Drill here first and get away from oil from the middle east

they are doing it just to make a buck not to help the gas prices

President Bush wanted to drill up in Awar Alaska seven years ago. [Barren waste land]. They did a survey up there, and said at the present day rate were using oil, There was enough up there for forty years or more. Demo's and environmentalist's said no. Oil companys claim they can drill with a new method that will not harm the environment. My opinon is, this is strictly political. One party constantly at war with the other. Its to bad,because you can't tell me we won't be greatly reduced, or free from using fossil fuel in the next forty years. Go for it, and give us Americans a break. The two car family is a thing of the past. Who can afford to refuel two cars ?

2.5 million barrels is a piddling amount. The United States uses many times that amount per day (about 21 or 22 million barrels a day). If that is all we can do, it is pretty bad. We really need a lot more than that!

Pumping the oil out of the ground in America will do nothing to lower the price of gas.  It might keep a few dollars from going offshore but it will not improve the prices.
The only way to reduce the price is to flood the market with oil.  What incentive do oil producers have to do that?  They have us by the balls and they are not going to let go.

its not the middle east thats raping use its our own oil company ex.every 3 months oil profits uphigher then last time, laughting all the way to the bank an nothing we can do

I agree with jammer! Also the largest oil reserve in the world is under the rocky mountains!!!!! check it out!!!

How are going to flood the market if you don't drill? Opec is not going to it.

Higher oil prices is only a part of the problem.  Domestic refinery capacity is also a big issue, and it takes a long time for any investment to catch up with demand.  There is another big bump in gas prices expected in a few months as refineries switch from "winter" to "summer" gas, and facilities have to shut down for the switch because there isn't enough capacity for a graceful transition.

Folks, you are living in a fantasy land.  Ever hear of peak oil? We can not drill our way out. Oil is a finite resource and humans have already extracted most of the accessible reserves.  What is left is lower quality or much more difficult technically and/or economically to extract.  The rate of new oil discoveries world wide has been declining for some time.  Many think that the Saudi's and other OPEC countries are overstating their reserves and actually have reached maximum production.  Drilling ANWAR would provide, at best, add the equivalent of a year or so to our oil reserves at current American usage.  The oil-based economy that we currently enjoy is simply not sustainable.  This is not an environmental or "Dem" position as one of the comments above suggests, rather this is a reality that many other western countries as well as corporations are coming to terms with.  The USA, for the most part, has not.  For interesting discussion of oil issues, I urge you to look at http://www.theoildrum.com, a blog that discusses energy issues in a non-partisan way.

unprofitable you say, ha ha what did the oil company's make last year the people

How much gas do you think our domestic refineries export for even higher prices?  How does that help keep our prices higher due to "shortages"?

Timm , unfortunally you would have to wait several hundred thousand years for the shale oil you are referring to to be ready to be pumped out of the ground like today's oil.  The only problem with the hundreds of millions of barrels of shale oil is that it is expensive to get it out of the ground.  This oil would allow us to not depend on other country's oil for hundreds of years.  There are several trillion barrels of oil in the Alberta sand oil.  More that enough oil to be the world's leader in oil.  The problem is with refineries is that there has not been a new one built in over 20 years.  They are not even working near 90 percent.  There is no incentive for them to do so.  With all the subsidies that the govt. throws around why cant they subsidize the price of gas and drop it down 2 bucks a gallon.  Tell the oil companies that all the tax breaks they get they should lower the price.
The shale oil is on lan owned by the govt.  What is the problem with the govt getting the oil is my question?  
Everytime I see someone complain about middle east oil I laugh.  We get most of our oil from Canada.

the usual bullshit story...look at the record profits to tell the real deal !!

Let the president and the rest of congress live on our salary for a couple months and then you will see them do something about thisoil problem.
Higher gas means higher prices for food and just about everything,THEY NEED TO DRILL  where ever it might be Alaska,New York if thats where the oil is  and stop this little game with wall street   put a cap on prices .people are going to be in rough shape by end of this year BUSHES presidency impact will be felt by end of year

What laws are the oil companies breaking by making record profits?  Why is it the president’s fault oil prices are high?  What controls should we put on oil companies to control their profits?  Who should we go
after when the oil problem is fixed?  Do you want to live in a society that no longer allows free enterprise? Vladimir Putin needs a job.  Would you rather have him as president?

Yea!  The price of milk is too high.  Let’s get the farmers.

now you know why we call you billdo...asswipes like you should pay double !!

Be aware that there is a truck strike looming 3/24/08 in protest of the higher cost of fuel >>>>>>>>>>thetruckersreport.com<<<<<<<<<<<<<<                                    

Oil prices are like the perfect storm. The price goes up with any excuse they can come up with.

Bill the problem i have with the oil companies is the millions of dollars in tax breaks we give them.  Pull the tax breaks and let them go on their own.  Take that money and use it for something else we could benefit from.  Give a tax break to any company that will get the shale oil out and refine it to maybe offset high prices involved in that (just an idea)
I agree with you steve.  Any possible excuse and oil rises.  Wait......a condor farted in the Andes Mountain....that should bumb oil up 2 dollars.  

We need to start letting people dump their oil back into the ground- like after oil changes. The earth will clean it, then it could be re-pumped (recycled). We NEED more solutions like these to take the oil back from "Over seas". Let's at least try it and stop TALKING about it.

how about the 500 billion barrels they have stored away that there not telling anyone. the oil companies are gouging us to recession and poverty ; all the prices have shot up[consumer goods ;necessities] , its a tragedy what bush has done to this country; he butchered 4000 soldiers, and now the country who put him in office is getting dumber ; pushing fore obama ; there should be a country wide boycott of gas and oil ; please ,everyone get ntotgether and save our country from major civil unrest, and even a civil war; this is not a joke ;its your childrens life;everyone must stand against tyranny and possible racial unrest.

When will everyone face facts   . There is only so much oil on this planet. Prices will go up .    Let's work on other forms of power and transportation .  Then we can let the middle east keep there oil  

Jeff is kind of right. Oil will run out. But there are already other forms of power. There has been for years. The problem is we will not see them til every last drop of oil is pumped out of the ground. $$$$. The most abundent energy in the world or universe is hydrogen. When burned in an internal combustion engine its exhaust is water vapor.  Hey, no pollution !

too much water vapor will be a prblem also

Seems like about every 25-30 years, we have an oil crisis, yet, we never seem to learn from the last one.  Fossil oil from the ground is indeed a limited resource, and were we as humans truly wise, we would have been heavily investing in alternate forms of energy generation a couple of decades ago.  After all, such clever direction might have generated a significant number of hi-tech jobs as opposed to more 55 year-old McDonald's "Counter Kids" and demonstrated that the U.S. is still the lead technical innovator on the planet.

Sadly, the companies who profit from the rise in prices are also major contributors to our legislative bodies, and their influence is signficant ,as we can see.  Ronald Reagan essentially put a stop to such activity in the 80's, and no one has seriously stepped up to restart it.  Were we  to cut back on oil subsidies by eliminating such tax breaks as "depletion allowance" and other similar gifts to Big Oil and instead provide R&D funding for improved biofuel production, solar energy generation, geothermal exploitation, and reduced energy homes and cars, we might not be so worried about $4.00 gasoline.

Since we are now competing with China, the Pacific Rim and India for the limited oil that is being pumped fro mthe ground as they industrialize and improve their living standards, things will only get better if we walk away from using oil for transportation.  Much of our public infrastructure was built around the automobile - the Interstate Highway system, our suburban sprawl, the paved-over farmland.  We as Americans will have to get over our "One Man, One Car" standard of living and start using public tranportation - or be willing to pay the preimuim price for fuels.  Perhaps some of the found money from eliminating tax breaks for oil could improve our buses and local rail capabilities, better yet, good intercity rail.  Europeans have much better rail systems than we do - can we learn something there?

We have a lot of places where small hydropower facilities could be installed, and a lot that were abandoned that could be upgraded and restored to service to cut back on fossil fuel generation for electricity.  There are methods of enhancing solar heating and generation for individual homes that we ignore.

Until the Congress and Executive branches stop pandering to the oil and auto industries, we will not solve the problem.  I'm betting that there are workable solution out there, if we are just willing to help them emerge fro mthe shadow of the refinery.

Try this one:
The oil producers know there are new energy products coming in the near future and they want to make as much profit as possible before their product is obsolete.