Ron Lewis: “When we look at the energy crisis that we are facing today, the question is, How did we get into this mess? Well, number…”

“When we look at the energy crisis that we are facing today, the question is, How did we get into this mess? Well, number one, there have been no major oil refineries built in 30 years. There are 36 refineries that have been shut down since 1992. The refineries that we have now are operating at the highest level that they probably can, but current gasoline inventories are below the average level. What we have cannot create enough gasoline. It is a matter of the law of supply and demand. There is not enough supply for the demand in this country today. In 1992, our U.S. oil production, or since 1992, our U.S. oil production is down 17 percent, but our consumption is up 14 percent. And nearly 60 percent of our oil is imported. So here we are. We are dependent on foreign oil. We cannot get enough oil, and if we were able to get enough oil at this point, we do not have the refinery capacity to produce the gasoline. So it does not take too much reasoning to figure out the problem we are in here.”