Intellectually Honest: Who's to blame for high oil prices?

Today, on Capitol Hill, members of Congress once again questioned the heads of 'Big Oil' firms about the recent increases in oil prices, and why we're paying so much to fill up our cars with gasoline.

However, we would posit that, rather than pointing the finger at 'Big Oil', members of Congress need look no further than their own mirrors to find out who's to blame for our current oil crisis.

Let's take a look at everything that Congress has done to create this crisis:

• Made drilling in ANWR off limits.
  Drilling in ANWR would require precisely 2000 acres 1.5 million acres of ANWR's northernmost coast (approx. 8% of ANWR's 19.6 million acre total size) in an area known as the "10-02" area, which had previously been set aside specifically for "oil and gas exploration" by Congress in 1980. This would create between 250,000 and 735,000 new jobs and pump up to $237 billion into the U.S. economy.
  
  Had Bill Clinton not vetoed the 1995 ANWR legislation, oil wells in ANWR would've been adding a million barrels of oil per day to our oil supply. And, even now, Congress still refuses to allow exploration there.



• Made drilling off of the coasts of Florida and California off limits.
  Our continental shelf has enough oil that we could supply all of our needs for 60-160 years, which is more than enough time to allow the free market economy to come up with a 'green', non-petroleum solution. But, we can't be allowed to drill out there, either.



• Refused to allow new leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
  Meanwhile, foreign competitors like China, Cuba, and Venezuela are signing new 100-year leases and pumping oil out of the Gulf using horizontal drilling techniques that actually allow them to take oil right out from underneath us.



• Promised to introduce and pass cap and trade legislation.
  Despite this same plan having already proven a failure in Europe, Congress and all three Presidential candidates have promised to pass this legislation. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates it would raise our gas prices by a further $1.50 per gallon, while others say it could increase costs by up to $5.00 per gallon.



• Shut down oil fields in Colorado.



• Refused to allow the development of shale oil fields in Western states.



• Passed legislation that would allow us to sue OPEC as a monopoly.
  ... because they certainly wouldn't retaliate by raising prices further.



• Allowed environmental attorneys to sue oil companies for the future possible destruction of an Alaskan Eskimo village.



• Added the polar bear to the 'Threatened Species' list.
  This 'protects' the polar bears' habitat which, unfortunately, happens to be in the exact area where most future oil discoveries are likely to be located, guaranteeing that any American company going after them can be sued or prosecuted for further endangering an animal whose populations have increased from 5,000 to 25,000 in the past 60 years (SOURCE).



• Have refused to allow a single refinery to be built in the past 30 years.
  And have, in fact, reduced the number of operational refineries by half since 1982.



• Have allowed states to dictate what unique gasoline blends have to be produced for their markets.
  California alone demands 1,400 different blends. This type of idiocy ties up production in the few refineries we do have available.



• Have bowed to the environmental lobby, refusing to allow nuclear or hydroelectic industries to build new plants or dams.
  Allowing competition in the market, or allowing us to wean ourselves off of our fossil fuels dependencies with nuclear and hydroelectric power seems like a commonsense solution. This is just one of many examples of why I'll never accuse our Congress of having a wealth of commonsense.



• Refused to fund or allow deployment of coal-to-oil technology
  This technology has been available since the 1930s, but was determined to be only profitable when oil went above $30.00 per barrel. We're above that. But, despite the United States' vast deposits of coal that could readily be turned into oil at today's prices, Congress won't let us pursue it.



• Refused to drop the Federal gasoline tax, even just for the summer.
  Barack Obama even went so far as to say that it wouldn't help the 'average' family. I don't know about you, but I paid $80+ to fill up our two cars yesterday, and that was after finding the cheapest place in town (which was still $.10 cheaper than competitors only because they hadn't raised their prices -- yet).
  
  Knocking 18.4 cents off of the price might not seem like a whole heckuva lot, and the Washington Times claims it would save motorists just $10.00 per month (SOURCE), but it would've saved me $6.00 yesterday and I figured I fill up about once a week -- meaning it'd save me $25.00 a month, or $100 over the course of the summer which is more than double what the Washington Times estimated.

So, the next time you have to open a vein to pay for your daily commute, keep in mind who's really to blame -- and, then, call your Congress(person) and demand real action to make amends for all of these problems they've laid at our feet.