I saw Senator Schumer on TV yesterday argue that more drilling for oil in Alaska and off-shore would not help American consumers. He says that it would take 10 years to get the new oil production online. (That is a pessimistic assessment considering that there is already a pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48. The one million barrel per day estimate is also very pessimistic.) Then he said an additional 1 million barrels per day, according to economists, would only reduce the price of gasoline at the pump by 1 cent per gallon. He needs to have his economist get with Senator Grassley's economist to work out the details because today I saw Senator Grassley say that ethanol is reducing the price of gasoline at the pump by $0.30 to 0.40 per gallon. The ethanol use at present is around 350,000 barrels per day. So Grassley sees a huge price advantage from 35% of the amount of fuel that Schumer thinks is insignificant. The Democrats need to get their stories straight.

I also saw Senator Cornyn discuss this on TV yesterday. He makes the point that we could have started more drilling for oil ten years ago. He estimated that all sources could provide an additional 3 million barrels per day. (That is also a pessimistic estimate; I would say that 5 million barrels per day is a better estimate, and some think it could be as much as 10 million.) Cornyn made the point that just the act of starting to drill would have an impact on the market. I suspect he was thinking of the impact on speculators who have had a lot to do with the current run-up in the price of oil.