America's Dependence on Foreign Oil

We need oil. The bottom line is we use oil like water in this country, but do we need it from foreign lands. Well to be honest yes we do, but we do have plenty of oil in our own country that we are not using. According to whitehouse.gov there are several ways we can expand American oil and gasoline production. By accessing the outer continental shelf, we can increase oil production. Another thing we could do would be using Oil Shale. Tapping into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.



The outer continental shelf is believed to be loaded with oil, all we need is to use that resource. Many experts believe that over 18 billion barrels of oil could be in this location. Congress however is not allowing this. Since 1980 Congress has not allowed much research in the OCS because they felt it was dangerous to the environment. However with new technology scientists can do this safely, congress just needs to approve it.



Oil shale is a type of rock that can produce oil when exposed to heat or other processes. This is a major resource that we are just not using enough of. over 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil is located in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This would give us a huge source of oil. New technologies are making the production of Oil Shale possible. All we need are for the democratic leaders to back it.

To check out more and to see where most of my information came from check out this website.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050516.html