It seems hard to believe that we’ll soon be coming on up on four years since the beginning of the ”drill, baby, drill” debate. You know, that silly idea championed by the hopelessly clueless Sarah Palin that if America were to actually exploit the rich natural resources at hand we might be able to dramatically improve our energy position and lessen our dependence on unstable foreign sources of oil? You may also recall that the wiser, cooler heads of the day-smart people like Barack Obama-dismissed Pailn’s pleas as ignorant and not reality based. Joe Biden in fact sought to refute the whole premise of “drill, baby, drill” by sagely explaining, “...it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the wells that are going to be drilled."
Let’s fast forward to the present-again not quite four years later-and see where we’re at. Expanded Oil Drilling Helps U.S. Wean Itself From Mideast:
HOUSTON—America will halve its reliance on Middle East oil by the end of this decade and could end it completely by 2035 due to declining demand and the rapid growth of new petroleum sources in the Western Hemisphere, energy analysts now anticipate.
The shift, a result of technological advances that are unlocking new sources of oil in shale-rock formations, oil sands and deep beneath the ocean floor, carries profound consequences for the U.S. economy and energy security. A good portion of this surprising bounty comes from the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a technique perfected during the last decade in U.S. fields previously deemed not worth tampering with.
You mean more drilling in the US means less our dependence on the Middle East and results in greater energy independence and security? Say it ain’t so, Joe!
The irony of course is that this recent boom in oil and natural gas exploration and production in the United States has largely occurred in spite of and not because of anything the Obama Administration has done to support it. The reality is that there are extensive energy resources that the US has even begun to tap into yet (side note: instead of “Drill, baby, drill!” my slogan for optimizing US energy resources would be “Tap Into America”). Imagine what could be possible if we had a President who actually believed in taking advantage of the energy resources at our disposal instead of taking advantage of taxpayers to fund flights of green energy fantasy.
