How Can America Beat Oil Crisis?; Bears or Oil?
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, gas and oil continues to soar to record highs. I just can`t figure out, when it comes to finding oil in our own backyard, how come we keep drilling with one hand tied behind our back? The answer`s going to make blood shoot right out of your eyes. Plus, we`ll take off our weeklong series "Second Amendment Under Fire." We`ll speak with the governor of Louisiana about his move to protect gun rights in New Orleans. And what would it be like if you could remember everything, the good and the bad? I`m going to introduce you tonight to a woman with total recall. Find out if it`s a blessing or a curse. All this and more, tonight.</s>BECK: Well, hello, America. Every time you go to fill up your tank, you know that we`re facing an energy crisis in this country that we haven`t seen since the 1970s. Back when Jimmy Carter days. Oh, I loved him. You know, when he was bundling our foreign policy and OPEC nations were to blame. This time around, we can`t really point our fingers at the Middle East, because it`s us. It`s our own government and the special interest groups that pull their strings that are to blame. So here`s "The Point" tonight. You know, I don`t know about you, but I never saw our country as a collection of whiners and losers. We`ll never get out of this mess with the Congress and a president that is tying our hands behind our back. And here`s how I got there. Jeff Bingaman, he is the Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. He said that to get out of the rising gas prices, we`re not going to drill our way out of this problem! Really? He, of course, is a politician, so we can rest assured he`s wrong. I know it`s really popular these days to hate the oil companies, but if we don`t really start to drill our way out of this problem, oh, we`re pretty screwed to the wall. In order to fully understand our energy crisis, you have to see -- and this is where everybody -- "Oh, Glenn wants to drill in my living room?" No, no, no. See, the solution to this puzzle. It`s more than just one piece. No one piece is more important than the other. Some pieces may be bigger, but if we`re going to achieve true energy independence, we`d better start looking at the really big picture in the entire puzzle. We`re not suddenly going to, you know, have our oil dependence magically disappear. It`s the life blood of our way on earth as humans, not just America, but everywhere. We don`t have anything in the pipeline to replace it right now, and demand for oil is only getting higher as China and India are coming online. China, in fact, has already doubled its thirst for oil in just the last ten years. Can you imagine what the next ten years are going to be like? Congress needs to encourage the development of coal-to-oil technology. There`s one. We have to take a look at nuclear energy. Release us to let us do nuclear energy. We should embrace sensible alternative energies. Ethanol doesn`t really fit into that category. After all, it does burn up the food supply. And we also have to give into the hard fact that right now, I`m sorry, America runs on oil. If our economy is expected to thrive and even survive in the next few years, short and long -- short and midterm, we can`t ignore oil. According to AAA, gas prices have risen six days in a row. You`re now paying 21 percent more for gas than you did last summer, like I have to tell you that. We have to ramp up domestic offshore drilling, even off the coast of billionaire vacation spots like South Florida, California, and my favorite, Cape Cod. Energy companies should be encouraged to look for oil everywhere: in your backyard, my backyard, everybody`s backyard, if that`s where it is. We don`t have to destroy the planet to find it. We just have to find it. And we, unfortunately, need to start drilling in ANWR, even under that little patch of ice where the cutest little polar bear in Alaska lives. When it comes to a choice between saving the western civilization way of life or keeping Snowball the polar bear happy, I think I`m leaning towards the west. So tonight, America, here`s what you need to know. Until we get a president and Congress with vision -- or really, I`ll just settle for one with a clue -- we need temporary energy solutions, and aggressive drilling in the United States is one of them. I`m going to stay on this story all week. We`re going to look at some of the possibilities, but the No. 1 priority has got to be shedding our dependence on foreign oil. Until we learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it. Byron King is the analyst and editor of "Outstanding Investments." OK, Byron, let`s say we go into ANWR, because this is what people were yelling at me over the weekend. I actually went someplace and they`re like, "You`re the guy who says we should start drilling in the ANWR." Well, yes, that`s one possibility. How much oil can we get from ANWR or off our coast? Does it make any difference at all?</s>BYRON KING, EDITOR, "OUTSTANDING INVESTMENTS": It sure does make a lot of difference, Glenn, certainly in the medium-term. In the short-term, if we decided to drill in ANWR tomorrow, it would probably take us four years before we saw the first barrel even begin to come out. So we`re making a 5-, 10-, 20-year commitment just for the drilling and the development, and then it`s a 100-year oil stream, Glenn. I mean, we`ve been producing oil at the North Slope for over 40 years, pipelining it for 30 years through the Great Alaska Pipeline, and there`s still 50 years left to go, so...</s>BECK: So how -- what is the percentage of oil -- how much can we reduce our foreign dependence on oil if we went after the known reserves that we had off our coastlines, in the gulf, in the ANWR, et cetera, et cetera? How much could we reduce our dependence on foreign oil?</s>KING: Well, if we were producing oil from ANWR, say today, which we`re not, but if we were, ANWR could produce -- and this is according to the U.S. Department of the interior, who knows something about it -- we could produce as much from ANWR as is produced in all of the state of Texas. As far as offshore, on the East and West Coast, the best geological estimates are that we have about five times of the oil reserves that we have onshore right now are offshore off the East and West Coast, although, again, that`s a 15 and 20-year project to find and develop it.</s>BECK: But then, you know what, everybody says, "Oh, Glenn, but we need help at the gas pump right now." If I`m not mistake, again, if I want to look at history and try to learn from history, we said we were going to start making synthetic oil out of coal -- we`re the Saudi Arabia of coal -- we said this in the `80s, and the price of oil the Saudis and OPEC dropped it from, like, $36 a barrel to $8 a barrel. We would see an immediate price decrease at the pump if the -- if Russia and OPEC actually thought we were serious, would we not?</s>KING: Oh, I believe so very definitely. I think that Mr. Chavez of Venezuela and Ahmadinejad of Iran, their worst nightmare is that the United States would get its energy act together with a long-term policy to exploit our own North American resources. It`s not going to happen tomorrow, but over the medium and long-term as a nation, we have to do this. It`s a national security issue of the first priority.</s>BECK: So if you were -- if you were -- well, you were President King, or king of the president -- if you were the president right now and I came to you and I said, "Mr. King, what do we do first thing?" What is the first thing that we should be doing?"</s>KING: The first thing is having a long-term energy policy for the country, which includes, I have to say, Glenn, a stable dollar. If we keep killing the dollar long-term, you know, there`s just -- all bets are off the table.</s>BECK: OK.</s>KING: Stabilize the value of the dollar and adopt a long-term energy policy that exploits North American resources that are here that we know are here, and that we simply must have going forward in the future.</s>BECK: Byron, thank you very much. You know what, America? I know, you`re so sick of hearing these problems every night because you know the solutions. They`re not that hard, you know? We may not know exactly what needs to happen first, but we know how to get them done. Common sense goes a long way, and America`s full of common sense, except from the boobs that you see on your television from Washington. When it comes to environmental issues, oh, my gosh, the global warming hysteria is causing common sense to be tossed right out of the window. This Thursday is a very important date in America. It could change everything. It is when a California court has told Washington that it must make up its mind about polar bears. Do they go on the endangered species list or not? Now, I have no problem with the polar bears. They`re cute; they`re cuddly. They do eat people, but hey, to each his own. While you kick this around in your head, I want you to think about this. In 1972 there were 5,000 polar bears. Now we`re considering putting them on the endangered species list. There are now 25,000 polar bears. That doesn`t sound like a species in danger to me, but that`s because this isn`t about saving the polar bear; it`s about stopping oil exploration. Ben Lieberman is the senior policy analyst for energy and the environment at the Heritage Foundation. Ben, the ice shelf, we have just found out, is at the highest level since 1979. In fact, if I`m not mistaken, it`s the second highest level of ice shelf since they started measuring the ice shelf. That`s where the polar bears live. It has gone from 5,000 to 25,000. This isn`t about polar bears at all. What are we trying to do in court by putting the polar bears on the Endangered Species Act?</s>BEN LIEBERMAN, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, this is all about global warming. The global warming activists are really trying to take every bite at the apple. Right now, legislation to deal with global warming is stalling in Congress because a lot of congressmen are realizing just how expensive this is going to be. So these activists are using existing laws and regulations to try to sneak global warming legislation in through the back door, and one way to do that is through the Endangered Species Act.</s>BECK: OK, because this not only -- if the polar bears, if their ice shelf is being melted, which now NOAA says it not happening -- it`s the biggest ice shelf that we`ve had -- if that`s not happening -- or if they say this is happening because of global warming, it means not only can you not drill there, but it also means you must cut down CO2, right? Because anything that harms the polar bear should be against the law.</s>LIEBERMAN: Well, that`s the scary part of the Endangered Species Act. It`s very open-ended. It essentially says the federal government can do anything that it thinks will help a species, once that species is listed. So this would really deal a blow to oil and natural gas production in Alaska, both onshore and offshore, ANWR, and other promising parts of Alaska. It could even mean interference with energy use in the rest of the United States, any power plant or factory or even a road or bridge that encourages automobile use. All these things emit fossil fuels. And if the argument is that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels leads to global warming, which leads to erosion of the ice, theoretically, all this stuff could be held up.</s>BECK: Right. So you could even go after -- environmentalists could say "You`re killing the polar bear, GM," and they could go after GM or Ford or Toyota or anybody else.</s>LIEBERMAN: Yes. And the Endangered Species Act writes very, very friendly lawsuit provisions to make these kind of lawsuits very easy.</s>BECK: Good. Just what we need, more lawsuits in America. Thanks, Ben. Now, coming up, why some courts are acting like the right to bear arms is not constitutionally protected. And it`s a politician who`s taking a stand for that right that`s on the program tonight. It`s part of our weeklong series, "Second Amendment Under Fire." Grab your guns! Plus, if you`re like me, you have a tough stuff remembering simple stuff like what you ate for breakfast or where you put your keys. I`m going to talk to a woman here in a few minutes who never has that problem. She remembers absolutely everything. Jill Price, the woman who cannot forget. I believe that`s got to be hell. Coming up next.