>And here we are with enough oil in Alaska to provide the U.S. fifty years, but we'd rather pay to have the drilling done in another country than in our own.

Have you any stats on that ? Perhaps with ownership ? (I have been not following this background research for some time, but probably will have to again<g>)

>Can't dirty our environment but we'll certainly pump everything into the air we can. We have oil offshore, but >environmentalists fight drilling there so instead other nations drill just outside our waters. A 25yr freeze on >offshore drilling for oil and gas. Sheesh, it's just being drilled by someone else. Then there's Al Gore whose >resolution was to only give tax breaks to those who drove battery operated cars or bought carbon offsets. How many >people can afford that? Sure, that will decrease our reliance on foreign oil. That puts the tax breaks on the poor >for sure (ha ha). They either need to drill in Alaska and every where else including Colorado, offshore every coast >or they need to build a reliable mass transit system in every small town USA to the cities across the nation. Next >thing they'll be recommending we go back
>to horses. Not enough animal lovers for that one - the SPCA and the Humane Society would have a field day.

If there is really that much oil in Alaska (drainable at a specific premium of less than 30$ barrel) I think it is very prudent to keep it there as long as other fields can be exploitet. The prices will continue to rise (developing countries need oil too) making it much more profitable to get oil from the last fields. The best strategy would be to have people already to a great part on alternative energy and still affluent so they can buy the last oil for a long time at extraordinary prices. In squeeze markets other rules prevail<g>.

I often wonder why OPEC increases oil: nearly all of the exporting countries would be financially better of if the oil sold at higher prices for longer times<g>.

thomas