Wednesday, May 28, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.
An editorial in Friday’s Las Vegas Sun (“A new push for oil: Bush administration’s latest effort to open sensitive areas to drilling should be stopped”) is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Gas and oil prices are up, and rising on a daily basis. All costs for energy and all goods and services requiring energy must continue to rise. Consequently, consumer spending is down. The travel industry is taking a big hit. The bottom still has not been found in the housing market. The war on terrorism will continue with its associated astronomical costs, both financially and in human suffering.
The mess that has been created by our leaders in the ethanol-gasoline boondoggle is in the media constantly. Suffice it to say that the ethanol-gasoline boondoggle will increase the deaths of millions because of malnutrition and disease.
The industrialized world that has existed for the past 100 years has made energy producers in all of their forms, including oil and its byproducts, a necessity in modern and convenient societies. To pretend otherwise is not logical.
And it is a buyer’s market in the global economy. Prices for energy will continue to be bid upward by booming economies in India, China and other nations. We absolutely cannot get ourselves out of this mess with conservation and/or energy alternatives alone.
However, increased domestic production, in both drilling and refining, brought on line quickly (actually this should have been done at least 20 years ago) will have many benefits. Absolutely, it will be a psychological boost that we all need. Our full-fledged commitment to this must reduce prices. A balanced energy policy encompassing all alternatives is simply logical.
It seems America and our leaders have, over time, constantly made mistakes simply by not looking forward. This is the time to ask: Where do we want to be 10 or 20 years from now? And then make intelligent policy decisions based on that profile!
Ask yourselves: What good are clean air, pristine coasts, a burgeoning polar bear population, etc., to those who absolutely will die as a result of the high costs of draconian environmental rules and regulations?
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