I was inspired by Obama's snap on The Drilling today to write this blog to tell you how to talk to republicans with regards to drilling.

This Elections is quickly boiling down to a single issue: Energy! Energy for us in the way of food. Energy for our cars in the way of gasoline. Because of the rise in the cost of the latter we are paying more for the former. Now the Republican are screaming “DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW!!!” Americans everywhere are saying I wouldn't mind at all if they drilled in my back yard if it brought the cost of gasoline down. Democrats say it's a silly solution cite the environment, or some statistic that says it won't do any thing for blah number of years and then that's it.

We must talk to people and let them know why the Whole Drill Here Drill Now argument is Bullshit. Oh and let me make this a little harder for you. You have to talk to them on their terms. If you scream about the environment to most average joes (low info folks) they could give a rat's ass. Some of you have heard me talk about Arkansas Americans vs Coastal Americans. Well this issue (I've fundraised for the Heritage Foundation so I know a little bit about this) here is that many of them that know the environmental arguments but they chalk those up to “junk science.” They've got studies that back them up just like we have studies to back us up.

You have to talk money and and common sense. You see, they understand free market economics (well, at least they claim to, that's why so many of them vote republican). Many people don't understand that we, AMERICA, don't own the drills, the refineries, the blah blah blah, to making the oil industry work. They assume that when we drill in ANWR that the oil goes to our refineries and then goes to our gas tanks. Many of them don't understand that it doesn't quite work that way.

The way we've set up our system is a free market economy. We lease out the land (or ocean) to the oil company and give them the rights to be able to drill there. Once they pay the leasing fees whatever they drill they are free to sell in the free market. It's very akin to your own home and property. Most people believe that they own property, NOPE, the government leases the land to you. As long as you pay the taxes you may remain on the property, but (as many people are finding out) once you don't have the money for the property taxes then the house gets sold. You own the house and the rights to build on that land through the mortgage but you're paying the government to stay there. (I know some of the facts there are a little fuzzy and a lot more complicated, but the gist of it is what's important)

Now how does this relate to gas prices.

Well, after EXXON or BP or Shell or whatever giant Corporation owns the lease to the Oil Spot and sucks the black gold into a tanker they can sell it to whoever is going to give them the highest price. We have to bid on the oil that came from our own land err ocean. So we have to compete with China, India, Japan, the rest of the World for resources that came out of our own ground err water. Because China and India with their HUGE populations are now becoming industrialized their demands will soon match and exceed America's. That's why they'll bid the price up along with us because they need the resource as much as we do and they have more people. Along with the China suppressing the price at the pump in their country to give an ENCENTIVE to people to drive more (and buy more cars) and China and India's rapid highway expansion the more that is pumped the more they will take. Which is why we will only see a few cents savings over the next 10 years.

If you want to dig an extra special knife in their backs, then you can tell them it was the free market, save the oil company Republicans that helped make the laws the way they are. There was actually a vote a couple of years ago that would have made any oil that we drilled in ANWR available exclusively to America and The Republicans, John McCain included, voted it down. Company's First!

Then you can hit them with the fact that over 72% of the expected haul of oil is available to the oil companies to drill RIGHT NOW in 68million acres of land. The won't drill it.

That's when you'll get the neck jerk, WHAT? That doesn't make any sense. Why?

Because of cost. It costs money in order to build oil derricks and pay employees and to get permits and to blah blah blah. Why drill when you can get all the profits from owning the land and the POTENTIAL PROFITS and borrow against them to secure more capital. It's like having a piece of property that you got for cheap and borrowing against the equity without actually living there. If they drilled they have to pay money. The land rights gives them more money to secure capital to buy other companies and increase their profit margins.

So giving them more land to drill on won't give us more oil, it will give the oil companies more money they can Use to look better to wall street to increase their stock options. Not a drop more gas in our gas tanks. If the oil companies were serious about drilling they'd already be doing it.

The other thing that you'll have to let the people know is that Oil is a finite resource. Once it's gone that's it. This is like putting a band-aid on a broken arm or giving a junky a new heroine dealer. We have an opportunity to fix the problem permanently now or we can wait until we have NO CHOICE and it'll be much more expensive. 30 years ago Brazil took the plunge and now they don't take in any foreign oil. They had to go through a rough patch and we will to but this is an opportunity to make life better for our kids and grand kids. Once our Energy is based on renewables, then we won't have to worry about whether or the price of gas will be affected by a strike against Iran.

Close them with an analogy. It's like the little oil light has been going off in the car. The driver knows they need to get an oil change but they ignore it. The car starts running a little ragged so they drop in a quart of oil and don't change the filters. It runs better for a little while but then it starts back running rough. So they add more oil but it doesn't do much so they keep driving. Now it's been months and their driving along on the highway and the car Stops DEAD. They lift the hood and it's smoking. The engine has ceased. Two thousand bucks for towing and a new engine. All of that could have been avoided with a 20 oil change. America has been driving around with that same oil light flashing since the Carter administration. We can either drop in another can of oil and hope the engine doesn't blow or we can take the bite change the way we've been doing things and never have to worry about this problem again.