With gas prices rising to record levels, U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-6th District, stressed the need for a massive government projectto reduce America?s dependence on oil.
“We need leaders to tell the American people about our precarious energy situation,” Bartlett said Thursday at a Capitol Hill news conference. “We are consuming nonrenewable resources which will not be available to future generations.”
Bartlett co-sponsored H.R. 507, which calls for the country to “establish an energy project with the magnitude, creativity and sense of urgency that was incorporated in the ?Man on the Moon? project to address the inevitable challenges of ?Peak Oil.? ”
Peak Oil is not a new theory. Its adherents just celebrated the 50th anniversary of a speech by Marion King Hubbert, who spoke at length about what has since been dubbed “Hubbert?s Peak,” the point or points at which both domestic and international oil availability would decline.
Those like Bartlett who promote the Peak Oil theory today usually explain it like this: The Earth is rapidly approaching a point where world oil production will reach a peak, then rapidly decline as the old oil fields dry up and it becomes ever more difficult to find new places to drill. As supplies fall, the world will see oil prices skyrocket to previously unimagined heights.
Hubbert predicted in 1956 that production in the continental United States would hit its peak in the early 1970s ? and he was right.
Bartlett said he believes world oil production has reached its peak, and the United States must invest in more exploration and create more efficient means of using existing supplies of energy.
Bartlett himself owns a hybrid car.
Just weeks ago, Bartlett requested that a September 2005 report for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers be released to the public.
The report, prepared by Donald F. Fournier and Eileen T. Westervelt, pulls no punches.
“The days of inexpensive, convenient, abundant energy sources are quickly drawingto a close. ? Energy consumption is indispensable to our standard of living and a necessity for the Army to carry out its mission,” it reads. “However, current trends are not sustainable. The impact of excessive, unsustainable energy consumption may undermine the very culture and activities it supports.”
Thomas A. Firey, who specializes in regulatory affairs and gas prices at the Cato Institute, said short-term congressional proposals like suspending the gas tax and giving Americans $100 rebates to pay for gas are “just silly.”
