The more I think about drilling for oil on the north slope of Alaska, the Arctic National  Wildlife Refuge, the more I think that we must be crazy not to be doing it.  If the bleeding heart liberals were in favor of this they would be protesting in front of the Capital and White House 24/7. 

But the conservatives who support drilling are working every day.  Only college students, teachers, professors, and the unemployed have the luxury of enough time on their hands to perpetually protest.

Now the current administration says drilling way up there won’t do any good because it will take 10 years before it will produce any oil.

Well then Duh! If that is true then what are we waiting for? 

Read between the lines, what they mean to say is it won’t produce any oil in time to get me re-elected. Moreover, if there happened to be a spill, you don’t want to be the congressman or senator who authored, or even signed, that piece of legislation. 

So Washington sees it as all risk and no reward. I think that they are all wrong. 

There is a whole lot of reward that they are overlooking.  If you are as old as I am, then you remember the building of the Alaska pipeline. Surveying started in 1970, the construction began in 1975, and it was completed in 1980. 

That project cost around 8 billion dollars and employed tens of thousands of people. If you were an ambitious or unemployed healthy male, it was a place to go for good paying work. Gee, do you think that we could use something like that right now? 

So, if they are right, and it will be ten years before the first drop of oil is produced, then my math says that is 10 years of guaranteed employment with decent paying jobs. Hey Washington, don’t tax the oil companies more (you’ll just piss that money away any how), instead, how about letting them employ tens of thousands of people on the north slope for 10 years or more? 

Now the tie-dyed tree huggers will scream “What about the environment?” Here is the reality check, the oil companies get better and better at drilling all the time.  It only makes good business sense. They hate oil spills more than any one, it is bad public relations and costs a fortune, so of course they will be as careful as possible.  I have never heard anyone from Alaska say a word against drilling on the North Slope and it is in their beloved backyard. Well kind of.

The North slope is not the Alaska you see in postcards. It is not the mountains with bears catching salmon out of pristine streams. The North slope is a whole lot of nothing hundreds of miles from anywhere. 

Finally, I am no economist, but I believe that the mere authorization to begin drilling might be enough to bring oil prices down some.  What do we have to lose!   That oil is like a gift from God that we are refusing to use at our own peril.