It’s summer and that means gas prices are creeping up and although projections indicate we’re not headed toward $4-a-gallon gas; last summer was a fresh reminder of just how quickly gas prices can skyrocket. Despite America’s overwhelming public support for more drilling, the White House has put many drilling projects on hold. While the oil wouldn’t be commercially available for years, the time to get started is now, and there may be far more oil in Alaska and immediately off its shore than previously thought.

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What about other countries?

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Now that there’s more oil, it surely must be worth doing, right?

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Whether it’s worth drilling or not is a decision that is left for the private sector to decide rather than the government. With a very much improved environmental track record, improved technologies to make drilling more efficient, and more knowledge about drilling, the oil industry, as Lieberman asserted, are the ones to weigh the costs versus the benefits.

Instead of expanding energy supply, policymakers in Washington are strongly considering policy that would raise the price of gasoline. More from Lieberman:

“The proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – introduced by Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts – essentially would limit how much gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use. The aim is to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use, which proponents of the bill claim is warming the planet to dangerous levels. Under this proposal, prices would have to rise high enough so the public would be forced to drive less and meet the ever-tightening energy rationing targets.

For more on cap and trade, visit Heritage’s Rapid Response page.