Daniel Henninger as an article at the Wall Street Journal talking about the insanity of the the U.S. energy policies that prevent us from drilling for the billions of barrels of oil in the U.S. and off our shores.

At this point in time, is there another country on the face of the earth that would possess the oil and gas reserves held by the United States and refuse to exploit them? Only technical incompetence, as in Mexico, would hold anyone back.

But not us. We won’t drill.

Newt Gingrich is right, McCain could make opening drilling a key issue in the election, and win on it. Not allowing offshore drilling or drilling in the frozen wasteland of ANWR is crazy. We have enough oil to become the World’s biggest oil producer. Instead, we go to the Saudi’s asking them to increase their oil production. Why don’t we increase ours? Because a few people in Florida and California don’t want to see oil rigs MILES off shore, or a few people are worried that we will disturb less than one half of one percent of 19 million acres of frozen wasteland in Alaska! Instead, we prefer to send our money to the middle east, of communist dictators in South America. Of course, maybe that’s the point, boosting the liberal’s beloved communism. 

If either candidate were to make allowing drilling a major issue they could gain a huge advantage. McCain made a step in the right direction regarding offshore drilling, let’s hope he can own this issue.