Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
States spent about $137.1 billion for natural gas in 2010 (calculated from USEIA 2011d). Oil and
natural gas imports came principally from Canada via pipeline in 2010.
National Security Costs of Utilizing Oil and Natural Gas
It has been said that the flow of dollars from the United States to countries such as Saudi Arabia
to purchase oil constitutes the largest transfer of wealth from one country to another in the his-
tory of the world (Pickens 2008). “Of America's $0.9 trillion oil bill in 2008, $388 billion went
abroad. Some of this money paid for state-sponsored violence, weapons of mass destruction, and
terrorism. This wealth transfer also worsens U.S. trade deficits, weakens the dollar, and boosts oil
prices even higher as sellers try to protect their purchasing power” (Lovins and Rocky Mountain
Institute 2011, 3). “It is equivalent to a roughly 2 percent tax on the whole economy, without the
revenues” (Goldstein 2010, 73). From 1975 to 2009, oil imports to the United States removed
well over $3 trillion of cash out of other expenditures and investments (Greene 2010; Greene and
Hopson 2010).
To the extent that such transfers of wealth make investment capital scarcer in the United States
and cause interest rates to rise, they slow growth in the U.S. economy and contribute to higher
prices, higher unemployment, and increased government expenditures for social services. When
petrodollars leave the United States and do not return to purchase goods made in the United
States, unemployment stays high and gets higher. Dollars paid by consumers of imported energy
resources also may add up to a substantial drain on capital available for investment in the United
States. Energy policies that allow such enormous transfers of wealth from the United States to
other countries, and their associated domestic impacts, do not advance the national interests of
the United States.
Dependence on Foreign Fuel Supplies
Of the nearly 7 billion barrels of oil consumed in the United States in 2009, about 4.3 billion barrels
(49 percent) were imported, of which about 1.78 billion barrels came from OPEC countries that do
not support U.S. foreign policies concerning Israel and the Middle East (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Libya, Nigeria). Some of them are hostile toward the entire U.S. economic system on ideological
grounds (e.g., Venezuela) (USEIA 2011a, Table 5.4). These imports cannot be replaced by domestic
production or imports from more friendly countries (e.g., Canada) in the near future.
Dependence of the United States on oil imports from hostile nation-states threatened U.S. free-
dom of action in its foreign affairs during the Arab oil embargo of 1973, when OAPEC countries
reduced sales of oil to the United States in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel during and after
the war of 1967 (Nersesian 2010, 150-151; Halabi 2009; Geller 1993). This embargo produced a
great deal of discussion about the possibility of U.S. military intervention to secure adequate oil
supplies, including a conspicuous bit of sword rattling in the form of congressional publication of
“plans” for the U.S. invasion of some Middle Eastern countries to seize control of their oil fields
(U.S. Congress 1974). Maps and tactics discussed in this publication were crude and insufficient
for use in any actual military exercise, but sufficient numbers of the document were produced to
make one available to every member of Congress and every foreign embassy in Washington, DC,
and the point was well taken by all.
Although the effects of the embargo were relatively short-lived, they did produce significant
inconvenience to consumers and disruption of the U.S. economy for several months, rendering
U.S. foreign policy makers more sensitive to the views of OAPEC countries than they had been
 
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