Clark County Conservative

After the devastating crippling of America in the 1970’s due to the oil crisis in 1973, when Arabian members of OPEC embargoed oil to the U.S. over our support for Israel, then president Carter signed legislation creating the Department of Energy in August 1977, that was supposed to lessen our dependence on foreign oil imports, amongst other matters.

Ever since, we hear frequently from our politicians how we need to end our dependence on foreign oil, yet our dependence has steadily risen since the Department of Energy was created to the point that we now import some 51% of our needed oil from foreign countries, many hostile to us.

At the same time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “we are the third largest crude oil producer” in the world!

We also read, “the U.S. has more than 200 billion barrels of oil and 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are recoverable with today’s technology,” in an article in Forbes Magazine quoting a report prepared by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

The article continues, “That’s more than most OPEC nations. If fully developed, it would be enough to eliminate our 10-million-barrel daily diet of foreign oil for half a century.”

At a time we are so heavily dependent on foreign oil sources and at the same time have a scarcity of wage earning jobs in America, we read of our illustrious left coast politicians, namely Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell joining in with other Democrats up and down the left coast advocating a “Permanent Moratorium” on off-shore drilling?