Bithead provides some great perspective on where we could have been Monday had Clinton the First not vetoed ANWR. He includes reference to Henry Lamb at World Net Daily.
Indeed, Bit points out that by now, we’d have 20% more domestic oil in our supply, and likely much lower gas prices, and one could probably run the gamut on the various political impacts that could have had (including, as Bit notes, a strong economy at this point in time, and I would contend that we might have averted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). I prefer to think that Bill lacked the crystal ball to predict the political imperatives of this time frame, including the likelihood that we’d be coming off of 8 years of a (albeit half-hearted) Republican in the White House, but perhaps it is so.
More telling to me is the fact that 7 years ago, the Congress and President were in a position to act to open up ANWR. Bit mentions that McCain likely does not have the nerve to move on ANWR, but I don’t think he’s alone. 7 years have been wasted, and now we’ll have another 5 – 10 years before any action today can see positive results.
Strike that… one possible outcome of immediate action on ANWR might be a reaction by OPEC to increase production and (hopefully) force prices down a bit. OPEC’s hope might then be to steer us away from continued work on ANWR (or other domestic resources).
At this point, any and all domestic options should be moving at full steam. Offshore drilling included. The biggest fear on the part of oil companies might be that the price of oil would drop below cost of producing it domestically, but I think we can address that by controlling the level of imports allowed.
Crazy idea that, eh? Out-OPECing OPEC?
