the problem

No Fuel Choice: Our Cars Are Addicted To Oil

More than two thirds of the oil we use is for transportation. There are 220 million cars and trucks on the roads in the United States alone. With 97 percent of U.S. transportation energy based on petroleum, oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy.

  • The U.S. consumes a quarter of the world’s oil supply while holding a mere 3% of global oil reserves. We cannot drill our way out of our energy problem.
  • Over the last 7 years, U.S. imports fell from over 60% of its supply need to 45%l, yet expenditures on imports increased not just per barrel but in total.
  • In 2012, gas prices hit record highs, OPEC oil revenues hit record highs, and all this despite substantial increases in both domestic oil production and vehicle fuel efficiency.

 


 

No Fuel Choice: Our Economy Is Controlled by OPEC

  • OPEC, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, is deliberately keeping oil supply tight to prop up prices. OPEC production levels are not much higher than they were thirty years ago. With oil rising from $25 to over $100 per barrel in just six years, oil-rich countries have more than quadrupled their revenues, raking in over $1 trillions in revenues last year alone.
  • The resulting transfer of wealth is already creating a structural shift in the global economy, creating economic fallout such as swollen trade deficits, loss of jobs, sluggish economic growth, inflation and, if prices continue to soar, inevitable recessions.
    • At today's prices, foreign oil producers are extracting a tax of more than $1,600 a year from every American man, woman and child.
    • In 2007, over $50 billion of local, state and federal taxes were lost to foreign oil.
    • In 2007, our dependency on foreign oil deprived the U.S. of over one million jobs.
  • Some are predicting $200 oil/barrel in the future. At that price, OPEC could potentially buy Bank of America with one month’s production, Apple Computers in a week and 5 General Motors in just 3 days. It would take less than two years of production for OPEC to own a 20 percent stake in every S&P 500 company.

No Fuel Choice: Our Dollars Are Bankrolling Hostile Foreign Nations

While our relations with the Muslim world are at an all-time low, more than 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and over a third of production are concentrated in Muslim countries.

  • While the U.S. economy bleeds, oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—sympathetic to and directly supportive of radical Islam—are on the receiving end of staggering windfalls.
  • For decades, the de facto leader of OPEC, Saudi Arabia, has been actively involved in the promotion of Wahhabism, the most puritan form of Islam and its charities and other governmental and non-governmental institutions have been bankrolling terrorist organizations and Islamic fundamentalism.

 


 

 

Learn more

Rising Oil Prices, Declining National Security(Anne Korin's May 2008 testimony to House Committee on Foreign Affairs)
Oil and the New Economic Order (IAGS Report)
Sovereign Wealth Funds, Oil and the New World Economic Order (Gal Luft's May 2008 testimony to House Committee on Foreign Affairs)
The Hidden Cost of Oil
Fueling Terror