Dem Energy Policy Costs Americans How Much?!

We've talked often here about how the Democrat party has obstructed rational, beneficial energy policies for decades. They've prevented domestic oil drilling, natural gas mining, nuclear power plant construction, pushed through cap-n-tax, and taken all manner of other peripheral issues that only made it more difficult to obtain domestic energy rather than foreign. In fact, they've got essentially a 100% perfect record of obstructing domestic energy generation for the past 30 years.

Now we see a study that shows precisely how expensive that record is:

How much money is the US losing by maintaining its de facto drilling ban on the coasts and the explicit ban on drilling in ANWR? The SAIC Corporation studied the question, in part funded by the oil industry, and claims that the American economy will lose over $2.3 trillion dollars in opportunity costs over the next two decades:

Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.

Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.

Former President George W. Bush and Congress ended bans in 2008 on drilling along the U.S. coastline. The Interior Department hasn’t acted to open the newly available areas, including offshore Alaska and on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Congress has kept the Arctic refuge off limits. …

The report, issued today, said opening the areas would free up 43 billion barrels of oil and 286 trillion cubic feet of gas. The U.S. used 22.8 trillion cubic feet of gas and 5.2 billion barrels of oil in 2009, according to a press release issued with the report.

Eh, what's a measly $2.3 trillion? It's really not that big a deal, given how freely Obama and the current Dem Congress have spent of our tax dollars this year. But, it is very informative to have a number placed on it, don't you think?

The big fear, of course, is that we'll have some kind of catastrophe will cause oil prices to once again shoot through the roof. When that happens, we'll not only be forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get the fuel we need, but we'll have to pay those mountains of cash to our enemies.

The cost of the Democrats' irresponsible energy obstructionism is far more than $2.3 trillion. It could very well be the cost of our nation's safety and security.

There's my two cents.