Exploring other areas to drill

There is nothing like summer in Maine, with our warm days and cool nights and trees and flowers in full bloom. But there’s also nothing like winter in Maine, especially when the temperature dives toward zero and the north winds are blowing hard.

Next winter will bring a new hardship – heating oil that’s now selling above $4.50 a gallon, an all-time high by far. Republicans will work with the governor and Democratic legislators to devise the best plan possible to mitigate the crisis, but there’s no getting around the fact that the cost to heat homes, schools and businesses will surge dramatically.

Among all the states, Maine is the most heavily dependent on heating oil. Some 400,000 households – four out of every five – depend on oil heat. The average household uses 800 gallons a year, which works out to $3,600 at current prices. People who plan ahead are already saving up to meet that expense, but saving money is getting difficult with the cost of gasoline above $4 and with Mainers having the longest commutes in the nation.

You can always drive less, car pool and consolidate errands. And you can turn down the heat next winter and wear heavy sweaters. But 80 percent of us will still need to buy heating oil, and the economic fallout could be profound across the board.

There are many emerging technologies that could gradually wean us off our dependence on oil. They include geothermal heat, solar panels, wind power, hydroelectric and others. But in the near term – for next winter – the vast majority of us will have to use oil to heat our homes. Conservation can play an important role, and so can weatherproofing your house with such things as air-tight windows and insulated blinds.

The aspect of the oil emergency that causes so much anxiety is that the sky seems to be the limit for prices. Oil is now about $135 a barrel. Analysts are saying it will soon reach $150 or even $200. Demand from China and India is ferocious, and any disruption in supply, such as a new Mideast war, could touch off a global panic.

We are importing 60 percent of the oil we use at a cost of more than $400 billion a year. It is now clear beyond any doubt that the United States needs to begin exploring and drilling for oil in areas that have been closed off for 25 years. It makes no sense that China can drill in the Caribbean 60 miles off the Florida coast, based on its agreement with Cuba, but American companies are banned from drilling for oil in U.S. territorial waters.

For both our national security and our economic stability, we need an America First strategy when it comes to energy.

In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act that required the Department of the Interior to inventory oil resources that could be found both onshore and offshore in U.S. territory. Interior reported back that we have an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil sitting off our coast. We also have 53 billion barrels onshore. That’s a total of 139 billion barrels, more than the proven reserves of Iran or Iraq or Russia or Venezuela or Nigeria or even Kuwait. Moreover, America’s Outer Continental Shelf also is estimated to contain some 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

That’s a tremendous resource base, and we need it. Until we have a viable and practical alternative to oil, we will continue to depend on it to fuel everything from jumbo jets to lawn mowers. The American people understand this. A Gallup poll taken in May found that a large majority now favors greater drilling and exploration of our domestic reserves.

Unfortunately, Congress will not permit us to drill for our own oil. Specifically, it’s the Democrats who won’t. Their strategy in this crisis runs from suing OPEC to a windfall profits tax on oil companies to new punishments for price gouging. But they oppose expanding domestic energy supplies, regardless of how desperate the situation becomes.

Republicans in Congress meanwhile have introduced bill after bill to open up domestic oil production, and Sen. John McCain favors lifting the ban on drilling along the outer continental shelf. But the Democrats who run the show adamantly oppose anything that could relieve this crisis. This is patently absurd.

When you’re paying $5 for gas next fall and $5 for heating oil, remember who it is in Congress that wants to keep it that way.

Josh Tardy is the Republican leader in the Maine House of Representatives.