At roughly $50 a barrel, the cost of oil has almost doubled in recent months, endangering an already fragile economic recovery and once again exposing our nation's dependence on foreign sources of energy to run our factories, heat our homes and power our cars. According to a recent poll by the conservative Hudson Institute, 83 percent of Americans agree that "reducing our dependence on foreign oil must be a top priority for the next administration."

Unfortunately, the recent run-up in oil prices also exposes our utter helplessness to make that happen.

The standard solution proposed by the oil industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others is to encourage the development of domestic sources of oil through tax incentives, the relaxation of environmental laws and most of all by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. That's also the approach embraced in the Bush administration's proposed national energy policy.

However, that line of argument is a fraud. There is no government policy -- and no conceivable mixture of government policies -- that could boost domestic oil production enough to make a difference. The oil just does not exist.

Even if we opened the Arctic refuge, Yellowstone National Park, the Mall in Washington and every bit of land in all 50 states to oil drilling, if we eliminated taxes from the oil industry altogether and paid oil companies a bounty of $20 for each barrel of oil that they pumped from a U.S. well, it would do nothing to change our basic predicament.

You want proof? Here's proof:

In March, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a branch of the Department of Energy, released an analysis of the untapped reservoirs of oil that lie beneath the Arctic refuge and what impact they might have on our national energy situation. It found the following:

Suppose that the radical, leftist tree-huggers succeed in stopping us from drilling for oil in the Arctic refuge. By 2025, the United States will then be forced to import an alarming 70 percent of its oil from overseas, up substantially from 53 percent in 2002. In other words, if you think we're vulnerable to disruptions in our oil supply today, you ain't seen nothing.

So what improvement in our strategic situation can we expect if we open the Arctic refuge to drilling? According to the EIA, Arctic oil fields would reach their peak of production in 2025, and that year our dependence on foreign oil would plummet from the expected 70 percent all the way down to 66 percent. In essence, our strategic situation would not improve a whit.

In its report, the EIA did admit that it was only guessing at how much oil the Arctic refuge is likely to produce, so it also analyzed the best-case scenario. If the most wildly optimistic projections of Arctic capacity prove valid -- if they drive a stake through the frozen tundra and oil gushes out in a geyser 200 feet high -- we would still have to import 64 percent of our oil in the Arctic refuge's peak production year of 2025.

These facts are available to every policy-maker in government. So why do our leaders waste so much time and energy pushing policies that they know -- or ought to know -- would have little or no effect?

The answer lies in politics. With its roots deep in the oil business -- and its hands deep in oil industry pockets -- the Bush administration is sternly opposed to policies that might reduce oil consumption, such as improving the fuel efficiency of our automobiles. To fend off such proposals, though, they know they need proposals of their own -- even unworkable proposals -- to offer as an alternative. That's the real appeal of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

However, with the surge in oil prices and American kids dying in a Middle East war, public tolerance for such misdirection may be ending. Fortune magazine, a staunchly pro-business publication, argues in its current edition for a four-fold approach to energy: Improving the fuel economy of our automobiles; investing in alternative fuels; requiring energy efficiency and conservation; and encouraging solar and wind power.

Drilling in the Arctic refuge doesn't make the cut.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor.

© 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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