Liar, liar, pants on fire! The lies about off shore drilling and other environmentalist tall tales.

The editorial in today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune (SH-T), a New York Times Company, titled, "Drilling for votes" is stereotypical liberal lies. The editorial boards environmentalist roots are showing and they just can't help themselves.

Environmentalists (read the SH-T) always put the "environment" above the good of the humans who have domain over it. In fact environmentalist policies have killed millions and done more harm to the environment than any other political movement in America. Iain Murray in his book "The Really Inconvenient Truths" points out, "American values like property [rights], enterprise, and freedom work well to protect the environment; and that the environment suffers when these values are replaced by contrary values like nationalization, central planning, and control."

A Federal ban on off shore drilling is nationalization, centralized planning, and control to the highest degree.

The rights to the oil and natural gas off the shores of Florida belongs to Floridians. There are in fact billions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas just 50 miles off of our shores. We Floridians have the right to this off shore property and the right to exploit the resources contained there in. We all understand that we must extract this precious resource in an environmentally sensitive way but we must extract it.

China and Cuba are exploring and drilling for Florida's oil right now. Why can't we?

Now for the lies.

SH-T Lie #1 - "the United States can't drill its way out of its dependence on foreign oil."

Truth - Yes we can! America may hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Venezuela - but it is closed off to exploration by our own government. According to Senator Jim Inhofe, "Oil and gas exploration and production are currently prohibited on 85 percent of America’s offshore waters. Among industrialized nations with shorelines, the United States is the only one not actively seeking new offshore oil and gas deposits. Canada allows offshore drilling in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Great Lakes. Additionally, Cuba is also looking to expand drilling to within 45 miles of parts of Florida and with technology that may be much less environmentally sound than that used by American companies. Exploration and production activities are currently prohibited in the Pacific and Atlantic regions of the Outer Continental Shelf, which hold an estimated 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is equivalent to more than 25 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia."

SH-T Lie #2 - "The simple fact is that even if the ban were lifted, the United States has just 3 percent of the world's oil and gas reserves."

Truth - According to Investor's Business Daily, "In this country alone there is at least 118 billion barrels of recoverable but untapped oil, a bit more than Iraq's estimated reserves. The latest forecast indicates that there are 3.7 billion barrels of oil that are recoverable from the Bakken Formation [located in the Williston Basin that stretches through Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan]. However, there is much more liquid crude there. The speculation begins at 500 billion barrels and goes as high as 2 trillion barrels."

SH-T Lie #3 - "Florida's waters and coastal areas are both environmentally fragile and economically vital. They would be threatened by new drilling not only off Florida but in the waters of neighboring states."

Truth - Florida's waters and coastal areas would not be "threatened by new drilling". Actually drilling in the Gulf will reduce the possibility of an oil spill because all the oil spills in the United States to date were from tankers, not off shore drilling platforms. There are 3,739 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico today and 3,203 lie off the Louisiana coast. There have been no oil spills from an offshore oil platform in the Gulf, none. Even during hurricane Katrina, when over 1,000 platforms were displaced, not one drop of oil was spilled.

Also, according to Humberto Fontova of Human Events, "Oil companies have left in place in the Gulf of Mexico platforms from played out wells at the request of fishermen. Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs. Louisiana produces one third of America's seafood. In fact a study by Louisiana State University shows that 85% of Louisiana offshore fishing trips involve fishing around these structures and that there's 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms. Louisiana produces one-third of America's commercial fisheries -- because of, not in spite of, these platforms."

SH-T Lie #4 - "Lifting the moratorium would not bring relief from today's high gas prices. It would take seven to 10 years to bring any new sources to market."

Truth - If President Clinton hadn’t vetoed legislation allowing environmentally sensitive exploration on the Coastal Plain of ANWR ten years ago, today we would have one million additional barrels of oil coming from ANWR each day, which would mean lower gas prices for consumers and more energy security right now. ANWR is estimated to contain 10 billion barrels of oil -- about 15 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia. The "not bring relief immediately" mantra is simply designed to reject today's reality of high gas prices in favor of doing nothing. Doing nothing is not an option.

SH-T Lie #5 - "The mirage of drilling our way to energy independence only distracts us from pursuing more promising efforts, such as conservation, energy efficiency and alternative sources."

Truth - No it doesn't. Nothing should be off the table. Nothing. Wind, solar, geo-thermal, coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, conservation, energy efficiency and alternative fuels all must be on the table. What is true is that energy efficiency historically leads to more energy use. According to the Manhattan Institute, "The history of the twentieth century is one of gigantic increases in efficiency—and even larger increases in consumption. The American economy has experienced massive efficiency gains: for each unit of energy, we produce more than twice as much GDP today than we did in 1950. Yet during that period of time, our national total energy consumption has tripled. Paradoxically, when it comes to energy, the more we save, the more we consume."

SH-T Lie #6 - "McCain seeks political advantage in offering false hope."

Truth - According to Investor's Business Daily, "The biggest obstacle to putting more domestic oil in the pipeline is not economics or technology hurdles...It is the pro-OPEC, Democratic-majority, maddeningly irrational U.S. Congress."

Here is the bottom line. Florida is an energy importer, like the United States. We import our gasoline and electricity from other states. If we had our own oil and natural gas supply and our own refineries we would become energy independent and help America do the same. We would gain financially with royalties paid by oil companies, as does Louisiana. We would protect our beautiful beaches from tanker oil spills by piping in our oil and natural gas on shore. Fish would thrive in artificial reefs provided by tapped out oil rigs.

Off shore drilling is a win, win, win for Florida and America.

Tell your Congressmen, Senators and Florida legislators so. Tell them to drill off shore now and make Florida and America more energy independent. We must for the sake of our children and grandchildren.