Posted by
theoilpatchplug on Monday, August 04, 2008 10:54:57 AM
By Unlocking Its Energy
By JOHN BOEHNER
August 4, 2008
Last Monday The Wall Street Journal kicked off a debate on how best to allocate scarce resources to solve the world's problems. Bjorn Lomborg offered a summary of the latest findings from his Copenhagen Consensus project, where he has enlisted some of the world's top economists to address the issue. Over the next few Mondays we'll offer views on the subject from top political and business leaders. How would you spend $10 billion of American resources (either directly or through regulation) over the next four years to help improve the state of the world?
![[The Copenhagen Consensus]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AH942_lombor_20080727150817.jpg) |
| David Klein |
The notion that Washington can spend its way out of any problem does not pass what I call "the straight-face test." Rather than parceling taxpayer dollars out to fund a laundry list of government programs that will only paper over the problems facing our nation and the world, let the American people keep the $10 billion. They can use it far more wisely than Congress. Instead, let's unleash America's ingenuity to address the world's challenges and improve the quality of life for every American, as we have throughout our history. And to do that, let's begin by unlocking America's vast energy resources -- from our natural resources like coal, oil and gas to emerging technologies like alternative and renewable fuels.
The fact is, the best, easiest way to boost American investment in alternative fuels and lower our nation's dependence on foreign oil won't cost taxpayers a cent. Democrats in Congress have placed millions of acres of U.S. territory -- far off our coasts, on the remote North Slope of Alaska, and in the Inter-Mountain West -- off limits for energy development. By freeing those domestic resources and increasing the supply of American energy, we can fund development of better solar, wind, biomass and other breakthrough technologies. And House Republicans have a plan to do it -- appropriately titled the American Energy Act, which reflects what we call an "all of the above" energy strategy.
If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) would allow a vote on our comprehensive energy plan -- a vote House Republicans and hundreds of Americans demanded on the House floor this past Friday, after Congress adjourned, in a historic revolt -- we could create more American jobs, reduce America's energy dependence on nations with ties to global terrorism, cut emissions to promote a healthy environment, and raise our quality of life. And, we could do it without raising taxes -- and even without spending $10 billion. How? From the production of new American energy under our plan.
For example, the Congressional Research Service estimates that at $100 per barrel (far below today's price), producing the estimated 10 billion barrels of oil in Alaska's remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would generate $153 billion in new federal revenues. Consider the sums we could generate if we produced new American energy in the Outer Continental Shelf far off our nation's shores, where an estimated 86 billion barrels are locked away, and in the Inter-Mountain West, where some 800 billion barrels of oil is trapped in shale deposits. The possibilities are seemingly endless.
Nothing is impossible with affordable energy and the promise it holds for investments in technology and higher standards of living. Water can be lifted from deep below the earth. The desert can bloom. Crops can grow where they never did before. Electric lights burn at night so that studying, reading and commerce can outlast the sun. None of this would be possible without affordable and available energy.
Reliable energy is among the most liberating forces in the world -- socially, economically and intellectually. In those parts of the world where energy is scarce or too expensive for citizens, daily life is consumed with the drudgery that the absence of energy causes. My goal -- and the goal of every parent -- is to leave our nation and our world in better shape than we inherited it. Key to making that happen is to finally solve the energy crisis America -- and the world -- currently faces. That begins with a vote and real action on an "all of the above" energy plan, not with a laundry list of new, costly Washington programs.
Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, is the House minority leader.