The Obama administration has included some off-shore oil and natural gas exploration in
its recently released energy policy. Is this a wise course to take? Are the environmental
risks worth the quantity of oil and gas likely to be found? Will such moves merely delay
the inevitable end of petroleum-based fuels? Should energy companies be encourage
through tax incentives to develop renewable sources? Or should the U.S. work to develop
every drop it can, rather than send money out of the domestic economy to the Middle
East, where some of it funds terrorism? Should environmental regulations be relaxed to
allow such extraction off Florida’s Gulf Coast and off the Virginia coast?