If nothing else, your Aug. 15 report on Baron Hill’s visit to New Albany seems to have finally smoked out the 9th District congressman on what he wants to do about high gasoline prices.
At the top of his list is “forcing” oil companies to drill on millions of acres of land that are already secured with leases.
Why he wants them to drill there is not clear. The oil companies say they are not drilling on this land because they aren’t sure there is enough oil to make it worthwhile. Perhaps Mr. Hill knows something they don’t?
Mr. Hill also invoked the House Democrats’ new-found mantra, “we can’t drill ourselves out of this problem,” and then in the very next breath declared his eagerness to vote on a bill that would end the ban on off-shore drilling in limited areas.
The bill he refers to would open up off-shore drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico — but interestingly, not along the California coast which has the largest known reserves. I hope Mr. Hill will explain to voters before November why he is excluding California from his energy plan.
The Interior Department says the two biggest patches of untapped oil in America are under the California off-shore coastline and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. The latest estimates are that these two fields could provide up to 19 billion barrels, the equivalent of 30 years of imports from Saudi Arabia.
Most economists will tell you that expanding the supply of a commodity will lower its price. This would be a major-league expansion. I’d like to know why Mr. Hill thinks otherwise.
Finally, Mr. Hill wants to impose $10 billion worth of tax increases on oil companies. Does he really believe these tax increases would not be passed along to consumers at the pump?
I would like to hear his answer to that question, too.
It is apparent that Mr. Hill has figured out that we Hoosiers don’t like $4 per gallon gasoline. So why is he trying to push it to $5?
Todd Young, an attorney at the southern Indiana law firm of Tucker and Tucker, P.C., was born August 24, 1972, a fifth generation Hoosier and the second of three children of Bruce and Nancy Young. Young lived in Marion County for several years before settling in Hamilton County, where he...