It's going to be a cold winter. Staying warm will likely come at a high cost for New Hampshire residents, with heating bills expected to jump by as much as 25 percent. Those bills may become even steeper next year, if Congress pursues any of the counterproductive energy "solutions" lawmakers and candidates have recently touted in their campaigns.

In a recent opinion piece ("Five hard truths about America's energy future," Monitor Forum, Oct. 14) Paul Doscher echoed those misleading notions, even shooting down one of the most promising answers to U.S. energy security: exploration of our natural resources. Despite Doscher's claims to the contrary, drilling off our nation's shorelines holds both immediate and long-term benefits.

Just consider drilling's potential impact on millions of Americans' retirement funds. The majority of oil industry shares are owned by individual investors and pension funds held by retirees, union workers and other hardworking individuals. Increased exploration and production would strengthen our domestic energy companies, thereby: 1) driving up the value of domestic energy shares; 2) placing U.S. industry at a better advantage to global competitors; and 3) decreasing America 's reliance on imported oil.

Doscher's essay was published just as the oracles of "Peak Oil" were again predicting the demise of petroleum. World production appears stuck at 85 million barrels per day against growing demand in China and India. And Americans pay a heavy price to import 70 percent of our current oil consumption, while Democrats chant: "We can't drill our way out of the problem."

However, geologists report that huge quantities of hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas) still lie buried at various locations around the globe. A recently released international study estimates more than 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain in the Arctic alone.

Added to that are immense amounts of oil and other fuels invested in the combined proven and projected reserves of oil shale, offshore natural gas and petroleum, coal and uranium in North America. These are available, and their use will be necessary to make an orderly transition to the future, as we develop non-carbon technologies that can't yet compete economically or practically.

Brazil just discovered its third huge offshore field and became energy independent. Prospects for similar finds off the U.S. coast are regarded as excellent and finding one would go a long way toward achieving energy security. Sources state that drilling in certain proposed offshore areas could produce oil in as little as 1½ years.

Then what prevents oil producers from expanding current production? OPEC, enjoying a high return from a barrel that costs but a few dollars to pump, sees little reason to alter the status quo. Not until substantial new supplies are certain of entering the market, and prices begin to fall, will OPEC augment its production to recoup lost revenue. Other exporting countries (Russia and Mexico ) are lagging far behind in modernizing their oil fields.

Efforts by Congress to curb oil speculation would not address the fundamental cause - recurring threats of interrupted supply during international crises and natural disasters - but instead would drive oil futures trading out of the country. By talking up new regulations for commodities trading and proposing "windfall-profits" taxes, Congress is simply deflecting attention from the high prices it helped create.

Another energy policy that's better at garnering attention than actually achieving its intended purpose is government subsidization of renewable energy - one of the "solutions" promoted in Doscher's op-ed. In fact, our government's subsidy track record provides one of the strongest arguments against future energy subsidies.

In the 1970s, the federal government pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into developing thermal solar technologies. Three decades and quite a few tax dollars later, this government-backed technology isn't even close to being commercially viable. A more recent example is the $1.3 billion that in 2003 President Bush dumped into a "Freedom Car": a vehicle that would run on hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Four years later - you guessed it - taxpayers have yet to see any Freedom Cars on the market (or any sort of return on their investment).

If energy sources such as wind, solar and even ethanol are such great ideas economically, the government wouldn't need to offer subsidies or tax incentives to artificially boost demand.

Voters have already made clear what they want: meaningful legislation to permit more drilling, not a hodgepodge of proposals designed to assuage environmental groups. Access to the Outer Continental Shelf would ultimately increase our domestic reserves by more than 500 percent.

When it comes to energy security, that's a great place to start.

(William D. Balgord heads Environmental & Resources Technology Inc. in Brookfield, Conn., a consulting firm whose clients include federal agencies and private firms.)