by the EPA itself causes the loss of 54,700 jobs and $104 billion in payroll.

We stand with him when he asks federal agencies and the administration to "let Alaska help put America back to work."

With Libya aflame and other sources unstable, this is no time to be tilting at windmills.