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Jim: jdipeso@rep.org
(253) 740-2066 / 2010
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'Drill, Baby, Drill' Doesn't
Sound So Easy Anymore
June 2, 2010
Ever since RNC Chairman Michael
Steele stirred up a "drill, baby, drill" chant at the 2008 Republican
National Convention, those who believe that fixing America’s energy
problems is as easy as a bumper sticker slogan were full of
themselves.
Until the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up six weeks ago. The mile-deep
blowout that is pouring oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico is in the
running to be the worst environmental disaster in American history.
(Photo: U.S. Coast Guard) |
Now, drill, baby, drill doesn’t
seem like such a quick and easy path towards the carefree guzzling that
glib ideologues, talk radio clowns, and assorted political hacks have
assured us is ours for the taking.
Truth to tell, it never was. Since America began importing oil in large
quantities in the middle of the last century, we’ve known that oil
dependence is a strategic liability. Every administration over the past
40 years has promoted the virtues of energy independence.
We haven’t achieved it. In fact, we’ve gone backwards. Obdurate
political opposition, resistance from entrenched interests, and lack of
will are important reasons why.
A related reason is that it will be hard to retool America’s energy
economy to achieve independence – not autarky, which would be neither
feasible nor useful – but independence in the sense of giving ourselves
an array of energy choices that don’t entangle the U.S. in geopolitical
briar patches or endanger the natural capital that serves as a global
life support system.
Hard, but worth it. If the events in the Gulf of Mexico don’t
demonstrate the necessity of diversifying our energy portfolio, it’s
hard to imagine what would.
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