The Congressional Dems are urging Bush to stop pumping oil into the ground. In the light of the oil price crisis, the Dems say that Bush should cease the input into the strategic reserve and use that oil to increase supply (and thus lower prices).

Bush argues that the 70,000 bpd pumped into the reserve is insignificant.

Fair enough.

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Meanwhile, over on another side of his mouth, Bush argues that we must drill ANWR immediately, because every drop counts.

In the case of ANWR, every drop amounts to not much more than 70,000 bpd in the early phases, and maybe 600,000 to 800,000 bpd at peak.

In otherwords, the 70k bpd that is insignificant for the reserve is 10 to 15% of the significant peak production that is critical.

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No, it doesn't make sense to me either.

only to oil company profits. It will, as has been said so many times, take 10 years to bring the ANWR oil field to full production and the oil therefrom will likely be sold to Japan or China, whichever is bidding higher, given the dearth of west coast refining capacity.

ANWR provides no answers to America's oil gluttony. Conservation and alterantive energies do.

Ethanol is another boondoggle favored by Bush pals, those in agribusiness, but it takes as much energy or more to make it as is produced by burning it, and it consumes foodstuffs useful to humans or their liivestock. Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ocean wave and nuclear are the current options, with hydrogen and fusion reactors in the future.