REQUIRED READING – AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  Many kudos to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for writing the best piece on American energy supplies that I've yet read, published in the Washington Post.  The senator sets the record, and the president, straight on our situation.  Will he call her in for a meeting, and benefit from her extensive knowledge?  You can answer that yourself:

I welcomed President Obama’s recent pledge to increase domestic production. It was a big step, and I hope his administration heeds the message. But I’m also deeply concerned by some of the information presented about America’s energy potential. Left unchallenged, it will contribute to a mistaken belief that increased domestic production is not truly possible.

The president said this month that “even if we doubled the amount of oil that we produced, we’d still be short by a factor of five.” That’s simply incorrect. Doubling our production would trim imports nearly in half. Boosting production by a factor of five is not currently feasible, but if it were, it would make the United States the world’s largest producer.

Perhaps most misleading is his claim — also made by others — that the United States has “about 2, maybe 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves; we use 25 percent of the world’s oil.” That line is crafted to make the audience think that America is both running out of oil and using oil at an unsustainable rate.

In truth, “reserves” is just one of several categories used to quantify oil and, on its own, misrepresents America’s potential. To classify a barrel as a reserve, you have to drill, prove the oil is there, and meet strict criteria established by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s not an easy process.

Right now, America has an estimated 22.3 billion barrels of oil reserves. But that’s hardly the whole story. A recent Congressional Research Service report that I commissioned with Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma found that the United States’ recoverable oil resources are estimated at 157 billion barrels. That is seven times as much as our reserves and doesn’t even include the roughly 900 billion barrels of unconventional oil resources nearing commercialization.

COMMENT:  Please read the entire article.  We are given so much nonsense about energy supplies, much of it filtered through environmental extremists. Murkowski knows her stuff.

I read this article somewhat wistfully.  If Sarah Palin had done her homework and written articles like this, and remained as governor of Alaska, she'd be in an entirely different position right now.  By resigning her governorship, she gave up her major credential and short-circuited her governmental "experience" argument.  Alaska right now is booming because of energy prices.  If Palin had been governor, she would have glowed as a successful executive of a successful state.  Had she learned to make the kind of detailed arguments Murkowski is making, she would have been taken more seriously.  It's sad, but I think she blew it, and I can't see a road back.  The lure of celebrity became too great.

April 22, 2011