The right path to energy independence

Tom Keller, Henderson

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 | 2:04 a.m.

Regarding Derrick Z. Jackson’s Monday column, “Let’s break addiction to foreign oil”:

Jackson is correct when he says we need to make oil independence a top priority. But our politicians want us to believe that some magic technology will make everything OK so they won’t have to make any unpopular decisions.

The Middle East turmoil, which is causing gasoline prices to push toward $4 a gallon, ought to be our wake-up call. The overthrow of one more key government could lead to gasoline lines and shortages that we haven’t seen since the 1970s.

Domestic oil production has been gutted for environmental politics, and we are at the mercy of foreign producers for 60 percent of our oil. Viable oil substitutes are far away, electric cars will replace only a limited number of cars running on oil and subsidized alternative energy projects do nothing to reduce oil consumption. Until viable alternatives are developed, the only solution is developing domestic oil resources.

We spend a billion dollars a day for foreign oil; switching back to domestic supplies would create millions of American jobs. Taking the handcuffs off the oil companies to let them develop our oil resources (using their profits) would give the economy a big boost and go a long way toward achieving energy independence. We can’t wait any longer.