U.S. asleep at switch on oil exploration

We were asleep at the switch, said Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson

More than 50,000 workers and most of the major domestic oil producers have been driven out of the Untied States by the lack of a viable energy policy and overtaxation of the oil and gas industry.

The United States is one of the few major oil producing countries restricting offshore exploration to previously developed areas. This is due to the envirofreak and Clinton-Gore incompetence.

Even so, according to Cristophe Armengol and Joelle Germain; Institut Francais du Petrole (Oil & Gas Journal of March 20, 2000), "Worldwide drilling activity shrank by 25 percent in 1999" to a projected 31,641 worldwide and 25,760 in North America (USA, Canada and Mexico). Only 7,627 wells were drilled in the rest of the world (excluding China, Russia, and Eastern European countries).

The loss of more than half a million jobs and the desertion of most of our major oil producers to foreign shores has resulted in importation of more than 70 percent of the oil refined in the United States during the Clinton-Gore fiasco. This has allowed OPEC to cause a world oil shortage and consequent unwarranted increase of gasoline price.

As stated by Energy Secretary Richardson: "We were asleep at the switch."