Bush leads calls to drill off U.S. shore

THE INSTANT FIX IS RAISING THE PRIME INTEREST RATE

But would the cure slow the economy more than high gas prices?

Some of you may remember the 1973 oil embargo when some OPEC nations said oil in the ground is better than paper money. It is unfair to blame investors for moving their wealth from devaluing American dollars into oil commodities that are more likely to retain or increase in value? If you want to reprimand speculators then turn your anger toward the Federal Reserve and the US Trade Deficit. The devaluation of the dollar is the reason gas prices have increased so rapidly.

THE LONG TERM FIX IS END FOREIGN WARS AND DRILL FOR DOMESTIC OIL

A rapidly devaluing dollar, aggravated by the cost of the War in Iraq, contributes to recent rapid increases in the price of gas. And if the trillion plus dollars the US spent fighting that war had been invested in a Manhattan like project to produce oil from known reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the Continental shelf and synthetic diesel/gas from America’s abundant coal fields, gas would be $2 a gallon or less.

And reducing trade deficits keeps jobs in America. Every billion of trade deficit costs 13,000 jobs.$400 billion for oil last year: do the math.

Plus declaring American energy independence is the neighborly thing to do. It would place downward pressure on world oil prices by making more OPEC oil available for the UK, France, Japan, Turkey, etc.

Call Congress and demand domestic production in this decade.
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State...

Bravo Silva for casting a sceptical eye at the people with power, and showing some balance in your reporting by noting that people oppose what the powerful ones say. That's the job of newspapers, to question authority. Too bad you couldn't have done it so strongly during the previous seven years of the Bush Crime Family. Is that what it takes to speak truth to powr, when 75% of the country despises the power?

But I'm sure the media will be all over President Obama, holding him to account for every equivalent to the White House travel office scandal, in ways that the media never did with the current mass murderers.

Of course, the New York Times notes in re: the same topic that even if all untapped domestic oil reserves were explored starting tomorrow, we wouldn't have any new sources of oil until 2030 at the earliest. I guess that caveat was trimmed by the Chicago Tribune editors?

I am certainly glad that the American of the 1600's (some of whom were my ancesters) didn't decide that to develop America would not be the thing to do. After all it was all pristine land and wanted to keep it that way. Guess we would not be living in this beautiful country.

I have come to realize that commin senze was never commin!However, I never have seen a report on all the oil wells that are already drilled and ready to pump located in west Texas have been turned on. Who is hoarding these and why, since the US citizen have PAID for them, all the roads fences,and power lines etc associated with them. Lets turn them on to help ourselves get through this hard time, until economy get's restored as it has in the past.

Drilling now for cheaper gas later is better then waiting now and paying much more later. America will come to its knees, oil runs this country's economy, we can't depend on country to help us.

Hey,lets drill in The Everglades too! Why not? All that drilling crude will wind up in the Everglades anyway.
And on our beaches.(Along with the lovely tar-balls we have already.)
We don't need the Florida Panther...they're almost gone anyway, along with so many other species we pushed to extinction. Because WE RULE THE WORLD.
I know I am in the minority right now. Even the Liberals are whining about their Hummers, and even the Liberals want us to drill in the Alaskan WILDLIFE REFUGE. Amazing.
And what do we do when we've killed off every sensitive species of birds and fish, and mammals that we don't give a darn about NOW because we care so much about our cars?
What's wrong about exploring other alternatives? Other Countries already have them.
You think Gas is going to be any cheaper? The greedy creeps will still make it expensive, only we'll all have cancer and so will our kids because McCain wants not only Drilling but also SCORES more Nuclear Power Plants. You ready for that too in your back yards since you're all so hot to bring the oil rigs to Florida and put them right in the middle of our coastal reefs?
Oh, and before you start cursing me out, I'm not a Lib, I'm a registered Republican who's a moderate centrist
but I have a love for this earth and every living animal in it (So sue me.)
I was thinking of voting for McCain until this drilling fiasco started, so NOW I think I'll have to vote for Obama who I don't trust.
THANK YOU AMERICA for being so very
GREEDY ! Why am I not surprised.
When your children grow up and want to know what happened to the crane
and the manatee, the Florida panther,
the polar bear,(etc) you can tell them "But we have Gas. We don't need nature or the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge."
I hope they don't hate you too much.

We need oil, now! What good will the environment be, if we cannot function without oil. We should have been drilling for the last 25 years in the US. I blame the "treehuggers" for keeping us from drilling. You can't worry about 100 years from now, you have to survive now!! Bush has asked Congress to drill, but they say 'no". How is it Bush's fault that gas goes up? He has asked OPEC to increase production and they say "no". I don't fault him, I blame the Democrats in Congress.

Frank wrote:

We need oil, now! What good will the environment be, if we cannot function without oil. We should have been drilling for the last 25 years in the US. I blame the "treehuggers" for keeping us from drilling. You can't worry about 100 years from now, you have to survive now!! Bush has asked Congress to drill, but they say 'no". How is it Bush's fault that gas goes up? He has asked OPEC to increase production and they say "no". I don't fault him, I blame the Democrats in Congress.

There are a combination of problems. The no drilling for off shore oil was signed by Bush 41. Clinton signed a bill to not regulate speculators in the year 2000. We have a president that has no idea what he is doing. Bush, instead of throwing this at congress-a body that does not get along with Bush, should have done an executive order by passing congress. So, nothing will get done under the Bush administration.
What you need is an energy council and take this away from politics. There has been nothing but mistakes over 40 years. Some of those being:
>Carter winfall profits tax (bad policy)
>Carter synfuels (good policy)
>Reagan disbanding synfuels (bad policy)
>Bush and congress, corn ethanol (bad policy)
>Hillary and McCain dropping the federal gas tax for the summer (bad policy)
You need an energy council. A thousand page report on what has to be done. We need to listen to the experts. And you add 4 congressmen and 4 senators both democrats and republicans that will work to make us independent on energy.
Short term solutions can be fixing the dollar as it cost more for oil with a low dollar. Put restrictions on speculators.
Setting up and building oil rig would probably take some 5 years to get started to drill anywhere. And we need to look at all of the alternatives including plug-in hybrids that is doable today. But none of this is short term, as it would take 20 to 30 years to implement.

If I won the lotto for 50 million I would not want you to drill anywhere in our country and I wouldn't care if gas went to $100.00 a gallon but thats not the case. Cut the trees down and start drilling everywhere. If a forign country attacks us on our beachs would we not shoot at them for fear of cluttering our beaches.Lets stop patting muslums on the back who want to kill us and fight back.