To Drill or Not to Drill

I am a big supporter of environmental issues and I write to my Senator, John Cornyn, often to express my opinion on how he should vote. He usually is against me and writes me a letter full of B.S. and I was starting to lose my faith in him. But his article in the Houston Chronicle changed my mind about him. It's about the ever waging war between people who want to drill in U.S. and people who don't. He makes his argument to Texans, mostly probably people like me who are environmentalists and who can't see past the naked mole rats that might die if we drill. Many of the things he says in the article I wasn't aware of; that the oil industry in Texas generates 7% of the state's wages and that more than 90% of the oil wells in the U.S. are operated by small and independent businesses. If the government decides to import oil, these small businesses won't be able to compete with the huge oil companies overseas and more than 300,000 jobs will be lost in Texas alone.

For once I am agreeing with Senator Cornyn, we need to drill here in the U.S. The U.S. needs to become independent of foreign energy sources and needs to take care of their workers, there are enough people out of work as it is. How will those out-of-workers pay the increase in taxes for foreign oil?

Texas is probably the state that has self-sufficient energy sources. We have the oil that we are maybe going to drill, nuclear power plants that emit NO greenhouse gases, and 8,000 megawatts of wind energy which is more than twice that of any other state.

I'm all about saving the endangered species, I'm a member of WWF, but I think this oil issue goes beyond that, we need to become a self-sufficient nation, the future depends on it.