Some folks might look at the economic reverberations of Hurricane Katrina, which has done untold damage to our oil infrastructure, and think, “hm, maybe depending so heavily on a single source of fuel concentrated in a few small areas puts us unwisely at risk.”

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tx.) isn’t one of those people:

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Barton said the hurricane aftermath should be a “wakeup call” to the American people and government to increase domestic oil production from areas like the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and the coast of California and to build new refineries.

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