I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the commercials by now: America Runs on Dunkin; yet another catchy ad campaign from our friends at Dunkin Donuts.  Of course, some forces in this country want you to believe that America can run on coffee or ethanol or solar power or wind power or any other alternative fuel source.  But the truth is, as you sit here today reading this column, America runs on oil.  That’s right, without oil, America, as you know it ceases to exist. So, why then do many of our politicians spend more time slandering oil companies and the Iraq War than constructing a viable energy policy that includes securing inexpensive oil for years to come?  That’s easy.  Campaign money.

Before we get into that though, let’s take a closer look at oil and its function in our economy which should be easy to do because our economy simply can’t function without oil.  First off, nearly every consumer product is made from oil or machinery and systems dependent on oil including: plastic, rubber, asphalt, computers, telephones, and food preservatives.  Next, oil gives us gas, diesel fuel and jet fuel.  Just consider that every single consumer product will at some point in its manufacturing or supply chain need to be delivered by a vehicle requiring oil.  Now, add to this that the employees who make, sell or manage the production of these products need some form of oil powered transportation to get to and from work and it soon becomes obvious that we need oil to get to our jobs that need oil to make the products that need oil to get to the end consumers that needs oil to get to the stores that sell them.

Add to this that many of us use oil to heat our homes.  Our fruit and vegetables are grown, harvested and delivered using oil.  In fact, our food chain is completely dependent on oil; not to mention: clothes, toothpaste, lipstick, paint, credit cards, movie film, aspirin, cameras, shaving cream, eyeglasses, glue, roofing, shampoo, toilet seats, pens, sneakers, car batteries, detergent and the list goes on and on.

At this point, it should be quite obvious just how critical oil is to America and our way of life.  There are two problems with this, however: 1. Oil is a finite resource.  With countries like China and India consuming more oil than they ever have before, with our consumption of oil growing, and with the available oil in the ground subject to depletion, our future supply is in question.  2. We depend on foreign countries, some friendly, some not so friendly, for about 60% of our oil today.  This foreign dependence on oil subjects us to potential economic catastrophe and is a possible threat to our national security.

Not to fear though, our politicians in Washington understand the critical nature of the issue and are working hard to construct a viable energy plan that addresses these concerns.  Right?  Not quite.  Instead, many actually prevent us from becoming more energy independent.

The fact is America has its own untapped oil in the ground that we are simply not allowed to drill for.  Why you might ask? Because many of our politicians receive campaign money and support from environmental groups that don’t support drilling our own oil.  In order to appease them, they block the drilling.  So, our own oil in Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico just sits there while we head toward a potential crisis.  In fact, right now, the Chinese, Cubans, Mexicans and Brazilians are drilling for oil off the coast of Florida, but we’re not.  This same environmentalist lobby has prevented us from building any new oil refineries in the past 29 years.  You read that correctly.   With our ever increasing dependence on oil, we have not built a new oil refinery in the United States in three decades.

To add insult to injury, many of these same politicians demonize “Big Oil” and rail against their record profits.  They ignore that these companies spend billions of dollars to find, recover and deliver new oil; that they take all of the risk, produce thousands of jobs and enable millions more to make money by owning their stock.  They then criticize the Iraq War by saying it's just a “War for Oil”.  I've never understood this.  Of course, our leaders should consider the region's rich oil supply in their strategic plans. Anything less would be negligent.  They ignore that stabilizing the Middle East and indebting a country like Iraq will only contribute to our oil supply both now and in the future.

It's clear that we need an energy plan that will sustain our appetite for oil far into the future.  That means drilling for own oil domestically, building new refineries and winning in Iraq.  We certainly need to evaluate environmental consequences and explore alternative fuel sources, but as of now, there simply aren’t any cost effective or efficient alternatives available.  Until we find one, our politicians need to put our economic future and national security before the promises they’ve made to special interest groups that don’t share our concern for the future.