In recent days, Mitt Romney has claimed that domestic drilling would reduce dependency on foreign oil. It’s probably no surprise that he hasn’t always said so.
On the March 16, 2012 episode of Fox News’ Fox and Friends, Romney responded to a question about gas prices, saying:
“Well, the best thing we can do to get the price of gas to be more moderate and not have to be dependent upon the cartel is drill in the gulf, drill in the outer continent shelf, drill in ANWR, drill in North Dakota, South Dakota, drill in Oklahoma, and Texas.” [Fox and Friends, 3/16/12]
In his 2011 book No Apology, Romney wrote:
“We consume roughly 24 percent of the world’s oil but possess only 2.4 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if we were to begin to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the continental shelf, it wouldn’t be enough to appreciably have an impact on our dependence on other nations for oil. And if we were to open the domestic oil spigot too wide and drain our last fields, we would risk leaving America even more vulnerable twenty-five years from now than it is today. But there should be no objection to preparing the energy infrastructure to tap known reserves and to discover more reserves: This is a vitally important insurance policy against future energy shocks or threats to national security. And it is always possible that new, very large discoveries could surprise us.” [No Apology, 2011, Pg. 247]
Published: Mar 20, 2012