Amity Shlaes, author of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression,” has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post entitled, “Five Ways to Wreck a Recovery.” She lists the five ways which prolonged the Great Depression - which look eerily similar to the democrats’ economic proposals of today:

1. Giving in to protectionism
2. Blaming the messenger
3. Increasing taxes in a downturn
4. Assuming bigger government will bring back growth
5. Ignoring the cost of inconsistency

The upside of history is that we can learn from past mistakes. The downside, of course, is that we often fail to learn the lessons of those mistakes.

The recent Russian incursion into Georgia puts more than just the future of a small democratic nation at stake: within the borders of Georgia lies the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the second largest oil pipeline in the world, which is capable of transporting up to 1.2 million barrels of oil a day – or roughly one percent of the world’s oil supply. (The pipeline is pictured below)

Controlling this pipeline would advance Russian interests. Since opening the pipeline in 2006, Georgia and its fellow Caucasus states have been able to operate free of both Russian and the Middle Eastern oil. A Russian dominated Georgia, however, would put that in jeopardy. A Business Week article noted that, “Victory in Georgia now gives Russia the edge in the struggle over access to the Caspian’s 35 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas.”

John McCain has been unequivocal in his support for Georgia:

The world has learned at great cost the price of allowing aggression against free nations to go unchecked…With our allies, we now must stand in united purpose to persuade the Russian government to end violence permanently and withdraw its troops from Georgia.

Ensuring the independence and sovereignty of Georgia is imperative to our own energy security. While we work to achieve energy independence at home – through an “all over the above” strategy – we recognize that we operate in a world where the United States imports nearly 70% of our oil. The less the Russians can use oil and natural gas reserves to blackmail Europe or the United States, the more peaceful and secure the world will be.

Kevin Hasset of the American Enterprise Institute refutes the liberal mantra that, “drilling would not lower gas prices today, it would not lower gas prices next year and it would not lower gas prices five years from now.” (Barack Obama’s words)

Hasset points out the fallacy of that statement:

The economics of extracting resources is quite simple and intuitive. If you own property that has oil in the ground, then you have to decide how rapidly you wish to deplete your resource. If prices are low today, and you expect them to be much higher in the future, then you will hold off pumping a lot.

If prices are high today and are expected to be much lower tomorrow, then you would rather open up the spigot now when profits will be higher.

If exploration can be expected to be successful and significantly increase oil production in the future, then it would cause producers to revise downward their estimates for future prices. This would increase the attractiveness of extracting more today. As producers respond with higher production, prices today would drop.

It is government, not big oil, that stands in the way of lower gas prices. Lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling and streamlining the permitting process to develop shale oil would have an immediate effect on the current price of gas.

Ronald Reagan’s words still ring true: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”

Jordan recently announced that it will begin developing its 40 billion tonne oil shale reserves in a venture with Royal Dutch Shell. It’s estimated that they would provide Jordan with oil for the next 700 years.

The United States has largest reserves of shale oil in the world. In fact, as this chart from the Institute for Energy Research shows, the United States has an estimated two trillion barrels of oil in shale:

We have the resources right here, right now. However, thanks to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, we seem more bent on blaming “big oil” than actually exploring for a solution to America’s energy crisis.

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column in The Washington Post today. He notes that:

Drilling requires no government program, no newly created bureaucracy, no pie-in-the-sky technologies that no one has yet invented. It requires only one thing, only one act. Lift the moratorium. Private industry will do the rest. And far from draining the treasury, it will replenish it with direct taxes and with the indirect taxes from the thousands of non-subsidized new jobs created.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less – and create more American Jobs!

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column in The Washington Post today. He notes that:

Drilling requires no government program, no newly created bureaucracy, no pie-in-the-sky technologies that no one has yet invented. It requires only one thing, only one act. Lift the moratorium. Private industry will do the rest. And far from draining the treasury, it will replenish it with direct taxes and with the indirect taxes from the thousands of non-subsidized new jobs created.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less – and create more American Jobs!

Republicans are committed to an “all of the above” strategy of achieving Energy Independence – unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi and her liberal environmentalist allies are refusing to allow Congress to even debate, let alone vote, on a bill which would lower gas prices, wean America off foreign oil, create American Jobs and promote renewable energy (wind, solar, and nuclear).

The Republicans in Congress aren’t just waiting for the Democrats to act. We are staying in Washington, refusing to leave the floor of the House of Representatives, until this Congress passes H.R. 6566- The American Energy Act.

Pelosi turned off the cameras, shut off the microphones and lights, but she hasn’t succeeded in silencing the Republicans.

According to a Zogby International poll, 74% of Americans support offshore oil drilling. With gas prices hovering at $4 a gallon, perhaps its time for Nancy Pelosi to listen to that famous liberal economist John Maynard Keynes, who once noted that, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”