by Austin Cooper

Created on: March 15, 2009

Due to environmental extremists with government sway, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge remains on our national to-do list. Though blessed with abundant resources, we continue to perplex-and sometimes please-various countries of the world by acting as if our oil never existed. Consequently, America bears the brunt of a crisis that could ultimately end in destruction. The government's failed energy policies have thrown the United States into a crisis that can only be solved by an increase in domestic oil production. Until the drilling ban is lifted on ANWR, America's national security, economic prosperity, and national identity remain threatened.

Though it may seem rather elementary that Congress enacts policies that reflect public sentiment, perhaps the opposite has proven true. When it comes to energy, national leaders have sought to please environmental radicals and ignore the majority of their constituents. In a mere thirty years, the United States has transformed from the energy superpower that won the Cold War into a dependent beggar for the resources it owns but doesn't produce.

The consequences that arise from America's faulted energy policy are enough to deem the current situation a crisis. By neglecting the implications of their decisions, politicians self-inflict and self-perpetuate most of the trouble. According to Newt Gingrich (2008), "Our current energy crisis didn't have to happen. It's the result of decades of failed government policies, bureaucratic incompetence, and a system of regulation and litigation that prevents any real development of America's own energy supplies" (p. 13). With an ever-growing intensity, elected leaders continue to champion the passage of anti-energy legislation. They continually ignore the rising oil prices and instability that serve as constant reminders that these policies are exceptionally flawed yet willingly accepted. Therefore this crisis is first and foremost self-inflicted. Secondly, America's energy struggles persist because of its stubborn government that's resistant to agreeable change. The nation's leaders have become accepting of the status quo and seek only to further their tenure not the prospect of a bright energy future. Due to this lackadaisical mindset, the United States has plunged itself into an energy predicament that it self-perpetuates.

It's a fact that the United States reached its peak oil production in 1970 (Beck, 2007, p. 94). However, that peak is largely artificial in

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