ID --

You are simply wrong about oil. Oil is a finite resource. It is becoming increasingly scarce -- at least in readily accessible form -- just at the time global demand is taking control of the market and placing outside American control. The price rise has nothing to do with our not drilling offshore -- which are relatively small reserves of relatively dirty oil. The price rise has to do with the increased demand -- and subsidized demand -- of new major consumer nations (primarily China and India). We would be in exactly the same situation we are in now with regard to supply constrictions and oil prices if we had free drilling off our coast -- the only difference would be that we would have particularly ugly coasts and a long history of cleaning up oil-leaks on our beaches.

Offshore drilling is not even a short-term solution. Oil shale refining, frankly, is a better one -- although it has its own problems. The real fix is to move off oil and onto a technology for which we can again monopolize demand such that we can control prices by American policy without worrying about China and India spiking our punch.

Beathan