Fuel Prices: A National Emergency

The price of gasoline is hitting all time highs. Worse yet, these high prices are not just spikes due to supply issues - they are sustained prices that will not drop anytime soon. Why? Demand. India and China are growing, industrial, consumer societies that have populations that increase exponentially. The price of gas drives up the prices of every commodity in our society, from hair cuts to groceries. Everything is pegged to fuel prices. How can we reduce fuel prices in America? This is not a simple process. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have it correct. The solution is not - GO GREEN! The process of green technology needs to be incremental. There is no device to install on cars that is cheap, reliable, mass produceable and ready for immediate deployment. As a result, the Obama initiatives on hybrid cars are not affordable to a vast majority of the population. While celebrities tout their Prius, the average worker cannot afford the hybrid price tag. Most of us are stuck with our older model gas guzzlers, simply because we don't have the credit to get a new car. While Obama pushes expensive green solutions, the majority of us are stuck with regular cars. His callous disregard of the crisis of fuel prices on the average American is disturbing and out of touch. The Republican strategy of "Drill Here, Drill Now" is also ignorantly short sighted. Oil is a commodity sold on the world market to the highest bidder. Therefore, no matter how much oil we produce domestically, it all still ends up in India and China. Domestic energy production has no bearing on domestic energy costs. What, then, is the solution? Congress must mandate that oil produced in the United States must remain, in large quantity, IN the United States. In order for oil companies to receive a permit to drill, explore, pump or in any way extract oil from our nation, they should be required to keep 90% of that oil here for sale. Also, Congress should mandate the construction of more energy efficient and safe refineries if oil companies want to produce oil here. By mandating that oil drilled here must be refined here and also be sold here, that would significantly drop our dependance on foreign exploitation, and shield our nation from the volatile world oil market. Considering that we have some of the largest deposits of oil in the world, there is no reason that our energy costs should be exorbitant. Another solution, less popular of course, would be to nationalize our oil industry. By creating a United States Oil Corporation (Public), we could produce, refine and sell American oil to pay down our national debt and balance our budget. We have resources. It is about time that our nation wake up and make our society prosperous again. Our economy will be in shambles until our basic needs are addressed, and the one that needs first attention is our energy crisis.