Jeff Duncan: “almost everyone is understandably upset about the recent rise in the price of gasoline. The really sad thing is that we…”

“almost everyone is understandably upset about the recent rise in the price of gasoline. The really sad thing is that we could easily bring these prices down or at least keep them from going up further. We have become far too dependent on foreign oil, with slightly over half, in fact some estimates as high as 60 percent, of our oil coming from other countries. This endangers our national security, in addition to hurting us in the pocketbook. We are sitting on many billions of barrels of oil in Alaska and offshore other States but some extremists do not want us to drill for any oil, cut any trees or dig for any coal. In fact, one environmentalist once told me he hoped the price of gas would go to 3 or $4 a gallon so more people would be forced to use mass transit and there would be less pollution. We could drill for oil on less than 1 percent of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and potentially get billions of barrels of oil and billions more offshore from other States.”