Isn't it Treason to Sell Out Your Own Country for Money?

Current cries to open ANWAR and offshore drilling are only the environmental counterpart to yesterday's shrieks about waging war on Iraq to fight terrorism. The presnit is using fear to further his own and his cronies' financial interests rather than using common sense to think America out of our paralyzing dependence on petroleum. This is just the most recent reason why he ought to be in prison, IMHO.

Nothing we do today will ease today's gas prices.

ANWAR's estimated supply will provide only 3 months' worth of US demand.

It would take 10 years for oil pumped from ANWAR to reach your gas tank.

Besides, oil companies already have numerous offshore leases just waiting to be drilled using lateral drilling technologies that are now feasible. It's merely a matter of new drilling permits, not of new leases.

But the last thing we need, or deserve, is more offshore leases and more drilling permits. Allowing the petrol giants more access now, especially without windfall profit taxes and mandatory investments in alternative fuels, simply creates more profits for Bush, Cheney and their ilk, provides the illusion that the US is doing something about the oil crisis, and undermines Congress' already shaky interest in investing in alternative fuels. It's dumb, short-sighted, and it's a been-there-done-that "up yours, America" that we ought to be tipped to by now.

We have billions of barrels of oil already stored, not only in the vast Naval Petroleum Reserve next door to ANWAR, but also in underground storage across Louisiana and Texas, among other places. These and the national reserves can be tapped immediately. If they were, theoretically we might feel a price reduction at the pumps in the imaginable future. If they aren't, on the other hand, we can know that the oil giants are banking it, reluctant to sell today at $4/gallon what they can sell tomorrow at $6/gallon.

I hope Congress won't let itself be intimidated by partisan rhetoric and fear, but having seen it cave so many times lately, won't we be amazed if it holds the line!