Major Issues
Lower Prices for Gasoline and Energy Independence
America needs to find new ways to achieve energy independence. Efforts like increased conservation and bringing online new technologies will help this effort, but alone they won't be enough to solve the issue.
It's time to produce more American oil for American families.
I have joined other House Republicans in calling for a comprehensive set of federal actions that will immediately encourage the oil and gas industry to expand exploration and produce more oil here at home.
Unfortunately, House Democrats are blocking these efforts. This should come as no surprise.
The Democrat leader in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, voted in 1993 to place an energy tax on all gasoline, natural gas, coal and electricity. This “BTU tax” would have increased the cost of living for all Americans, but Pelosi and her party apparently think the best energy policy is to raise energy prices on consumers.
Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have stopped oil from being produced offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf, on federal-owned lands in the Rocky Mountains, and in just 2,000 of the more than 19 million acres that make up the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Area.
It’s estimated that these combined areas have more than 828 billion barrels of oil which can be produced here in the U.S., creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
These proven sources of oil represent more than 100 years of annual U.S. consumption, which currently stands at 7.5 billion barrels every year.
For a further explanation of areas we can tap for more American oil, click here.
There is no greater example of misplaced self-confidence than when House Democrats go to the floor and claim they know how much oil is underground in areas such as Alaska and the Rocky Mountains, or beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
Just this year, the estimate of recoverable oil in North Dakota was raised 25-fold by the U.S. Geological Survey. Why? Oil exploration and production technologies are constantly getting better, thanks to the innovative (and environmentally conscious) professionals at American-based oil companies. These improvements are helping to discover and produce more oil in the U.S.
Texans in Dallas know the positive side in the story of the oil industry. Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and my opponent think only in negative terms about oil producers. They take direction on energy policy from Al Gore.
Don’t you think it’s time we Americans produce more oil right here at home?
The current high prices of gasoline are the result of a failed energy policy at the federal level. To a great extent, America’s cost of gasoline is a self-inflicted economic burden, caused by policy makers in Washington, too many of whom believe they know more about oil and gas than the professionals who explore and produce those resources.
Since the late 1970s, solutions to relieve the inevitable tight oil supply (caused by constantly rising demand) have been thwarted, as officeholders in Washington could not agree on the steps necessary to increase production.
Americans deserve an energy policy that works. As a nation, we need to do everything possible to develop alternate sources of energy, simultaneously encouraging Detroit to engineer cars with higher gas mileage. As part of that goal, and to build new electric capacity for plug-in hybrid cars, we should develop new technologies that will make power generated by coal plants completely clean. Also, we should build new nuclear power plants - but do so by utilizing innovations developed for that technology in the last 25 years, all of which have significantly improved this energy source and made it safer.
Most importantly for the immediate term, we should encourage oil and gas companies to drill for oil and natural gas in America.
There is no one “fix” to the high cost of gasoline. Instead, we have to mobilize the nation to adopt every viable solution. By combining all of these courses of action, we can bring down the price of gasoline and lower the cost of energy for American families. With this approach, we can turn a present-day challenge into a long term opportunity.
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