Pitboss you first.
#1 we have VAST reserves of oil IN THIS COUNTRY! ANWAR is the most well known but we have an even bigger one under Wyoming and the Dakotas. We also have VAST amounts of shale which can be converted to oil. We have reserves we just aren't drilling them!

#2 Our current refineries (over thirty years old) are almost always running at almost 100% capacity. For the numerically-challenged this means we have to run ALL of our current refineries to refine the oil we use. If ONE refinery goes offline it causes problems which usually result in price spikes just look at what happened when Katrina took out ONE pipeline. In business it is not a good idea to constantly run your assets at 100% with no backups in place. It is also not a good idea to rely on assets that are THIRTY FUCKING YEARS OLD!! Even if we don't want to drill our oil we need to update our refineries and make sure we have enough online to ignore little "blips" like one refinery or one pipeline going down.

buzzincuzzin,
You confuse innovation and invention with sole ownership. Yes, we developed the technology to find and drill for oil and we are still at the forefront of developing new technology to do so. But we don't have a monopoly on technology that is over fifty years old. For god's sake even the Cubans have the technology and though they got it from us that doesn't mean we own it OR can stop them from using it. They are drilling off the coast of Florida RIGHT NOW! If Big Oil ok'ed that, then they really are some tricky bastards because all of their stooges in congress OPPOSE it!!!!

Furthermore if Big Oil so dominates congress then WHY haven't they been allowed to drill in ANWAR? Big Oil has been begging to drill in ANWAR for over ten years now. If, in fact, Big Oil's public stance (we want to drill in ANWAR) is a smokescreen then it is the DEMOCRATS who are helping them because the Republicans have been trying for ten years to drill in ANWAR and it is the DEMOCRATS who have stopped them.

You speak of Halliburton/Iraq etc in an attempt to blame republicans.

#1 The high price of oil has NOTHING to do with the Iraq war. Iraqi oil is ON THE MARKET! It was not BEFORE the war (you remember that embargo and the FACT that Saddam was using the money from the little bit of oil he was allowed to sell, for "humanitarian" reasons, to pay off the Europeans and Russia). So there is more oil on the market AFTER the Iraq war than there was BEFORE and if we had not gone to war in Iraq the price would still be where it is.

#2 How convenient it is that you guys who hate Halliburton ALWAYS fail to mention Diane Feinstein and her hubby who got BILLIONS in rebuilding contracts to Iraq. Abuse of the bidding process is a Republican AND Democrat problem. Hell, Robert Byrd (D) West Virginia has made a career of it.

Now I agree that something funny is going on with the price of oil. For example, in the past two years the price of a BARREL of oil has doubled but the price of a QUART of motor oil for your car has barely moved at all (in Nashville my motor oil has risen from $1.69/quart to $1.74/quart). That does not make sense.

I'll also agree that the oil companies are using this to their advantage.

But I cannot ignore a body that CONSTANTLY throws up roadblocks and will not even allow the oil companies to drill for OUR OWN OIL. If you are CONSTANTLY limiting the supply of any in-demand good then it's price WILL go up. It is Economics 101 for crying out loud.

For example, let's assume that Goodwill took over the oil business and decided to run it as non-profit. Take away all those evil oil company profits and what would the price of a gallon of gas be? Well Big Oil makes something like 8% profit on a gallon of gas, so you will have reduced the price per gallon by about 28 cents. (If we did the same for Big Gov't, i.e took out the taxes, you'd save anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar depending on what state you live in).

Now let's assume Big Common Sense took over GOVERNMENT and actually allowed drilling. The DAY they announced drilling in ANWAR prices would fall dramatically because the price has been driven up by speculators/futures markets who currently see the United States producing NONE of its own oil.

The point of all of this is that if you had a magic wand and wanted to reduce the price of oil you'd be much better off starting on the government side of the equation because THEY are more to blame for high prices.

I guess it comes down to this. I may not like the way Big Oil hits the pitch but before I can correct them I have to get CONGRESS to quit tying one of Big Oil's arms behind their back before the pitch.