Doesn't Want You To Drill
Ten years ago gasoline prices spiked at the pump. After several years in the $1.50/gallon range (even dipping as low as $0.97/gallon for a brief period of time in 1997), suddenly we were paying $2.00/gallon, then $2.10, then $2.20.
I was unemployed at the time and trying to get through a Summer training program for which I had budgeted my savings very carefully. I remember getting increasingly anxious every time the price went up because I had not made provisions for a huge gasoline price increase, and the increases hurt.
Now, more sensible people at the time were encouraging the government to ease restrictions on domestic oil exploration, especially in ANWR, but the Democrats objected that we shouldn’t despoil the pristine wilderness. And besides, they said with the short-sightedness for which they are known, it will take ten years for any new oil to make it to the market and have an impact on pump prices.
Now I’ve always thought that the ten years timeframe was primarily pulled out of their collective asses, because (a) it probably wouldn’t take ten years and (b) a substantive commitment to domestic oil exploration would have sent a message to the rest of the world that would most likely have had an impact on oil prices.
But even if the Left had been right, it’s now been ten years. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some of that oil making its way to the pumps right about now?
It could have been, too, if the Republicans had fought for it, but they didn’t, because they’re Republicans, and caving in to shrieking buffoons is what they do best.
So how about we start drilling now?
Posted by Kensington 
