ROBERT REDFORD SAYS: We Can't Drill Our Way Out of This Mess! OIL,GAS,ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE,OFF SHORE DRILLING,BAN,CONGRESS,ENVIRONMENTALIST

WE CAN'T DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF THIS MESS
by ROBERT REDFORD

Seldom do politics get this cynical. Seldom is the real pain of real people so cravenly exploited. Many of our fellow Americans now choose between buying gas to get to work and buying food to feed their families. Meanwhile, President Bush is trading on that desperation to peddle a lie: that sacrificing our coastlines and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Big Oil will solve our problems at the pump. He's already lifted the executive ban on drilling off our coasts and challenged Congress to do the same. The president knows very well that we cannot drill our way to lower gas prices. We cannot for the simple reason that America has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. The rate at which we extract that small share is all but meaningless to the vast world oil market where we buy and sell the stuff like everyone else.

Nevertheless, the president and his allies in Congress point their fingers at environmentalists because it distracts attention from an extremely inconvenient truth: that the Bush-Cheney energy policy, drafted in secret by industry insiders, is what got us to where we are today. That policy consisted of giving away millions of acres of pristine public lands so that oil and gas companies could expand drilling. And what is the result? Sky-high gas prices, record oil and gas profits, more global warming pollution, and zero progress toward the new energy economy that is our only salvation.

We know how to solve our energy problems and to fight global warming -- all we lack is honest, bold leadership. We had better find that leadership quickly, and not just for the sake of bringing down energy prices, but because it's essential to keep our whole economy competitive in a world rapidly moving beyond the dirty fuels of the past. The first step is making a real investment in energy efficiency. New fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks enacted last December are a small step in the right direction, but we can go much further. In fact, if we could get the average American car running at 40 miles per gallon, we could save more than 20 billion barrels of oil, which is more than the oil companies could ever get out of all of the protected offshore areas combined. If President Bush actually wanted to end our addiction to oil, he would commit right now to make that happen.