[BonzoHansen]

They banned it for political reasons – a feel good move and oil then was irt cheap. We are paying for it now – typical of politicians. I hear people saying o/s drilling will cause environmental issues – they ignore that there was little to no impact from Katrina in regards to o/s drilling. Facts suck. LOL

Opening up off shore, Alaska, etc., is good long term sense, plus may add some psychological impact to slow oil speculation, since perceived supply is supposedly the reason for the price jump. The more oil we can get domestically helps our trade deficit, which last I read is nearly 100% energy related, meaning if you take out energy we have no trade deficit. That would help with the spiraling $$. Then is the fed would stop printing money (literally) and raise rates it would bring the dollar back into line which will help more then anything.

$4 will likely never go away – the best we can do is contain it where it is, really. I still think we need a multi-pronged attack on all this – drill, nukes, clean coal, whatever we have inside our borders and within our current delivery infrastructure. It would also have a big impact on national security. Couple all that with energy savings (hybrids, etc) and alternative fuel development and we are on our way. There is no 1 answer; there are lots of small parts that make up the whole.