Thirty percent of the Nation's energy comes off the gulf coast.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Homes and buildings, many of which are old and drafty, eat up 40 percent of the energy America uses. Such inefficiencies perpetuate our reliance on foreign oil, imperiling our national security and increasing our contribution to climate change.
By curious accident of history and geography, the world's major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They're a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.
Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.
For the last 50 years, the federal government has taken out of the Gulf Coast $165 billion in taxes that came from oil and gas off of our coast that went to the federal Treasury, to rebuild all places in America except the place that it came from.
There is an incredible renewable energy resource off both coasts of this country - wind and tidal energy that can power our economy, create good paying jobs and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
There are billions of barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf. There is even more in Alaska. There is enough oil shale in the Rocky Mountain West alone to power America for the next hundred years. The Democrats say all this American energy is off limits.
All Americans are dependent for their energy on the Arabian peninsula.
The U.S. now imports over half of its oil supply from the Middle East. This dangerous dependence on foreign energy sources is an issue of national security.
Even though I love solar and love wind, like most people do, I like the renewable sources, they alone are not going to get America energy independent.
The gulf coast, we all know now, after Katrina, is responsible for 25 percent of U.S. production of natural gas. Following Katrina and Rita, almost 75 percent of the natural gas production in the gulf was shut down and not producing.