Ayn Rand Institute
Irvine, CA–After some verbal wrangling between OPEC and Western countries over oil production, in which OPEC officials argued that “there is enough crude in the market,” and in which the West claimed that oil production should increase to lower prices, OPEC has decided to allow a 2 percent increase in oil production.
“While some in the West might consider this a victory,” said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, “every day that OPEC continues to wield such power over us is a loss. It is taken for granted that this despicable cartel of looter regimes who allow no truly private enterprise in oil, can manipulate our energy future on a whim. But such a state of affairs is completely unnecessary; it is a product of U.S. environmental regulations that strangle domestic energy production.
“In a free energy market, the response of competing producers to OPEC-influenced high prices would be to eagerly cultivate new oil sources in America–such as the many untapped sources of oil in Alaska and on America’s coastlines–and to vigorously seek to produce truly practical alternative sources of energy, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Such actions would drive oil and energy prices down, and with them OPEC’s ability to manipulate prices.
“However, thanks to environmentalist policies, America’s energy market is anything but free. In the name of preserving pristine nature at human expense, our government has rendered huge oil and natural gas deposits off-limits, has strangled coal production for decades, and has demonized and practically prohibited the pursuit of nuclear power.
[This article fails to put the blame on the oil industry in America for wanting high oil prices.]
“It is only because America has for decades throttled domestic energy producers that the looting dictators of OPEC continue to wield major influence over our energy supplies. It is time for America to liberate itself from the shackles of OPEC by liberating energy production from the shackles of environmentalist policies.”
