The page includes graphics of ANWR’s location and size, photos the Lefties use to depict what ANWR supposedly looks like, photos of the coastal plain area where the drill rigs would actually go, some Google Earth screen shots, and local wildlife hanging out quite happily in Prudhoe Bay.

If this doesn’t convince you that we should drill up there, I don’t know what would.

Enter Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Thune (R-SD), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Isakson (R-GA) who, along with five Senate Democrats, have announced that their ”Gang of 10″ wants a “sweeping” and “bipartisan” energy plan to break the ”stalemate.”  Sounds good, right? 

Not really.  The bill says new production on offshore federal lands would be left to the state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hoops and hurdles are huge.  The bill prohibits drilling within 50 miles of the coast — keeping some of our most potentially productive areas closed.  ANWR would still be  a no-go. AND the plan contains $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and handouts for alternative fuels and renewables…to be paid for (drum roll) by raising taxes on oil companies!

Boys, we’ve been over this umpteen times:  we need to open up all lands in all coastal states, keep the red tape to a minimum, drill wherever the oil is, tap ANWR, and get it straight that raising taxes on oil companies means raising the price of gas for consumers, because Big Oil will just pass the hikes down to the man at the pump.

These five Republicans need to re-think their agenda and quick, before November voters hit the ballot booths.  If you wish to express your thoughts and feelings to any of the senators, here are links to their contact pages:

Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
John Thune (R-S.D.)
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.)
Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga)
Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)

The fact is, we’ve been gouged into thinking that anything under $4.00 a gallon is good.  To bring yourself back to reality, see this graphic.  To do something about it, go here.

Did anyone else feel the urge to choke the living daylights out of Chuck Schumer this week?  If not, you must have missed the Senate floor speech in which he re-opined the tired line that if only the Saudis would produce “half a million barrels more oil a day, the price [of oil] would come down a very significant amount.” 

Why does this statement make my blood pressure rise and my fingers twitch?

Because the tiny impact area within ANWR – a size ratio equivalent to a dime on a 4 x 8’ table – is projected to produce ONE MILLION barrels a day, every day, if only we would drill.  And because Schumer’s (true) statement that a greater immediate supply would reduce prices falls short of saying what is also true:  that even the ANTICIPATION of a greater FUTURE supply would decrease prices in the Now.

Schumer’s other infuriating comment – that more drilling would “stop the speculation that keeps driving up the price of oil” – also missed the proverbial mark.  Speculators wouldn’t “stop” if the Saudis drilled more, because speculation in free markets never stops.

Instead, speculators (also known as investors, also known as buyers and sellers, also known as people trying to earn money for their families and futures) would anticipate the increased oil supply, begin to sell for less, continue to drop prices as volume increased, and thus reverse the current market trend of charging a per barrel premium for what is currently a too-scarce commodity. 

Perhaps  “speculation” would then stop being a dirty word and be seen as what it really is:  the natural response of the market to the forces of supply and demand.  

For those not convinced that these tenets of ECON 101 are true, please note that we’ve already seen the evidence.  As Larry Kudlow reported the other day on NRO, oil prices dropped $9 per barrel the day after the offshore drilling moratorium was lifted by the president.  This is no coincidence.  It is case-and-point and perfectly illustrates what speculation really IS – not a crime against humanity, but the market doing what markets tend to do:  try to anticipate the future and adjust.

It is maddening that the same people who want to spend billions on economy-choking “climate change” measures that might (MIGHT!) reduce temperatures by one quarter degree over the next one-half century cannot see the wisdom of opening a tiny piece of ANWR in return for a sure thing over the next one to ten years.