Stable energy prices and enhanced national security will only come when we increase domestic energy resources, which was accomplished today with the opening of ANWR.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We must become more energy independent. The development of ANWR will assist in this goal.
The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.
If we drill the hell out of everything, including protected public lands and fragile regions like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America can emerge as an 'energy superpower.'
I think America understands that energy security is a very important part of our national security. But if we are going to address energy security in a meaningful way going forward, we need to do it in a new manner. We cannot just be doing the same old thing.
Drilling in ANWR fails to lower energy prices today and sets no long term energy strategy for tomorrow.
We have the resources and technology to produce more energy than we consume and break our long-standing dependence on foreign sources of oil. All we need is the will. In fact, there's a path to follow, one that North Dakota blazed over the last decade by building a comprehensive energy plan we called Empower North Dakota.
The more energy-efficient we become as a nation, the less we need to develop additional energy sources.
Government experts have estimated that ANWR reserves would only provide enough oil for six months of U.S. oil consumption. In addition, the oil industry itself has estimated that it would take 10 years to bring this oil to the market.
We need to break our dependency on foreign sources of oil, which leaves us at the mercy of foreign powers. To do that, we should increase domestic energy production.
Simply put, drilling in ANWR would be expensive, environmentally devastating, and would do very little to fix our energy crisis or to bring down the price of oil and gasoline.