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U.S. Needs Plan for Better Fuel Efficiency

by Jim DiPeso, REP policy director
published in the Billings Gazette on December 24, 2006

Can the U.S. achieve energy independence through more domestic drilling, as Rep. Dennis Rehberg believes?

No, and the odds of success are not even close.

The reason is two-fold: domestic demand is outrunning supply and the U.S. is a mature oil province that is long past its peak.

Our oilfields hit their peak more than three decades ago. No domestic oil discovery since then -- even the super-giant Prudhoe Bay -- has stopped the decline. We've hooked the big trout in the pond and are down to chasing minnows.

Demand is rising relentlessly. U.S. consumption totals 21 million barrels daily today and is projected to hit 27 million barrels daily by 2030. Even with a projected increase in domestic production, imports will account for 60 percent of liquid fuel consumption in 2030. Put simply, we're running harder to keep an already dangerous level of import dependence from rising.

Increasing demand means increased dependence on the Middle East, home of the world's biggest remaining oil reserves.

The most effective strategy for correcting this problem - which, unfortunately, Rehberg rarely discusses -- is increased fuel efficiency. By getting more value out of each gallon of gasoline, we can lower our dependence on imports, take demand pressure off prices, and lessen our vulnerability to OPEC's manipulations.

Increased domestic drilling will prolong our increasingly dangerous dependence on oil and our long-term vulnerability to OPEC. Fuel efficiency will reduce our demand for OPEC's product. Fuel efficiency is the American weapon that OPEC fears most. Let's use it.