For release: 08/13/26

Why can’t we fix the oil problem?

By Cal Thomas

Tribune Content Agency

“We are the United States of America and there is nothing we can’t do if we do it together.” – President Joe Biden

I am not in the habit of favorably quoting the former president, but he was right when he said this. Why, then, are we still beholden to Iran and Saudi Arabia for so much of our oil needs?

A Wall Street Journal headline says: “Gulf States are Resigned To Iran Control of Straight (of Hormuz).”

Must we also be resigned to an unending dependence on Middle East oil? Presidents since Jimmy Carter have said we must overcome that dependence and loosen their grip on our economy. The problem is the difference between American production and that which comes from the Middle East.

While the U.S. mostly produces light, sweet crude from shale formations, the Middle East largely supplies heavier, higher-sulfur crude. Old U.S refineries were not built to process heavier crude. Building new ones would cost billions of dollars. They would also be hampered by environmental laws. Some consider new refineries a bad financial risk as the country shifts toward renewable energy and electric vehicles.

That sounds like defeatism to me. President Trump says he has spoken to the UK’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, urging him to tap more light, sweet crude from the North Sea. Trump says Burnham responded that he would take a “pragmatic approach” to opening up the region, which is rich in oil and gas. Trump said if he did, it would massively boost the UK economy.

Not only has the U.S. been held captive for years to Middle East oil, we have allowed far-left environmentalists to set the agenda, depriving us of oil from offshore California and Florida. Critics always raise the specter of oil spills and damage to wildlife and beaches, but improved technology has reduced the likelihood of such events. The alternative is more of what we have now, continued spending of billions of dollars, along with the cost in human lives while trying to keep the oil flowing from the Persian Gulf region.

Iran has the U.S. over an oil barrel. They are betting Democrats will take over Congress in the fall election and deny the president funds to continue targeting their country. Depending on who you ask, the U.S. naval blockade seems to be working. Iran’s economy is in shambles, but the ayatollahs don’t care about their people, or they would not slaughter anti-government demonstrators and engage in public hangings.

Putting Democrats back in a congressional majority won’t solve the problem. Gas prices and inflation were higher during the Biden administration. If the U.S. is forced to stop attacking Iran due to lack of funds, Iran is likely to resume its effort to create a nuclear weapon and the rockets to deliver them to Israel and the U.S. We will not likely see gas prices significantly decline as the president said they would after what he wrongly predicted would be a two-week war. Besides, there will always be a need – at least as far as anyone can see – for petroleum, which is in thousands of everyday products we use, including cosmetics, medicines, plastics and synthetic fabrics like nylon.

Rather than accept defeat and wringing our hands, I prefer the approach of President John F. Kennedy, who said in a 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Many have started this sentence to encourage others to do the hard things: “If we can go to the moon…” You can finish it.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).

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