Lou Dobbs, That Old Black Magic

[Coastie for Truth]

U.S. News (March 21 issue received March 14)

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050321/21dobbs.htm

"President Bush decided this past week that the time was right to call upon Congress to pass his energy plan. With crude oil prices 2 cents a barrel below the all-time high, no one can argue with his timing. But our dangerous dependence on foreign and often-hostile nations for our crude oil is hardly new. Our dependency upon OPEC has not only left the United States vulnerable to geopolitical forces beyond our control but has influenced American policy in the Middle East for the past half-century."

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"Now that political rationality is at hand in our relationship with the Middle East, the president has a further opportunity to rationalize our economic relationship with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. With crude oil prices near $56 a barrel and the average price of regular unleaded gasoline selling for more than $2 a gallon, our dependence on foreign oil is clearly an economic vulnerability and risk that we must soon remove."

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"The United States consumes more than 25 percent of the world's oil each year, despite the fact that we control only 3 percent of the world's oil and gas reserves. As such, we now import about 58 percent of the more than 20 million barrels of oil we use every day, with more than one fifth of those net petroleum imports coming from Persian Gulf states, according to the Energy Information Administration. In the years ahead, imported oil is on track to grow to 68 percent of our total supply by 2025, with U.S. crude production at the lowest level in 50 years."

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"Troops and dollars." Our dependence on foreign oil is more than a daunting economic problem. Many of the dollars we spend on imported oil are going to nations that support the radical Islamist terrorists against whom we're engaged in a global war. The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security estimates that 22 percent of the world's oil is controlled by states that sponsor terrorism and are under U.S./United Nations sanctions. "We are, in fact, fighting a war on terrorism and paying for both sides of the war," says Gal Luft, executive director of the institute. "On the one hand, we are sending our troops and dollars to fight for freedom and democracy all over the world, and on the other hand, we are sending money to the people who don't like us."

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[oppositionmember]

1. Bush administration energy policy consists of

sending troops to grab everyone else's oil. Next target: Venezuela.