The Free Market Versus National Energy Security: Harnessing North American Oil Shale to Ensure Access to Transportable Energy

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This paper began by examining a recent report to the President and the Congress prepared by the Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels with regard to the potential use of oil shale deposits to replace a portion of US oil imports. After examining the science, economics, and environmental impacts of shale oil recovery, this paper concludes that a comprehensive energy policy is needed to pursue relief from foreign oil imports to enhance this country’s foreign policy position. Given the current volatile situation in the Middle East, increasing demands on world-wide oil supplies by developing countries, and the increasing cost of oil, the US Government must take a leadership role in facilitating energy companies’ endeavors to take advantage of the oil shale deposits that exist within the country’s boundaries. Government tax breaks and subsidies to big oil might seem a departure from the free-market economy that exists in the US as a foundation of its domestic policy, but the strategic implications and the long term nature of this solution make government interference a necessary evil. For this resource to become relevant to any discussion on American oil addiction and dependence, work must begin now.