The disabled ship drifted helplessly for weeks in the Atlantic. The storm that shattered their mast, had pushed them far out of normal sailing routes near South America. They had run out of food, water and now hope was almost gone. But like so often in the history of mankind, when it seems the last card has played and the die is cast, a sail appeared on the horizon. As it drew closer, the crew, delirious with thirst, stood on the rails waving their arms, begging the other ship for water. The captain of the other ship yelled back: "Lower down your buckets!" Confused, the crew didn't understand, until the Captain explained they were off the coast of Brazil and the mighty Amazon River pours its waters more than 100 miles out into the ocean....They had been surrounded by fresh water for the last two weeks and didn't know it.

America finds itself in a similar situation, except ours is a thirst for energy and we, the crew members, are being denied the opportunity to let our buckets down. But this thirst is not by accident or ignorance, it is planned, willful and deliberate. In this case our Captain has sailed us on to the shoals of foreign energy dependence when in reality we have all of the energy we need right here in North America.

North Dakota is in the middle of an energy boom as oil rigs and companies start to exploit the huge Bakken oil field. This oil field crosses state lines and goes up into Canada. The potential energy under the ground is massive. Oilmen have known about the Bakken reserve for years, but the technology wasn’t capable of extracting it until recently with great advances in drilling and recovery techniques. The other silver lining attached to the gold lining of this boom is that North Dakota has a 3.5% unemployment rate

This technology has lead to the capability of also recovering massive amounts of natural gas, a clean burning economical fuel. Some estimates have reported we have a hundred year supply right here in the United States. If government cooperated and fast tracked areas for resource exploration, America could see a rebound in it’s economy not seen in years.

You would think the administration would be bursting with exictement over this new technology and energy supply and promoting its use in making our country energy self sufficient, but facts are proving otherwise. Besides the shock of seeing taxpayer funded solar companies going belly up because they are not economically feasible, it seems the administration wants to punish oil companies too, besides the punishment they are meting out to coal companies:

Excerpts from Peterson Institute for International Economics October 2011 report can be found here.

Finds that proposed tax increases on just specific sectors (in this case, the oil industry) hamstring economic growth. Intangible Drilling Costs (IDC) in the new bill would no longer be allowed to be expensed for the Big Five. The API reports that this could put nearly 60,000 jobs at risk the first year that it would be implemented.

Seems when Presidential candidate, Barack Obama said his policies would make energy prices necessarily skyrocket, he was serious. Even though we are sitting on some of the largest reserves of oil, gas and coal in the world, we are being hamstrung by administration policies. Policies, which in turn are crippling our economy.

It is very conceivable that America could become energy self sufficient with the right leaders. If American focus was directed at exploiting our own resources, including hydroelectric, to become energy self sufficient, our economy would explode. Cheap, plentiful, domestic energy is the key to a healthy growing economy. It IS the engine of growth.

Canada saw the light a few years back when it was mired in its own recession, they decided to exploit their natural energy resources and now that countrys economy is booming. We should learn from them. Unshackling American ingenuity can make us energy independent with the proven resources we already know we have. Let the electric cars, the solar and the wind catch up, when/ if they can. Let America lower it's buckets.

For other points of view visit Carroll Standard: www.carrollstandard.com