Roscoe Bartlett: “Oil is a critical energy source for both the United States and the world, and for us it is a very uncertain energy…”

“Oil is a critical energy source for both the United States and the world, and for us it is a very uncertain energy future because there are only about 1,000 gigabarrels of known reserves of oil in the world. Certainly we will find more oil, and maybe the additional oil we find will be enough to take care of the additional demands for oil. If we take this 1,000 gigabarrels of oil and divide it by the 80 million barrels of oil that the world burns, uses each day, this comes out to roughly 40 years. This is certainly not forever. Of this 80 million barrels that are used each day, the United States uses 20. That is about 25 percent of the total oil used in the world is used in the United States. We have some reserves. They are off the Florida coast. They are under Lake Michigan, and they are in ANWR. Should we drill those? There are two arguments. One is that we need it. The other is we may need it more in the future. We have to determine when it would serve our interests best, to use it now or to wait for a rainier day, which will surely come.”