'Start Drilling'

The thing that makes Bob Samuelson such a thoughtful guy is that he routinely resists the scares and hysteria. He also looks past the political bromides at the real truth, which almost always puts him squarely in the minority -- a journalist not prone to a jerking knee. In today's WaPo he has a great op-ed by the above title, making the case for boosting the supply side of oil by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration. Up to now, all the press and political treatment has been on limiting the demand side, leading one to ask, "How's that going?" Raising the price of -- or taxes on -- gas clearly has little effect on consumption since so much transportation is inelastic, i.e., non-discretionary.

A few truths on ANWR that you will not see mentioned in stories in the WaPo or the NY Times:

• ANWR is an area about the size of the state of South Carolina. The proposed drilling footprint is one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport.
• The reserves in ANWR are substantial, roughly equal to the on-shore reserves in Texas.

The WaPo, for its part, chose instead to run not one but two snarky articles about the President's push for opening ANWR to exploration, when in fact it is an option that should be on the table. And, if the WaPo doesn't believe in the law of supply and demand, well, they need look only as far as....the WaPo. On today's front page is a story about ethanol entitled, "Siphoning off corn to fuel our cars." As demand for corn has risen, it has driven up the price of food (not just corn) worldwide.

So let's boost supplies of oil right here in our own backyard. We remain the only country that limits access to tis own natural resources. Samuelson also mentions the 400+ trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf -- 85% of which remains under a federal moratorium.

Sadly, when it comes to the high price of gas, we have only ourselves to blame.