Resolution on Selling Our Natural Resources

[Chuck O'Reilly]

An enormous amount of energy and mineral resources exists in a variety of forms under the lands owner by the federal and state governments.   If these many different natural resources were developed and commercialized, they would create hundreds of thousands of sustainable jobs and greatly benefit our overall economy without creating any new debt. The Heritage Foundation estimates that just by increasing domestic oil production by 2 million barrels a day would create 270,000 jobs. Further, increasing supply will relieve the upward pressure of prices that is likely to worsen as global demand surges when countries come out of their respective recessions. These local sales would also lower the payments by the U.S. to foreign countries.  Since both the states and the federal government would collect royalties from the production of their natural resources, those royalties would actually lower the national debt and bolster state budgets.

 

Resolution:  “The federal government should do all that it is able to increase production of the energy and mineral resources underlying the lands it owns and then use those funds to pay down the national debt.”  Of course such an effort should go hand-in-hand with a program to extensively cut federal spending.