True North

This article is proof that Republicans are turning up the heat on Democrats with regard to increasing oil exploration. I said here that pushing that agenda will put Democrats in oil hell. I'm still confident that it's a lose-lose situation for Democrats.

"At the end of the day, I think we need to make a decision, while we're increasing our technological capability in this country and while we're moving to sort of wean ourselves off such dependency on fossil fuels, do we want to have more reserves that we're dependent upon here in our country or do we want to continue to ship billions and trillions of dollars overseas?" Corker asked rhetorically.

He said there was "a very simple answer."

"We can do that certainly in environmentally safe ways. That's the only way it should be done," said Corker. "But we've had our head in the sand."

Alexander (R-TN), in agreement with Corker, said Congress should allow oil exploration in Alaska's Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as well as exploration offshore. He said drilling in Alaska would produce 1 million barrels of crude oil a day.

For the longer term, Alexander has proposed a new "Manhattan" project, only this time it would take a comprehensive look at energy as opposed to building an atom bomb like in World War II.

That could have short-term effects as well, Alexander said, on the price Tennesseans and Americans are paying at the pump. "From the day the American president said we were doing that, I think gas prices would stabilize and begin to go down because the rest of the world would know and the speculators would know that we're on our way to being independent in terms of the energy we produce," Alexander said.

In addition, Alexander wants to "give big oil some competition" by utilizing ethanol and electricity through plug-in cars.

The key to solving this crisis is to employ a comprehensive approach. Any plan that focuses too much on one thing won't help in the short term. The Democrats' solution to the high gas prices is to make it more expensive. That's the guaranteed result of a windfall profits tax.

The oil speculators that Sen. Alexander referenced take into account what the Democratic congress didn't do. They know that every day that they don't increase production, the longer this crisis will last. Democrats want to remove the oil companies' profits with the WPT. What this will do is effectively reduce production. If the oil companies aren't going to make a profit, then there isn't much incentive to send their product to market.

The longer this lasts, the deeper the upcoming recession will be.

Most of the time, I'm thankful that this is a do-nothing congress because it means they aren't doing any harm to America. This is one time when I wish we had a congress that got things done.

To those of you that supposedly 'taught them a lesson': Is this what you'd hoped for? As corrupt as that congress was, I'd take it in a heartbeat over this bunch of stiffs.

Comments welcome at LFR.