With a nine percent approval rating at last look, will Congress have the audacity to not agree with the President?

It’s a call to arms people. President Bush is lifting the decades old executive ban on offshore drilling, but it must have congressional support.

I’d like to believe this time will be different and will applaud the House and Senate members should they concur on this important issue but there is a part of me which says I won’t hold my breath.

~J~ has another important post on available domestic energy product here. If you mail or call your representative, be sure to touch on both issues.

This seems to confirm the information in the post Sue referenced, although the President said it would be enough to last for a century. He did mention shale oil. ~J~

Update 2: Here is what the Speaker of the House of Representatives, you know, the Congress with a 9% approval rating has to say about the President’s remarks:

WASHINGTON, July 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on President Bush’s announcement lifting the executive ban on drilling in protected coastal areas:

“Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil.

“The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence. It just gives millions more acres to the same companies that are sitting on nearly 68 million acres of public lands and coastal areas.

“If the President wants to bring down prices in the next two weeks, not the next two decades, he should free our oil by releasing a small portion of the more than 700 million barrels of oil we have put in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“It’s time to tell the oil industry: ‘You already have millions of acres to drill. Use it or lose it.’”

SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House

That tells you where the Democrats stand on getting oil to their constituents. You’d better think twice when you pull that lever in November because voting for a Democrat for Congress or President will get you higher gas prices than now and no domestic drilling and refining. ~J~

In the past the price of crude oil imported from the Middle East has been low enough that it didn’t justify the cost of trying to extract oil from shale.

Now that the prices are so high per barrel it appears we are sitting on more affordable oil reserves in this country that could last us another 400-500 years.

Here’s an email I received and I checked the links.

Subject: Ever heard of the Bakken Formation

Just poking around the Internet recently, I simply ‘Googled’ the search ‘Untapped U.S. Oil Reserves,’ and the result (like the current price of a gallon of gas - BLEW ME AWAY! Go ahead, take a minute and see for yourself! Never mind, I’ll share some of the highlights I found.

1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it. I did, and again, BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April
(’08) that only scientists and oilmen/women knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since ‘95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana … check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependent ce on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable…
at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

‘When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.’ says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

‘This sizeable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,’ reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’ And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead en d. Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves… and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2.And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it’s from TWO YEARS AGO, people!

U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official
estimates:

-8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
-18-times as much oil as Iraq
-21-times as much oil as Kuwait
-22-times as much oil as Iran
-500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it’s all right here in the Western United States.

HOW can this BE!? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!? Because we’ve not D E M A N D E D Legislation to come out of Washington allowing its extraction, that’s why!

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

—-
Don’t think ‘Big Oil’ will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less - and if they DON’T, others will. It will come down - it has to.
—-
Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so! Now, while you’re thinking about it …. and hopefully P.O’d, do this:

Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or good old-fashioned letter to our elected officials in Washington and their respective leaders. We’ll start with them, and here’s how you can send them your e-mail/fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation/an Energy PLAN that calls for tapping into these (OUR OWN!) Reserves, as well as allowing for the offshore drilling for OUR oil, in OUR offshore waters and Inter-continental shelf … not to mention Alaska. Technology ain’t what it used to be people (ever had arthroscopic surgery?). They can surgically extract OUR oil, and get us on the way to at least some measure of Energy independence.

Take another few minutes and browse here. Then go here.

There’s enough oil here to last 400-500 Years.

If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices … because by doing NOTHING, you’ve forfeited your right to complain. Then let’s declare Open Season on some of America’s E.P.A. idiots.

There is little doubt that there are many suffering in this country these days. Lay-offs, cut backs and business closures have affected families from coast to coast.

Foreclosures are mounting. In many cases this is not due to those unscrupulous mortgage lenders nor those who signed loan papers on a home they could, at the time of purchase, well afford. There are families who simply find themselves hostage to an economic downturn.

Let’s face it, if you have a number of years invested in one company and lose your employment, where do you go to make a salary commensurate with your prior earnings?

Look into the cost of day care for those with young children. Many times it is foolish for both parents to work outside the home to do nothing more than cover the cost of a quality child care facility.

Prices at the pump are draining what little extra money many families were fortunate enough to squirrel away each month. Drive on over to the local market and find your food cost has risen another ten to twenty dollars over the prior week.

Those on fixed incomes [especially living on nothing more than Social Security], find their yearly cost of living increase is a pittance at best which barely covers the increase attached to their medicare payments.

Sure there are social, religious, and independent organizations who are equipped to help those in need. Many are simply to proud to seek help.

Children are moving back in with parents, parents with their children, due to economic constraints.
Not ideal perhaps, but in some cases necessary for survival.

Each point made above is no doubt relative to the lives of many who live in our America. The post could continue to infinity as every situation is unique.

Unless you are one of the fortunate few (and I certainly am not one) who have a great deal of personal wealth there is no question, times right now are somewhat tough.

But……..

Imagine living in a country where we did not have the right to point out its shortcomings.

Visualize life ruled by vicious dictators or those who would choose to starve their population for their own personal gain.

No free speech, freedom of religion, independent elections by the people, or the right to a fair and just court system would be far worse than the circumstances outlined above.

Could we survive as a nation if the right to protest those decisions with which we disagree were stripped away?

Yes, we are living under an economic storm cloud right now. No, it is not easy, and certainly we have every right to make our concerns and hardships known.

We can pray for wisdom in those who have the power to institute change and do whatever we can individually to help our fellow man. In the end, no matter the challenges we face individually or as a country, we at least have the potential to rebound and come back stronger.

Faith, family and friends have seen this nation through tougher times than this. While it is little consolation as wallets are pinched to the maximum, remembering you are not alone in whatever your situation can sometimes be of comfort.

The past two weeks have been very draining on me emotionally, which then causes physical exhaustion such as I have never known before.

People in my family are sick and my phone has been popping with someone calling me about something important while I’m speaking to someone else about something important.

My step-mother has had major back surgery, my cousin is battling dementia and cancer and having a daughter who wants her to herself, my aunt on my father’s side is now in ICU because it looks as though she will need another bypass operation, my husband is still waiting for results from a capsule endoscopy after already having an endoscopy, colonoscopy and barium enema to determine where the bleeding is originating, my niece having problems which seem to be clearing up now and on and on.

We got a respite last Thursday when our son’s daughter flew in from Dallas and was here until Saturday, when we dropped her off to her other grandparents who had paid for her trip to visit with them for three weeks.

Thursday night we had three of our four grandchildren with us. We had offered to bring our other grandson from Texas to stay with us for the summer and perhaps take him to DC so he could see the museums and monuments, but his Mom said no because she wanted at least one child home this summer.

We thoroughly enjoyed having our grandchildren get to know each other as cousins as they don’t get together very often, but by Saturday I was completely wiped out. I went to bed Saturday night and couldn’t even get up to go to church on Sunday.

With all the commotion going on in my life I have had to turn it all over to Jesus because He is much stronger than I am. I had to quit fighting Him and stop worrying when worrying does no good anyway. I have received a great peace since then and now He is resting my mind and my body.

Jesus is my best Friend. He has promised He will never leave us or forsake us and that He will provide our needs.

I’ve been getting relaxation Sunday evening and this morning by listening to Southern Gospel music. It always soothes my soul because it is from the heart, as so much Southern music is.

I will leave you with two songs that have deeply moved me last night and this morning:

The first tells you how you can know Jesus too, and the second tells you and me what Jesus can do if we just let go and let God.

And now, listen and get the peace that passes all understanding.