Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
9/29/2010

Inflicted on us relentlessly since the 1970s, the most mischievous and misleading trope in American politics is the idea that our energy supplies are in danger, that foreigners are out to get us, that a crisis is upon us. The endless invocation of an alleged energy crisis is used to sell deep-water drilling because it’s used to sell everything, writes Jenkins. We seem to get all the oil we want at a price we’re willing to pay. For three decades our economy enjoyed one of its greatest boom periods ever–a boom that ended, ironically, not because of oil shortages but because of overspending on giant houses far from town by people happily conditioned by the ubiquity and affordability of their energy supplies. Yet by properly pricing the risks of a deep-water blowout, we’re likely to get much safer drilling.

Jenkins writes Business World for the Journal.

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