"We Can't Drill Our Way Out of This"

The Democrats, from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, have a rote response to current, skyrocketing energy costs. "We can't drill our way out of this." It may turn out to be the modern version of, "Let them eat cake."

The effects of futures speculation aside (which has been exaggerated in the media), the reason gasoline costs in excess of four dollars of gallon has a singular cause. Demand for petroleum product is high and supplies are low.

Demand for gasoline and other petroleum products is high mainly because countries such as India and China are starting to industrialize in earnest. As people become more prosperous in emerging Asian countries, they tend to use more energy to support their newly improved lifestyles. That energy, whether it is generated by a car or a factory, is by and large created by fossil fuels.

The supply of gasoline and other petroleum products is low, especially in the United States, because of a shortage of refinery capacity and the fact that huge supplies of petroleum have been placed off limits to exploration and drilling for purely political reasons.

This leads us back to the knee jerk reaction by Democrats to the new energy crisis. "We can't drill our way out of this." On the face of it, it sounds positively surreal. Let us suppose that there was a shortage of food causing skyrocketing prices for bread, meat, and milk. The obvious response would be to find ways to increase the supply of food, by encouraging more agriculture, and getting it to people most in need. "We can't plant our way out of-" the food crisis would not be the sort of slogan that would fly.

So why not increase the supply of petroleum products to bring down the cost of energy? Why not drill in ANWR, on the Continental Shelf, in the oil shale fields in the Rocky Mountains?

"We can't drill our way out of this," the Democrats insist with increasing shrillness.