>>Just kidding of course but I do think that quite apart from all the rhetoric there are some good reasons for allowing oil exploration on our soil. This may get some Canadian noses out of joint but we souldn't tell you folks how to do your business (though we have in the past - to our shame IMO) nor should we be precluded from doing what we think best - remembering the notion of responsibility for one's actions of course. Apparently we also receive a lot of our oil from Mexico and Venezuela rather than the Middle East - though Japan and Europe, apart fro the North Sea Oli Reserves, get a lot from there.
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>Doug;
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>A large amount of the oil from Alaska goes to Japan. We would not want to “cut off” oil supplies to Japan like we did during the late 1930’s early 1940’s or we might find a Japanese Aircraft Carrier sailing for Hawaii.
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Tom,

I picked up the following story a few days ago - describes how BP Amoco was accused of selling Alaska crude to Asia for less than market price to bump up the price of oil in the West Coast.

http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405723865

What I've heard recently is that OPEC now accounts for 40% of world production. I don't believe that new exploration is going to put much of a dent in that, and even if it did, given the way oil companies behave, there's seems to be very little relation between supply of oil from a domestic source and the price passed on to the consumer (as you said). Their behaviour also undermines the idea that this new digging is needed to guarantee a solid supply domestic supply for the future. I don't object to commercial exploration in general, but ripping up a valuable ecosystem and painting it as something that's in the national interest or needed to free us from the oppression of OPEC I find false and troublesome.

Rod