Let gas hit $7.00 a gallon and America's upper class will finally be pinched by failing businesses. We do need to reduce our ever increasing dependence on oil products.  Electric cars may be the answer as the technology is already available.  Google "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and look up Toyota's Rave EV1 electric car that used to be available and ran on pennies a day.  And to meet our need for increased electric more windmills can be used.  Anything to get off our dependence on energy from other countries.  USA used to get 25% of our petroleum products from overseas--now it is 75%.  They now control our economy...not us.  The high prices we are paying for gas is waking us up to the fact that we are at the mercy of  other countries to keep our country afloat.

Brazil and other countries have gone electric.  The major car companies are partners hand in hand with the major oil companies and don't want to rock the boat.  There is a group called Southern California Electric Cars and is a collection of everyday people who have converted their gas guzzlers to electric.  If they can produce an electric car, why can't the major car companies?  Yes, they are coming out with a few, but too few too late and too expensive.

Let's use electric to power our personal vehicles and use America's oil for large commercial trucks.   Get us off forgien oil and free our country to be more self sustainable.  We are puppets on a string right now.

I know I'm a total optimist when it comes to this, but I think it will work out in the long run.  High gas prices hurt us all, especially the lower and working class, but I think it's going to be the catalyst that we need for change.  If oil is made that way we think it's made (although I heard a recent theory that contradicts that) then we have a limited supply and we do need to find an alternative.  Any change-over has growing pains.  I know that sounds callous, but it's true.  But that members of congress are disconnected from their constituents... that's nothing new.  The disconnect has been there for a long time.

I think most people have no problem with moving to alternative fuels where possible, but to punish  us into change is going to hurt everyone from the bottom up. Well except those that can wrote an expense report and have the tax payers pay for their vacations and trips to their home states.

I agree that it is nothing new to see the Congress be out of touch, but this is worst than most I believe.

Why is it the democrats are so against drilling for any more oil that is plenitful in and around the Unisted States?, doing that could get us off foriegn oil, we need to drill now and accelerate production and development of electric and other types of energy for our country to get us off Arab oil, China is currently drilling off the coast of Florida, but we cant?, Don’t look now, but investors and speculators have taken notice of the political metamorphosis among Americans on domestic drilling — even if American politicians have been slower to do so.  Since George Bush rescinded the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling and since demand for higher domestic production has increased in the face of $5 per gallon gasoline, the price of crude has dropped over $20 a barrel in less than two weeks.  The stock market has improved and the dollar has strengthened at the same time: It’s amazing what the promise of more supply can do for market psychology. And it goes beyond a few hundred thousand barrels of oil a day, what Bush tried to beg out of the Saudis earlier this year. According to this Bureau of Land Management release yesterday, the potential for oil shale recovery alone could far outstrip the known reserves in the Middle East: Currently, the US uses 20 million barrels of oil a day, 12 million of which we import. We also import refined gasoline, thanks to a lack of refining capacity in the US.of course, the dems dont want anymore of that either, The reserves in the Green River formation would supply us with 182 years of what we import now, or 109 years at our total rate of consumption.  Once in motion, Green River alone could give us complete energy independence far beyond the time we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels.

No matter what energy source man uses, risks accompany it.  We should work to minimize those risks, but we shouldn’t allow ourselves to get paralyzed by the necessity of doing so.  the risks of OCS drilling have been tremendously reduced over the last several decades, and the technology for extracting the oil has improved at the same time.  We can get more, and get it cleaner, than ever before.

Balance that with the risks of transferring vast sums of wealth to nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela by having de facto price supports with our refusal to add supply to the market.  The risks to our national security and our economy far outweigh the risks of unleashing our domestic production.  Undercutting oil prices should be our national policy, if only to keep cash out of the hands of dangerous despots with ties to terrorists such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and FARC.

Everyone would love to see a new, clean energy source replace oil — but it has to be reliable and mass-produceable.  We can work in parallel to find and develop that source, but until then, we need to start acting like responsible adults and take charge of our own energy needs with our own vast resources.

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We have been warned for many years about our dependence on oil and that there are alternatives, but we, me included, have been very slow to respond.  It took gas at $5.00 a gallon to get us to wake up. Remember the past gas crunches from the 70's and 80's?  I'm hoping once the price of gas drops we won't slip back into our old oil dependence lifestyle like we have in the past  If we convert as much as we can to electric or alternative power sources, then the domestic oil will last much longer.

Good topic jer!