This is one subject no matter where people stand on other issues that there is literally unnamimous agreement on.
Brett,
Your post was dead on my man.
Lifer,
Awaking a sleeping giant is correct.
Tie,
Oil barons on food stamps is an excellent idea.
More,
You got the ball rolling.
I saw this the other day and it shows at least IMO that this country has options.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5824026.html
As for ANWR, a real hot potatoe politically but let me throw out a different thought to consider. From the Alaska History and Studies website:
Congress did not provide a resolution of the national concern until 1920 when it adopted the Mineral Leasing Act, which established a leasing plan for coal, oil and natural gas. Most states soon followed with leasing acts of their own. At the same time Congress provided for the creation of several strategic oil reserves. The largest, Petroleum Reserve No. 4 (Pet. 4), was established on Alaska's Arctic coast. In 1980, the 23 million-acre reserve was renamed National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPR-A).
http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=140
Another source is the University of NC where we find this:
ANWR has its beginnings in 1923 when 23 million acres of land were set aside as an oil reserve for national security. This reserve was known as the Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4, which would later be called the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101020051108/http://www.unc.edu/~money/geography/history.html
Did any of us ever consider that forces within our gov't who are thinking strategically longterm are blocking public oil consumption to ANWR and letting the enviro-wackos, who are more than willing to do the deed obviously take the fall? Here's another thought for ya. Back in the late 70's when the Alaska Wildererness Act (ANWR) was being pushed by the Carter Adminstration, on the front lines were organizations like the Sierra Club, etc. advocating for this huge federal gov't landgrab, let's call it what it really is with no judgement as to whether it's needed or not. But here's what I found of interest back in the day and I've never forgotten it and it was Congressman Larry McDonald who showed me the data. At the time, many of the leading adovates for shelfing ANWR away from public access if you will were also being fed large contributions to advance their political campaign from a rather odd source. Those sources were the likes of Exxon Mobile, BP, get the picture folks?
Enviro-wackos, I'm talking the extreme tree hugger types and not good reasonable folks like Dr. Patrick Moore, are on the frontline of blocking access to ANWR or we/they think that is the case but I believe it to be a rouse of sorts. Why take the blame when you have a scapegoat willing to take it for you? There is a whole lot to this issue and a whole lot that we don't know and quite frankly I think a bit of that is intentional. I found doing a good search and reading of a lot of gov't websites like the Dept. of Energy and US Fish and Wildlife a very eye opening experience when it comes to ANWR.
I'm truly of the opinion that the real roadblock to ANWR is the US Gov't, the oil companies and the US Military for which this whole thing was originally put aside for anyway and in the interest especially of the coldwar at the time, this did make some sense when you consider we'd just experienced a oil shortage from the Arabs bck in the mid-70's. Come forward to today and what if the entire region erupted into flames and we could get oil from that area, how important to the US national interest would ANWR be then? What would it mean if we tapped it now and started using it up? Double edge sword? I think so!
JMO.
BTW: Dr. Patrick Moore who helped found Greenpeace but has since went on to work with various business interest in finding solutions that would both advance business and protect the environment at the same time.