Here's how it starts:
As oil prices head through the roof, and gasoline jumps over $4 a gallon, Americans feeling the pinch at the pump should recognize that the wealthiest nation on the planet has nothing but itself to blame for the third in a series of energy crises that began when Richard Nixon was still in office.
Having largely ignored the previous two shots across the bow — the first coming in 1973 when OPEC decided to ban sales of oil to nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and the second in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution in Iran — the U.S. seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past.
We keep hearing about the worldwide decline in oil production, and tend to assume that the situation in the rest of the world mirrors our own. Sheppard points out that this assumption is false:
At least those countries are participating in exploration efforts to expand their own supplies. China’s oil production has almost doubled since 1980, while India’s has grown by an astounding 375 percent. At the same time, U.S. production has declined by 22 percent.
We sure do know how to respond to energy crises in this country, don’t we?
Closer to home, our neighbors also ramped up oil production. To the south, Mexico has seen its crude output jump 64 percent since 1980, while Canada’s increased 85 percent.
Did you know that? I must confess that I did not.
After explaining in simple, understandable language how the oil futures market works and what effects we could expect to be exerted upon it simply as a result of making the policy changes necessary to facilitate future increased oil production, Sheppard asks these questions:
Why has one political party for nearly four decades viewed energy crises through the narrow prism of learning to adjust to higher prices and declining resources, as opposed to aggressively finding and producing more of what the country and the economy needs?
Such questions seem particularly relevant given how this same party views hunger in our nation and throughout the world. The answer isn’t for those that have less to make an adjustment and adapt to their impoverished condition. “Adjust to having less” is certainly not the Left’s prescription for Americans lacking health insurance.
Democrats want government to increase the supply of food and medical care to those deemed financially incapable of providing for themselves.
Why doesn’t the same hold true for energy? Does the Left just presume that food and medicine are both human necessities government is required to assist the citizenry in obtaining, while energy is a luxury item people can learn to do without?
It's hard to argue with Sheppard's conclusions. Now, our task – and it is a formidable one – is to exert sufficient pressure upon our elected representatives to induce them to follow our wishes instead of the desires of their friends the environmental zealots.
No comments:
Post a Comment