It’s a tale of two cities. In one, a gapping maw to a deepening abyss warns all to “abandon hope, ye who enter here.” In the other, a shining beacon atop a hill carries the message of “The Man in the Arena,” “whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.”
In Denver, the Democrats fashioned an energy plank in a piteous platform embracing failure as a foregone conclusion and caustically cautioning Americans that the time had come to live on less. Declaring outright, “We know we can’t drill our way to more energy independence,” the party of Big Government and small dreams gave up the ghost and gave in those who counsel defeat.
In Minneapolis, the Republicans took a decidedly rosier view of the world of tomorrow. While spouting the now obligatory denunciation of “fossil fuels” (which have helped make America the most advanced civilization in the history of mankind), the GOP nonetheless declared outright, “We must draw more American oil from American soil.” And thereby hangs a tale.
The fact is, Democrats and Republicans alike—at least those that care to be honest with themselves and those around them—know that America can “drill our way to more energy independence.” And they know that there are plenty enough fossil fuels on and off U.S. shores to supply the needs of every single American for many decades to come. Ironically, achieving such energy independence is essentially a matter of heeding the words of a Man in the Arena more than four decades ago from a speech he never got to give.
The remarks John Kennedy was to give at the Dallas Trade Mart in the early afternoon of November 22, 1963, included the admonition, “America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy.”
While the downtrodden rhetoric of the Denver Democrats morosely warned that America could never again “drill our way to energy independence,” the reality is that we assuredly can. And they very likely know it. If they don’t, they should. And they should be ashamed that they have withheld such vital information from the American people.
According the U.S. Department of the Interior in a news release dated 4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM, Reston, VA:
“North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation. A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency’s 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.”
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “This sizable find is now the highest producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years.” Says Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, “The future potential is enormous – it means we will be able to exploit this for the rest of the century.” Adds Terry Johnson, the Montana legislature’s financial analyst, “When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.”
Little wonder. According to the Energy Information Administration, this single domestic oil field, stretching from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada contains an estimated 503 billion barrels in total (that includes discovered, undiscovered, and not yet technically recoverable oil reserves). That’s enough crude oil to fully fuel the American economy for 41 straight years. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels could cost Americans as little as $16 per barrel.
So much for American not being able to “drill our way to energy independence.”
The truth is, there’s actually plenty of “American oil on American soil” – if the politicians will finally let us drill our fill.
In his “Man in the Arena” speech, Theodore Roosevelt cautioned,
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
The tale told in Denver, deliberately confusing “rhetoric with reality,” eagerly anticipated the strong man stumbling. The tale told in Minnesota boldly lauded the reemergence of The Man in the Arena, who, “daring greatly,” knows the “triumph of high achievement.” Come November, the American people will tell the final tale. And thereby hangs a destiny.
