The offshore areas of the United States are estimated to contain significant quantities of resources in yet-to-be-discovered fields. MMS estimates of oil and gas resources in undiscovered fields on the OCS (2006, mean estimates) total 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas. These volumes represent about 60 percent of the oil and 40 percent of the natural gas resources estimated to be contained in remaining undiscovered fields in the United States.

They don't even have the capacity or resources to DRILL where they have FULL PERMISSION as well as a GUARANTEE of finding oil!!!

...IN AS FAR AS THEIR "Arguments" that DRILLING must be allowed in "Environmentally Protected Areas" (RE: Their FAVORITE Argument): .... <link> ...oil companies already have under lease 68 million acres on federal lands and waters — outside the ban area — that are not being developed.

275187 Sq Km = 68000000 acres

9,826,630 sq km = Total Area of the US

9,826,630 / 275187 = Approx. AREA Equal to about 1/36th of the land mass of America (More then ONE ENTIRE Average Sized STATE?)

So... Why aren't they drilling THERE???

(Oh.... then they couldn't use it as a "Political Talking Point" to divert attention AWAY from the fact that the GOP is in fact working for and supporting NEAR CRIMINAL "Price Gouging" by the Big Oil Special Interests!)

It's not ENOUGH that Big Oil ALREADY can refuse to develop known oil reserves that cover an area LARGER then an average STATE (just in Oil Leases on FEDERAL LANDS).... They want it ALL (or as much as they can GET before their "Boy" has to surrender the White House!!!)

Actually, it should be staggering as far as exposing the "Big Lie" that BIG OIL is sitting on KNOWN yet UNDEVELOPED oil leases the land mass of OVER one average sized STATE!!!

As far as I'm concerned (if true; which it HAS even been admitted in the Congressional Testimony of BIG OIL itself).... WHY all this bitch-n-moan about Protected Off-shore and Alaska Reserves IF you can't even develop what you ALREADY HAVE!!!!

PURE unadulterated BULL-SHIT!!! (No Sale!!!)

what new we find and don't consaume immediately we can sell over seas, perhaps to China, for a tidy profit...that will teach those heathen Chinese to try to steal our Gulf Oil...make them buy it from us damn it!!!

Plus we get more reality TV shows of oil guys getting hit in the head with chains and stuff.

I'd settle for a public plethora of oil patch names like T. Boone Pickens

pilot,

How long do you think that oil will last and what do you propose we do once we burn through it?

pocket when he suggests that "we" need to drill this resource. For of course...as any honest petro will tell you, they'll not be drill-drill-drilling out there until and unless the price of oil goes considerably higher than it has already. And....they sure as HELL wouldn't be going after it if they thought it would actually lower the price of oil!

Pres. Obama will be able to put the brakes on all this silliness right quick, by calling on the petros themselves to tell us where they're prepared to drill NOW and what sort of impact they suggest said drilling will have on the price of oil. I'm guessing that the petro's silence would be deafening.