We are in the middle of an economic crisis brought on by our dependence upon foreign oil imports that are running the prices of necessary commodities up to astronomical prices. The dependence on foreign oil is the biggest threat we as a country face today. Prices of food and any product that relies upon transportation to your stores is going up in price. Way up and hurting America as it does. Plus the money we spend on foreign oil helps feed the coffers of terrorists. It is insane to send money to people who hate us and are dedicated to destroying us and driving us out of the region.
Currently we produce 8 million barrels of oil per day here in the United States but consume 20 million barrels a day. That is sending about 45 billion dollars a month out of our country. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] estimates the cost of the Iraq war at about 9 billion dollars a month, a staggering amount of money but that is only about 20% of what we spend on foreign oil.
In the short term we can all start driving less. Consolidate activities into one trip whenever possible. We may need to limit highway speeds again like we did in the 70′s. We should already require that all vehicles sold in the U.S. either be flex fuel – running on gas or alcohol – or be hybrid or electric. Brazil has already done it and now only imports about 20% of its fuel requirements, growing the rest as sugar cane. And while we are talking about Brazil we need to eliminate the 54 cents per gallon tariff on sugar cane ethanol imported from Brazil.
In the long term we need to build non petroleum cars and trucks, expand our oil drilling into possible offshore wells. It is being done safely already, we need to at least look into it. Right now I am still against drilling in the ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] as I feel that right now they will not protect sensitive species that depend upon it for their survival. Also with more studies and new technologies we may have the ability to protect wildlife species in the future when oil will be at even more of a premium than it is now. Besides there is nothing like having an ace to hold in the hole. We need to give incentives to companies and individuals to invest in green technologies. Hybrids, electric, hydrogen, clean liquid coal and a myriad of technologies that we may have not even thought of yet. The sky is the limit if we break the foreign oil dependency that has a strangle hold on us right now.