If Only Congress Had Listened to Sarah Palin

When International Business Daily's editors first interviewed a little-known governor named Sarah Palin ten months ago, she told them about Alaska's Chukchi Sea resources and emphasized that these energy assets should be developed. At the time it was thought that there were sufficient oil and gas resources there to meet America's needs for a decade. Palin told IBD that it was "nonsensical" for the U.S. to beg the Saudis to ramp up crude oil production while Alaska was sitting virtually on top of those resources. She saw development of the Chukchi as a significant step toward U.S. energy security. All that was needed was permission to drill:

"Congress can do that for us right now," Palin told IBD, urging Washington to open the territory.

That Congress hasn't is the biggest part of the problem.

"Alaska should be the head, not the tail, to the energy solution," Palin said.

This week, according to Science magazine, the U.S. Geological Survey now finds that the Arctic holds more bounty than anyone had dared to dream — more trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil. Add the Chukchi share of the new Arctic finding to the ample oil and gas deposits located elsewhere in and around the U.S., and that's enough domestic energy to make America  self-sufficient and relieve any worries about our national energy security.

It should surely be more than enough fossil fuel to carry us through the R&D time needed for our greener brethren  to complete their Monty Python-like quest for that holy grail of alternative fuels -  renewable energy. If only the congress had listened to the governor's advice and allowed drilling in the area last year, our nation would have an exit strategy for its dependence on foreign oil and gas. We would be secure in the knowledge that in only a decade or so, no nation would ever be able to put us over a barrel of oil.

Instead, we are faced with the knowledge that if we don't drill, Russia will. Putin intends to corner the energy market, and unlike American politicians who live in fear of antagonizing the environmental lobby, Russia's strong man won't hesitate to push the U.S. out of the way and help himself to both his share and ours of the Arctic's rich pockets of oil and gas. Who's going to stop him -- President Obama?

IBD's editors lament the Obama administration's unicorns-and-rainbows approach to our energy problems:

Steven Chu's Energy Department is spending too many resources trying to figure out how to turn all the weird wind power and switchgrass schemes into viable energy resources.

His latest idea is to paint roofs white. None of this puts significant energy out to consumers. Nor does it come close to matching oil in energy value.

An Exxon Mobil study has found that no matter what the U.S. does to develop alternative fuels, oil will remain the dominant energy source through at least 2030. Alaskan oil and gas is preferable, say the IBD editors, to relying upon sheiks and dictators or waiting for alternative energy to become cost-efficient.

This is what Sarah Palin tried to tell the country in last year when it didn't know her. After it was finally allowed to make her acquaintance, the governor's message kept getting drowned out by a mainstream media more interested in such trivialities as the cost of the clothes she didn't want and never asked for, but that the RNC purchased anyway. Besides, she was just playing second fiddle to the top of her party's ticket, and the other party's presidential candidate gave the media a thrill up its collective leg.

Perhaps things will have changed enough in a few years' time that the country will be ready to listen to a real and doable way to achieve energy security. Sarah Palin and other Alaskans will be ready, as always, to tell us about it.

- JP