Surprise! The NYT ran an op-ed this week making the case for increased domestic oil production. A sample: “According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2010 some 49 percent of American crude oil and petroleum product imports came from the Western Hemisphere — about 25 percent of that from Canada alone, making it our single largest supplier. (Other substantial hemispheric oil suppliers include Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil.) In contrast, the Persian Gulf states provided only 18 percent of our oil imports in 2010, down from 27 percent as recently as 1993. *** More surprising, though, is that we’re importing a smaller share of our oil needs. In 2005, America imported 60 percent of the oil we consumed. By 2011, that number had shrunk to less than half of our total oil consumption, due mainly to new domestic production from unconventional sources in North Dakota and enhanced recovery from older wells in Texas.”
Read it all.