I've read his energy plan. I'd challenge any Obama supporter to show me which item in that plan, or which combination of items, will drop gas prices. This is a central issue to voters, especially what we like to call "working people" who are spending a huge portion of their monthly budgets just to arrive at work and to go home at night. A central issue for which Obama has no plan whatever.

Obama's lack of a plan is a guarantee that under his leadership, prices will go up. That's partially because Obama has already said he'd raise taxes on the oil companies (<link>), which would obviously mean higher prices at the pump as oil companies look to maintain margins. It's also because, Obama is against finding new sources in the U. S. to tide us over while we wait for technology to catch up with our energy needs (and our budgets).

This may be a non-issue to the changlings that blindly support Obama, and who also tend to think we should all drive Smart Cars and shut up about oil prices. But, for independent voters, and conservatives, the idea that Obama (even after 9/11) wants to maintain the Bush era dependence on foriegn oil is a real problem area.

So, McCain should "attack" Obama on oil, and his miscalculations regarding Iraq. He should go after him about what he accomplished as a community organizer, and a legislator. He should hit him high, and hit him low. He absolutely should make a big deal out of Obama's associations in his private and public life (Rev. Wright, the Weathermen member...), and his misrepresentations of the white community (while fighting hard against any mention of his own race, except to the extent that it creates a convincing and moving narative to the rest of his story). He should read Obama's autobiography and talk about the misrepresentations in it (well documented, Google it). He should not treat Obama as one Statesman to another -- because Obama is not a Statesman. He should use any means neccessary to protect and defend this nation from the inept, unqualified leadership that Barack Obama offers us.

There is an excellent reason why Obama doesn't have a recipe for lowering oil prices - there isn't one. In his State of the Union address a few years ago, I can't remember exactly what each one, Bush said we must reduce our addiction to oil. He did nothing about it. There was nothing he could have done to make oil much cheaper but he could have done a lot to start reducing our dependence on it.

What the hell does that mean? (hint: nothing)

Whatever oil might get pumped out of ANWR, or off the continental shelf, 5-10 years from now, will be a small fraction of global supply, and therefore, will have an insignificant effect of the price of oil.

You need to study up on this stuff, before you go posting nonsense like that.

Until 1996 every day people were prohibited from speculating on oil, because it was seen as a strategic resource that was too important to leave to the whims of speculators. Simply re-instituting those regulations would drop oil back down to $70-90.

Government estimates are that we could pump enough oil out of ANWR alone to reduce prices by up to $0.40 per gallon. Not a bunch, but something. Re-instituting regulations on who is allowed to speculate on oil (removed in 1996) would have a greater impact still. Continuing to introduce alternatives into the market would even further depress the price of oil. But just sitting here and doing nothing is not a solution -- while we could save $0.40 per gallon by drilling, we'd instead see prices $1.00 or more per gallon higher by doing nothing at all. I have little doubt that under Obama's non plan, we'll see $7.00 per gallon gas by 2010.

Conservation is a great goal. Unfortunately, we have to travel, we have to deliver goods, we have to run our economy in the mean time.

Do you have reliable sources for those "Government Estimates". Meaning estimates that are not from Bush White Hose edited studies (which means essentially any government study these days), or Oil Companies salivating to drill or Right-Wing Think Tanks?

I don't think so.

40 cents a barrel on the price of oil, maybe.

not 40 cents a gallon on the price of gasoline. not possible.

you need to reread your sources.

I don't know any non-government, non-oil industry, or non-political organizations that have looked in to it. I suppose if the Teachers Union decides to do a study on the affects of increased drilling in ANWR then I'll post it here for further discussion.

The DOE estimate was 40 cents a barrel for crude oil, not 40 cents a gallon of gas. That was the estimate done by the Department of Energy just five years ago (the last available government estimates.

There isn't any magic bullet that will lower the price of gas. Stopping the speculators might help some, but the price of gas is going to trend up as we reach peak oil and all the cheap, easy to pump up oil is gone.

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$0.41 per barrel is correct -- to a high of $1.44 per barrel. Of course, it's difficult to determine the actual affect that would have on the price of a gallon of fuel, given that the reaction of speculators to new production could be precipitous, or could be minimal. It's my contention, though, that even if increased drilling only maintained current prices, and averts a $2 or $3 hike over the next four years, then we've saved quite a lot.

that report said likely production, after 5-10 years of development, would be 1 to 1.3 million bbl/day

by that time global demand should be comfortably over 100 million bbl/day (it's currently 87 million)

The way to get off dependence on foreign oil is to reduce US demand for oil. Period.

Exactly. We have to keep in mind that even if we increase the domestic supply by the tiny amount AMWR offers, the demand for oil by India and China is increasing faster than our own these days. Since oil is traded on a single global price, it's likely that any savings will be even less than the DOE estimated in 2003.

Do you have any evidence of their demand going up? I've read recently that both Nation's have actually experienced decreasing demand for the last couple of years do to the slowing global economy? Regardless, I've seen numbers that show global demand has gone up by about 1.5% per year for the last ten years -- which doesn't explain the run up in oil prices in any way. The Peak Oil B. S. is meaningless -- it costs more to pump out the shell oil and what-not, but not so much more that it would explain the rise in oil prices. The fundemental price of oil in today's environment is probably $75 per barrel. The actual price is a function of the devaluation of the dollar (which Obama intends to make worse with his spending proposals), and speculators.

The price of gas has always been too cheap in the US which has resulted in encouraging excess and poor urban planning among other things. The cost of gas is going to stay high and trend much higher from here on out. No amount of new finds will change this dynamic as long as China, India and the developing world begin modernizing and using more and more fuel. We need a plan that addresses our absurd notions of urban planning and sprawl. We need to address the lack of public transportation, our abysmal rail systems, our non-existent mass transit systems out West and our mentality across the board. We need to do a lot of things but drilling in ANWR is not one of them. Neither is drilling off our coast in California.

The demand in both countries has risen dramatically in recent years because of the increasing amount of manufacturing going on in those countries. There has been a dip just this past month due to higher prices and a sluggish global economy, but it's a recent event, not a trend over the past few years.