Rufus11, you wrote the below; I assume you are young, and don't remember the 1970's and early 80's. The Liberal Democrats, under Jimmy Carter passed many environmental laws that effectively locked up the country to any further development of energy sources, be it oil, nuclear, or other. Try a little googling on Jimmy Carter Democrats, energy - you'll see.

rufus11 wrote:

"The price of gas in 2000, was 1.50. Now it's 5.00.

The gop has had full control. for them to blame the dem's for this, knwoing the bottle neck is the refineries, is not even funny anymore. This is the kind of stuff that gets me angry.

Like the gop saying anyone who is not for the war is a "phoney soldier". This kind of blame game and attacking, when they are the one's responsible should be criminal. Criminals always have an excuse and someone to blame. The differance is, the cop is not buying it, if the evidence is there.

Either the gop member are stupid morons beyond the pale and don't know anything. Or they are complicent fascists. Which is it. Criminals or morons? Either way they are about to be rendered irrelevant for 30 years.

PEACE"

Doing nothing but redristributing the wealth and having no plan to bridge the gap between a fossil fuel based energy sector to one that runs off of some alternatives that haven't been invented yet will definitely yield a cleaner environment. Hopefully though, people who are too poor to now buy heating oil or natural gas to heat their home won't go out and cut down the forests and further pollute the air by burning wood in fires. Of course many people will die from trying to heat their homes with charcoal grills and kerosene heaters causing carbon monoxide poisoning. But like any war, some innocents have to die. The redristubuted wealth won't help the farmers who won't be able to afford deisel to harvest their crops or truck it to market. Most of the airlines will go out of business and there will be only service between the largest cities, but that is a good thing because in today's global economy, people don't really need to travel anyway, especially considering how all the passenger jets are helping to cause global warming.

It is easy when someone who can absorb an extra $300 to $1000 a month in extra costs for everything (since energy costs affect every aspect of the economy) can preach to the people who live paycheck to paycheck about how it will be good for them to sacrifice their way of life to save the planet.

And since oil is so bad. Why don't we just ban oil now. Oh, then we would not be able to redistribute the oil company's money. Let's ban coal fired power plants now. What good is it going to do to save the planet by just letting companies pay to pollute -- such as cap and trade allows.

I am so waiting for the non-Republican plan to save the planet while provide the energy necessary for at least people to eat and heat their homes...let alone have an economy that still functions.

Good brief analysis of the Republican case for drilling, but way off base as far as the risks (the Democrats have no plan at all, merely outrage at everything that could actually work). Oil Spills: even during Katrina, not one drop of oil spilled, and somehow, the North Sea does just fine. Global Warming: Scientists are now telling us that the warming trend peaked 10 years ago, and the next decade or two will experience a cooling trend. Price Plunge: This is a bad thing? First off, it will never go back to a price where it does not make sense to invest in alternatives... but the Republican plan buys us the 10 years we need to become independent. Bottom line: Let alternatives compete in the market with all other alternatives.

We yes we the working poor and disabled of this country are hungry now. All the Dems and people like you think about is how comfy you will be when you retire 15,20,30 years from now.

If the government had opened our oil fields and funded research for alternate energy. We wouldn't have the mess we have now.

The fields need to be opened now to shock the world into fair prices. But at the same time the search for alternate fuels and real mass transportation systems must be funded. We can prevent a world resession right now and one 30 yrs from now. We all know Jimmy Carter sucked worse than Bush when it came to funding future energy research.

But no matter we must be able to buy fuel to go buy food now, and I can't aford ether let alone both.

100% combat service connected disabled Veteran.

Today I got a robocall from an organization called "Freedom'sWatch" about drilling. Googling this organization shows it has very close ties to the White House including Ari Fleisher. It is WAY before the election and I am already getting calls....

The oil/energy industry and the politicos they own are on full-court press to get at this oil before the Democrats take over.

Besides, it takes focus off the War and the horrible economy and tries to put blame for the economy back on "liberals" like they blamed the California blackouts on liberals.

This is their refocus.

this debate is so mindless, either drill more or conserve more. why not both? the obviously right thing to do is to combine opening everywhere to drilling with a $1/gallon gasoline tax. the combination of those 2 would probably make gas prices fall enough to pay for the $1/gallon, with most of the difference being paid by the saudis, ie the incidence of a higher gasoline tax would fall in large part on foreigners since the US imports a majority of its oil. plus, putting such a floor on gas prices will keep incentivizing people to live closer to where they work/take public transport/and develop new technologies. plus it helps our economy with more drilling jobs and a lower trade deficit. that is the truly "conservative" solution, not the either/or choice that this author and other ideologues continually offer.