Can we drill our way to lower gas prices?
    Many people think that we can by drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) and more places offshore. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a fact-gathering and analysis agency within the Department of Energy. It was created by Congress in 1977.
    One of its missions is to provide objective information to policy makers. By law, it is independent of politics. The EIA reported that it would take 10 years to get any oil from ANWAR and seven years from new offshore drilling.
    Let's look at some numbers. The total world production of oil is about 85 million barrels per day. The United States uses about 25 percent of that amount. It is estimated that the total production from new offshore drilling would be 200,000 barrels per day in 2017.
    In other words, by 2017 the new drilling would satisfy less than 1 percent of this country's oil requirements. ANWAR oil would not be available before 2019 at the earliest.
    What about the price of gasoline? The EIA says "Because oil prices are determined on the international market ... any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant"
    T. Boone Pickens is right. This is one problem we cannot drill our way out of.

Carl M.Vogelhuber
Charles City