To hear Republicans tell it, drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and within spitting distance of Nantucket will generate a black sea of crude oil and lead America into the promised land of lower fuel prices. The reality is that deregulation championed by Republicans has led to speculators driving worldwide prices, quite divorced from supply and demand.

The fact is that if oil companies were to start pumping oil from places such as ANWR as they and Republicans wish, in volume to make the Panama Canal seem like a trickle, that crude would not be earmarked for Americans. That’s the hype that Republicans are selling, and it is further evidence of their ongoing deceit regarding a host of issues.

Any oil from ANWR and the continental United States would go on the world market, where it would barely make a dent in world oil prices. The savings at the pump each day would at best amount to what most Americans could find in change under their floor mats.

The Republican solutions now for energy are the same as they have ever been, backslapping their allies in big oil, paying lip service to alternative energy, and continuing to overlook that their party controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 and the presidency from 2000 to the present.

Republican energy solutions have led America to be more dependent on foreign oil now than it was in 1980 when Reagan took office. A perfect summary of Republican energy policy is to be found in a book called “The Lorax,” by Dr. Seuss.

Mark Tardif

Waterville