rebuttal #2

So we don't confuse ourselves, let me state this. I acknowledge the effect of specualtors on the price of oil. I also agree with the point that we must move towards alternative energy for the future as we cannot drill our way out of this. What we need to do is all of the above. When you go after oil companies heres the point. They want to drill. If there was any oil there they would drill for it. However, your arguement contradicts itself, here why. You state that drilling would be enormously profitable for oil companies. So if your logic is true how does it make sense that they have land to drill on but are not drilling? The oil companies are also inveting billions in the land they lease, so it doesn't make any sense that they investing just to sit on lands. Experts can even prove that there is little oil in those fields.

Second, offshore drilling will not take 20 years. The energy department says about five years, but if the governement got out of the way I have no doubt the amount of time would be shortened. Unlike the oil in the 68 million acres the companies have, theres oil offshore, and a lot of it. Estimates show that there is almost 60 billion barrels of crude oil, and 217 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

One area that has not been mentioned in this debate is the MASSIVE amounts of oil in the Rocky Mountain oil shale. Independent research companie say that almost 2 trillion barrels of oil exist their. Compare this to the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and you find that the Rocky Mountain Shale has 8 times as much. With the current demand using just the oil from the Rocky Mountain Shale we would have enough oil for about 124 and a half years. Surely in that time we could find an alternative. Lastly, to put into picture just how much oil we have if we fully engaged all our energy resources at home we would have more then all the countries in the world put together.

Today we get 94% of our domestic energy from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, while the other 6% comes from alternatives like wind and solar. So how does Obama think that taxing coal and natural gas and not using nuclear power will lower prices?

Finally, it is your arguement that "misses the point." Picture this scenario: we drill everywhere, and prices are still not lowered, althought that won't happen. Although the goal of lowering prices may not be solved, one will. That is that we are taking money out of the hands of countries like Russia, Iran, Syria etc by not importing or importing less of their oil. This is a national security issue. If Ahmadinejad loses his his money from oil how will he finance his nuclear ambitions and terror operations?


http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=33824

ontheissues.org

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html