What do the following recent events have in common? c The president of the United States has prostrated himself for the second time in five months before the king of Saudi Arabia, pleading for more oil.
Despite George Bush's inducements — an array of advanced, offensive arms; the promise of nuclear technology with which the Saudis can expect (like the North Koreans, Iranians, Pakistanis, etc.) to acquire the ultimate weapons; and U.S. help securing Saudi Arabia's borders (something the president has declined to do at home) — the American plea was spurned. The contempt felt by the House of Saud was captured in its oil minister's quip, "If you want more oil, buy it." [snip]
• The Senate rejected, by a vote of 56-42, an initiative offered by Republicans that called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska and some offshore waters now closed to exploration and exploitation of their substantial oil reserves.It seems that, if we want more oil, we will have to buy it at ever increasing prices from the Saudis and others even more unfriendly to this country's national security and economic interests — like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Russia's Vladimir Putin, perhaps even Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [more, snip]
• In addition, that chamber's appropriations committee refused by a similar party-line vote to lift its moratorium on oil-shale production in Colorado.
These actions — given soaring energy prices and the attendant hemorrhage of U.S. petrodollars to, among others, people who wish us ill — represent the sort of behavior in which only a nation utterly unserious about energy security could indulge.
In truth, no matter what we do, we will need oil for the foreseeable future. As a result, we should do our utmost to find and exploit it in places either under our control (for example, near where the Cubans and Chinese are getting it off the coast of Florida) or at least friendly to us (notably, Canada, Mexico and Brazil)...
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