Roth: Is Libya a humanitarian or energy crisis?

Over half of the oil used by the United States is imported. The Department of Energy reports that number to be more than 57 percent. It also comes as no surprise that oil production in the United States is shrinking, quickly. Scholars and economists are already beginning to place predictions on when the United States’ ability to produce its oil will evaporate. This is a bleak reminder of oil’s finite nature.

I recently had the privilege of attending a National Energy Policy Institute conference: “OPEC at 50 – Its Past, Present, and Future in a Carbon-Constrained World.” The institute is collaboration between the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa. Stephen Brown, a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, said that of the last 11 recessions in the United States since World War II, oil price spikes preceded 10 of them. Most recently, OPEC’s price shock cost the American economy $1.9 trillion from 2004 to 2008; ultimately a serious recession followed.

The crisis in Libya has again engaged the world in a discussion about energy. However, the human cost and the extremity of the circumstances in Libya must be acknowledged, especially when a dictator boasts that he will show no mercy to quash an uprising. This human tragedy resonates with all Oklahomans and me.

Yet, a factual inquiry is still appropriate in understanding the complexity of the conflict and “crisis.” Libya has an enormous oil production capacity. OPEC reported in 2009 that Libya produced an average of 1.4 billion barrels per day. This translates to an estimate of 63 years worth of reserves. There is also a French connection. France has been entering into arms agreements with Libya since the late 1960s and even recently agreed to help Libya develop nuclear power.

With Yemen and Bahrain, countries also facing potential civil wars and recent civilian deaths at the hands of its government, there is seemingly no such connection of a similar production capacity. Yemen and Bahrain are also allies of the United States. It is somewhat of a leap to suggest that the intervention in Libya is just about oil. But it is inescapable to not at least see a parallel, especially between Europe’s interest in Libya and its dependence on Libya’s oil. However, I’m sure the surviving citizens in Rwanda, or Darfur, are certainly envious of Libya’s oil wealth and the world community’s quick “humanitarian” intervention.

I’m hopeful that our focus is truly humanitarian. In either case, this highlights the need for domestic, alternative and renewable forms of energy production. It is clear that oil consumption that exceeds domestic supply threatens the security of the United States, and arguably the world. Our dependency on foreign sources of oil shouldn’t be a factor in our ability to conduct international diplomacy, but now it practically must be.

President George W. Bush is credited with saying that “America is addicted to oil.”

We have a problem. We must not turn to the ordinary solution and simply try to control the price of oil by implementing tariffs or other protectionist acts, or by injecting democracy on a whim.

The solution is in front of us: through self-reliance upon domestic resources and through growing our own renewable-energy future. Oklahoma has an incredible opportunity to be a leader on that front – not only for the sake of being better stewards of the world’s resources, but also human resources. For the sake of our national security, we need to avoid what Roger Stern from Princeton University described at the NEPI conference as the “oil scarcity syndrome,” where decades of U.S. foreign policy seems geared toward propping up America’s unhealthy reliance upon other countries’ oil. We must either walk the path to energy independence or watch this cycle of American intervention play out again and again.  

Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.