I took a drive into Wilbarger County over the past weekend and what I saw was impressive.  I saw acres of pump jacks working just as hard as they could.  Obviously, oil at $95 per barrel is attractive enough to the producers to warrant running those pump jacks.  Shale oil development is well under way in deep south Texas.  Other shale oil discoveries across the country will yield billions of barrels annually.  That is, if we develop it.   According to an AP article today, oil imports have pushed the trade deficit up by “15.1 percent to $50.2 billion in May…the largest imbalance since October 2008″.   Destructive environmental policies and punitive business taxes have hampered development for years, but now that the price is sky high, interest in domestic drilling is up and so is the interest in getting Washington and the enviro-nazi movement out of the way.  Lots of elected officials are talking a big talk when it comes to domestic production, but is there more to all of this than just talk?  And what will a decline in the price per barrel have on the interest?  Oil will not stay at $100 or more per barrel.  It’s unrealistic and unsustainable and the foreign speculators who’ve driven it that high know this.  Even $80 is going to be tough.  Supply and demand have played little, if any, role in oil price’s rocket into the stratosphere.  You can ignore all the talk of oil at $300 per barrel.  That rhetoric is irresponsible and, frankly, stupid.  Demand destruction is everywhere.  And don’t hand me the ‘exploding Chinese market’ argument.  The Chinese economy is what their communist leadership tells you it is and nothing more.  They’d lie if they knew truth would save them.  But even if oil drops back to $30 per barrel, we have no choice; we MUST drill here, drill now and drill everywhere.  It’s time to get out of bed with the OPEC thugs, once and for all.  And while the tide is high is just as good a time as any.  If the scenes in Wilbarger County are in any way representative of the rest of Texas and the nation, then we just might be on our way.  Washington, please do the right thing.  Step aside and let the free market do what you will never be able to do: grow an economy.

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