Perhaps The U.S. Should Burn This Bridge

Author: Dan Bimrose

Article:
Many years ago, I read about a concept which stated that if you
are proposing a new business venture perhaps leaving your job
instead of holding onto it as long as possible has its
advantages. Doing this forces you to make a real effort to make
your new business work since you can not readily go back to your
job.

I actually believe that this concept does have some merit. It
forces you to focus on the task at hand and allows you to throw
100% of your efforts into your venture.

Perhaps we should look at utilizing this concept when attacking
our energy issues.

Barack Obama does not believe that we should drill for oil off
of the coast of Florida. Barack Obama does not believe we should
drill for oil in ANWR. Barack Obama does not believe we should
build new nuclear plants. In the face of what is going on
currently this would seem to be lunacy. I am currently an
undecided voter. Obama's stance on these issues definitely does
not make me lean towards voting for him.

Foregoing drilling for more oil or building our nuclear capacity
might be acceptable though if the United States were to be
unified in the one goal of becoming foreign oil independent.
Because quite frankly if we are not going to drill for more oil
we better figure something else out. We need to focus and we
need to have our industry experts putting forth 100% of their
time and energy into finding a workable solution to this problem.

I think there is a bit of misinformation about the length of
time it would take to retrieve oil from these sources. I keep
hearing ten years from the majority of the media outlets.
Legitimate experts in the field say we should start benefiting
from drilling in no less than three years. Of course if we do
manage to produce more oil we better start building new
refineries as well or any new drilling is pointless.

The point that Obama is trying to make, by using the ten year
figure, is that the benefits are too far off in the future to
make the effort. He would like us to believe that drilling for
oil now is futile and he may in fact have an argument.
Personally I think we should do anything and everything we can
right now for the future. Or else what is likely to happen is
that three years or ten years from now we are going to be asking
ourselves why we did not drill when the problem first became
apparent. In the end we will never be able to eliminate our need
for oil, yet we can eliminate our need for foreign oil.

That being said I would have much more faith in Obama's plan if
he came out with strong statements about his alternative energy
plan. Statements that detailed a plan that would eliminate our
need for foreign oil in ten years. Statements in which he uses
words such as "mandate", "required" and "imperative".

Obama does in fact have an alternative energy plan that he does
speak about often. He does propose alternative energy as the
only viable long term solution. What is missing is more urgency.
Every campaign speech, every interview should start out with him
promoting this plan. I do not want to hear this every other week
or once a week. I want to hear these assurances each and every
day. It should not be just an idea or part of his platform, it
should be the cornerstone of his campaign. US citizens must
believe that this is real and that this is going to happen.
Eliminating the need for foreign oil is necessary and should be
the first item on the new President's agenda. Our economy and
our standard of living depends upon this.

We need a President that will be uncompromising and unwavering
on this issue. We need a President that will force the necessary
bills through Congress in order to make this happen. If we are
not going to drill we need to set our country on a new path. We
need to do this yesterday.

This is imperative from our candidates because becoming oil
independent seems to be pretty far down on the current
President's agenda.