No more begging for oil

By Jon E. Dougherty
April 30, 2005

On Monday, President Bush played host to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah at his Crawford, Texas ranch. Among the issues on the his agenda: Oil and, specifically, how to get the kingdom to produce more of it for the United States at cheaper rates.

That the world's most powerful leader has been reduced to begging for our energy requirements is demonstrative of the sad state of American energy dependence.

This didn't happen overnight. Though the U.S. has never been completely energy self-sufficient many of our leaders, through the years, implemented laws and approved policies that have made us dangerously dependent on oil from volatile Middle Eastern and South American regimes, to the detriment of our own national and economic security. Worse, many of those fields are aging; some are 30 years old or older.

The same political forces have also gutted domestic natural gas and coal industries, and have all but shuttered nuclear power – the latter the only true pollution-free energy production system currently in widespread use. Solar- and wind-powered energy production is just as pollution-free and comes without the hassle of dealing with spent nuclear fuel rods, but the technology is still expensive, thereby limiting its use.

And now, as the former third-world economies of India and China are being upgraded, their energy demands are climbing faster than an Ann Coulter book on The New York Times bestseller list. Asian energy demands have risen some 70 percent in recent years, marking the region with the largest increase in demand in the entire world.

Without a doubt Mr. Bush knows all of this. He's a former oil man who is president at a time when oil prices are at historically high levels. He also knows his popularity falls every time the retail price of gasoline rises; recent polls bear this out.

Republicans in Congress know these things too. With mid-term elections coming next year, that's far too soon to see greatly expanded U.S. domestic energy production. But it is plenty of time to show Americans Republicans are serious about decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign suppliers.

Mr. Bush this week is detailing an energy plan that will expand U.S. domestic oil exploration, refinery capabilities, and nuclear power. It will clean up rules limiting the federal government's authority to pursue energy-enhancing policies on the local level. And it will secure for our country future domestic energy production capabilities that will make us less dependent upon the good graces of foreign suppliers or the energy demands of burgeoning foreign economies.

Becoming less dependent upon foreign sources of energy also means potentially less U.S. political and military involvement overseas, and greater security and economic expansion here at home. In short, there is no downside to expanding our capability to become more self-sufficient in terms of meeting the country's energy needs.

In his parlay with the crown prince earlier this week, Mr. Bush said his Saudi guest "understands that it is very important ... to make sure that the price [of oil] is reasonable."

That may be true, but what is increasingly obvious is that letting others decide what is "reasonable" in terms of our energy needs is a dubious exercise fraught with political and economic risk.

That's a point being driven home to more and more Americans each time they fill up with gas. But the Bush plan can at least start us back down the road to energy self-sufficiency. It's time to stop begging for oil.

Jon E. Dougherty is author of "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border," and editor of the Web site Voices Magazine.

Jon E. Dougherty is author of "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border," and editor of the Web site Voices Magazine.