Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything?

One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy.

"The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby, drill,'" Biden said at an Owens fundraiser, referring to Palin's own campaign slogan last year. "No, it's a lot more complicated, Sarah, than 'Drill, baby, drill.'"

Actually, it's not, according to a new report produced by the Congressional Research Service, hardly an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy or on the payroll of Big Oil. The report says that if all our energy resources are added up and converted to a barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), the U.S. has the largest reserves in the world.

According to the CRS, the U.S. has 1,321 billion barrels of oil (or barrels of oil equivalent for other sources of energy) if you combine its recoverable natural gas, oil and coal reserves. Russia is close behind with 1,248 billion barrels BOE. Other energy-producing nations, including many that export oil to the U.S., lag behind.

Of course, much of our world-leading reserves are off-limits by government edict. We recently commented on the federal government designation of 200,541 squares miles off the coast of Alaska as critical habitat for the abundant polar bear, effectively killing hopes to exploit the vast energy riches of the American Arctic.

Alaska's Chukchi Sea, part of the designated habitat, holds more oil and gas than anyone thought - 1,600 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world's supply and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the estimated global resources.

The CRS report also notes the U.S. has 28% of the world's coal reserves, with Russia again coming in second with 19%.

Biden, of course, is famous for his rope-line remark in the 2008 campaign in response to a question on energy: "We're not supporting 'clean coal,'" he said. "Guess what: China is building two every week - two dirty-coal plants. And it's polluting the United States. It's causing people to die." He went on to say, "No coal plants in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there."

Memo to Veep: We are dependent on fossil fuel energy and will be for some time. The folks at Peabody Energy say replacing coal would require 2,400 times more solar generation, 40 times more wind power, 250 new nuclear plants, almost double the U.S. production of natural gas, 500 hydro plants the size of the Hoover Dam or halving electricity consumption.

"Our overwhelming coal, natural gas and oil resources represent tens of trillions of dollars in wealth and millions of American jobs," said Sen. James Inhofe, R.-Okla., who released the CRS data.

In her Facebook response to Biden, Gov. Palin noted Biden "cast one of only five votes against the Alaskan pipeline that has produced more than 15 billion barrels of oil, supplied nearly 20% of the nation's oil, created tens of thousands of jobs (and) added hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy."

There's more out there not only in the Chukchi Sea, but also locked in Rocky Mountain shale and under the Outer Continental Shelf. Sadly, the report stated that the U.S. has tapped into only 13%, or 21 billion barrels of its oil reserves, with the other 87% still untouched. Drill, Joe, drill.

investors.com