Crossposted from Flopping Aces

As a follow-on to yesterday’s post:

Daily oil production on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area which Congress originally designated for oil exploration when it set up the refuge, is estimated by the Energy Information Administration (Dept. of Energy) to be able to produce approximately 1, 000,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

With current imports of foreign oil running over 12,000,000 barrels per day (EIA chart), production of one million barrels of U.S. oil would be an important first step to energy independence.

But this is how Senator Charles Schumer dismissed the benefits of ANWR in an April 28 press conference:

SCHUMER: What does the president do? He takes out the old saw of ANWR. ANWR wouldn’t produce a drop of oil in ten years, and it’s estimated that if they drilled in ANWR, in 20 years it would reduce the price one penny. We’ve been pushing for a long time for energy efficiency. We believe in a price-gouging bill so that the big oil companies can’t collude. We believe that there’s too much speculation in the markets, and we believe that ought to be reined in.

So why did he say this two weeks earlier on the Senate floor:

SCHUMER: If Saudi Arabia were to increase its production by 1 million barrels per day that translates to a reduction of 20 percent to 25 percent in the world price of crude oil, and crude oil prices could fall by more than $25 dollar per barrel from its current level of $126 per barrel. In turn, that would lower the price of gasoline between 13 percent and 17 percent, or by more than 62 cents off the expected summer regular-grade price — offering much needed relief to struggling families.

One penny for American oil but 62 cents for Saudi oil?

And we might note that had President Clinton not vetoed the bill which both houses of congress passed in 1995 to authorize drilling in ANWR, that one million barrels of oil would be serving citizens in the U.S. TODAY!

So next time a Democrat complains about the high cost of gasoline, ask them why they voted against eco-friendly drilling for oil right here in the U.S. We have enough oil right here in the U.S. to replace every drop of oil currently imported from the Middle East.

also:

Terrorism On The Decline

As Scott noted earlier, terrorist’s themselves are admitting they’re getting their buts kicked. Now a new study shows that terrorism worldwide has declined:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A study released on Wednesday reports a decline in fatal attacks of terrorism worldwide and says U.S. think-tank data showing sharp increases were distorted due to the inclusion of killings in Iraq.

“Even if the Iraq ‘terrorism’ data are included, there has still been a substantial decline in the global terrorism toll,” said the 2007 Human Security Brief, an annual report funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Britain.

For example, global terrorism fatalities declined by 40 percent between July and September 2007, driven by a 55 percent decline in the “terrorism” death toll in Iraq after the so-called surge of new U.S. troops and a cease-fire by the Shi’ite militant Mehdi Army, the brief said.

“We have concluded that the expert consensus (on terrorism) is probably misleading,” Andrew Mack, director of the Human Security Report Project, told a news conference.

~~~

The Human Security Brief also points out an inconsistency in the calculation methods of the institutes. Although they include attacks on civilians in what it describes as Iraq’s civil war, they include few similar deaths from African wars.

Mack said this was a “U.S.-centric” view of terrorism.

Let me correct that. Its a leftist-centric view of terrorism. If they can cook the books a bit to make it appear Bushitler has caused an increase in terrorism then they are happy. But the fact remains that terrorism worldwide has decreased….and we can thank Bush and our troops for that. When you aggressively go after terrorists you tend to either kill, capture, or run them off. Meaning, terrorism declines. When you take a ho-hum approach as Clinton did, and which Obama apparently will do, and instead just send a few missiles this way or that or sit down to talk to them for some group therapy then you can be assured that terrorism will increase. I mean, what do they have to fear anymore? Allowing them free reign just gives them the time and resources to grow until we have something looking like al-Qaeda on September 10th, 2001.