Agree. But McCain seems to have understood this better wrt our politics: commit to drilling ASAP, and also talk about alternative forms of energy (including nuclear that the Dems don't like). The mood of the electorate is so bad on this that they believe that only by doing EVERYTHING, AT THE SAME TIME will get us somewhere. One can argue about prioritizing, resources, etc, but something tells me that, after this run up in oil invetment value over the past few years, no one will have any trouble raising capital for energy ventures.
First, these price projections are widely disputed: they only take under consideration raw supply of oil worldwide, and since ANWR is projected to deliver about 1% of that, they argue that price will drop by a little less, therefore the few cents that people are talking about. What it doesn't consider is that the price of oil is largely set by speculators who bid the oil fututes up and down; if the US demonstrates that we are seriously going after increasing our own supplies of oil, by a lot, price may swing down much more than those few paltry cents, a lot more.
That's why we need a fundamental policy statement from the Government and corresponding insurance legislation, similar to what the French and other Europeans have - forcing insurance companies to insure reactors and placing the Government as a backup for them in case it's needed. Despite some very well publicized accidents, nuclear remains, worldwide, the safest way to produce energy.
