Drilling is bad public policy

The social benefits of high gas prices clearly outweigh the downside. Reducing sprawl puts more money in peoples pockets since they have less need to carry the fixed cost of an automobile. Immigrant families know this. They flock to cities not suburbs. They ride the bus until they can afford a car. We should be ensuring that services are available in walkable radius so people don't need to drive. Instead of discussing the benefits of high gas prices policy makers want to drill off the coast.

Drilling off the coast is bad policy. Numerous editorials have said that we will not make a difference in the price because we consume more than we produce plus what reserves are estimated off the coast. Based on available supplies and consumption trends (imports) drilling will bring 4 cents of relief ten years from now. So why aren't we developing walkable cities and implementing existing technologies now? and making this policy?

More importantly lower gas prices don't make sense. Because of the import dependency we create national security problems like Georgia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We put forward a sham of health care as a consequence of losing our money to war to protect oil sources. We end up with the worst of friends from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and the most abject losers from Tibet to Aung San Suu Kyi. Our newspapers become government mouthpieces bemoaning the loss of
the dictator Musharraf while championing democratically elected governments in Georgia where we clearly don't intend to act.

Politics is about oil and the transfer of $2T in the last eight years to oil companies is the culmination of that policy. Bush is not just sleep walking through history- he is filling his and his cronies pockets along the way. Politicians blab on about religion and non issues like gods in marriage, talking about stuff that even the average American has a hard time believing in or holding up, and worse, firmly believe politicians hypocrits in this regard. They talk to preachers that the average American has a hard time trusting.

Then to make matters worse they can't even define who's rich. The average American earns 40k- $5M leaves out everybody. If you spent $1000 a day for the rest of your life it would not equal $5M. A frugal person with $250,000 could grow their own 100 sq foot vegetable plot and purchase health insurance and not work for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine an annual salary of 250k?

Without a quality discussion like politicians were capable of in the mid seventies on petroleum we get stuck on affordable (fossil fuel versus renewables and the poisoned be damned) practical (sprawl instead of walkable cities, Saudi Arabia Prince Bush versus Tibet's Dalia Lama) and available (now versus hydrogen's promise in the future- but not the siren call of technology: instead our continued dependence on hummers and priuses to consume greenbelt and Mexican peppers.)

Nancy Pelosi needs to do more than just accommodate the latest bad policy. She and others needs to articulate the modern security concerns and its implications toour pocket book and health care.