"NOPE" stands for…  “Not on Planet Earth,” and it is the motto of that wing of the Democratic Party that refuses to consider drilling for more oil. It is not, by any means, the motto of the whole party.
     It is the rallying cry however for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the congressional Democrats, whose position on drilling for oil is beginning to look more and more like a dusty little hill in Montana where George Custer probably said something like, “We’ll hold 'em here,” as thousands of unhappy Native Americans poured out of the villages along the Little Big Horn to see what the bluecoats were up to now.

     For the first time in recent memory…  the Democrats are bucking the public on a major issue. Most polls place support for new oil drilling around 75 percent.
     It’s not just $4 gas that has captured the public’s imagination. Heating bills have doubled and trebled in the Northeast. My personal monthly budget fuel oil payment for my small house went from $120 a month to $241. My electricity is generated by burning oil. That has gone from about $180 a month to $400. A budget plan I worked on all year so that we could get by was blown to bits and I did the only sane thing a reasonable man could.
     I had a heart attack Thursday night.
    
     I’m back home now... 20 pounds lighter, a bit weaker and none the better off financially for the experience.
     What will give you your heart attack?
     Maybe it will be that first bill from the electric company this summer. I have to have at least some AC on, or I have trouble breathing our polluted Connecticut atmosphere. Maybe you can turn off the AC and avoid a myocardial infarction anyway.
     Maybe it will be the letter from your heating company stating what they intend to ask for fuel oil this winter. If you have an extra $3,000 or $4,000 maybe you can install natural gas heat and avoid atrial fibrillation….

     Look, there are a lot of good reasons…  to resume exploration and drilling. I can think of several off hand:

1. We don’t have to send troops overseas to defend oil we drill for in the U.S.
2. We don’t have to come hat-in-hand to ask a king, sheik or emir for extra oil.
3. Oil drilled offshore does not have to travel thousands of miles at risk of spilling.
4. The current oil leases don’t have very much oil. We have to find new oil fields.
5. Although some wells will take 10 years to produce, others will take as little as one.
6. We are running out of oil in the wells we already have open and we’ll have to start drilling new wells soon just to stay even.
7. Dollars are not exported out of the U.S. for domestic oil. This will strengthen the dollar.
8. The new oil will buy us a little breathing space to bring wind power on line for 20 percent of our electricity generation.

     What drilling will not do is make oil companies “rich.”  …Most oil companies are not the private domain of a Rockefeller. The owners of Exxon Mobil are investors in mutual funds and institutions. Vanguard Fund is prominent as is College Retirement Equities, Washington Mutual Investors Fund, and so forth. These represent thousands of people, all with a share of equity in the business. The profits pay their retirement bills and are plowed back into the business.
     I suppose hitting the oil companies with a windfall profits tax will make some people feel good. But as with all such taxes, the people paying the tax will be the people who buy gas and oil for fuel: you and me.

     Just to be fair… oil prices did not give me a heart attack. Lots of things did. The timing was just …very apt.