Drill Already

Drill, Already

By the Editors

With the end of Memorial Day weekend comes the beginning of summer, and with it the beginning of Americas heaviest driving season as millions of Americans take to the highways for summer breaks. But if recent trends hold, vacationers are likely to put fewer miles on their odometers this summer than last. High gas prices are finally curbing Americas demand for the open road. Transportation Department statistics for March indicate that the country just experienced its first year-over-year decline in miles driven since 1979.

A decrease in demand is one natural market response to rising gas prices. The other natural response an increase in supply has not been as forthcoming, and the price of oil continues to rise even though Americans are driving less. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is partly to blame for this market recalcitrance; the international oil cartel manipulates supply in order keep oil prices high. But if members of Congress really want to mitigate the effects of high oil prices as much as they claim they do, they could start by letting oil companies bring Americas vast untapped supplies to market.

Were not just talking about the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) which Congress stupidly keeps off-limits even though proposed oil exploration there would only affect approximately 2,000 of its 19 million acres though opening just that 0.01 percent of ANWR to oil and natural gas development could supply 5 percent of Americas oil per year for 12 years before it starts to decline, according to Energy Department estimates. The Outer Continental Shelf also off-limits to drilling likely contains billions of barrels of additional oil and natural gas reserves. While Fidel Castros Cuba saw no compunction about leasing its share of these waters to the Chinese, the U.S. continues to forbid oil and natural gas exploration in its share.
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