The Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years for more drilling to have any effect on oil prices. Today on TV I heard the addled Harry Reid say that it will take 30 years. I wonder where they get their estimates. They seem unaware that drillling has already been done off of Santa Barbara in California in a field with 3 billion barrels of proven reserves with an EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) of 13 billion barrels. It would only take a short time to get the oil flowing from this reserve, and the production would make an immediate impact on price. Then there is the Destin Dome off of Destin, Florida in Gulf of Mexico. Production there is shut-in, which means it could be re-started almost immediately.

Regarding how long it takes to get the price down, the price of oil fell almst $20 per barrel after Preident Bush cancelled the Executive order banning off-shore drilling. Imagine how much the price would fall if Congress were to lift their ban. Rather than worry about silly regulations to stop speculators from manipulating the price of oil, they could just announce more drilling and the speculators would drop the price on their own. The regulations Congress talks about would be worthless, and would just result in the speculators moving to other countries. (Most of the speculators that attempt to manipulate the market are not Amricans any way.) Democrats don't like the idea of the price of oil falling becasue their alternative energy schemes are not attractive unless oil is very expensive. If the price fell to $75 or $80 per barrel, most of the scemes would not be economically attractive. What is despicable about Democrats is that they won't tll people what their real agenda is.