License to drill

Even after a record slide last week, oil prices remain steady at $130 per barrel; and, Americans continue to face gas prices above $4 per gallon. What they're looking for from their leaders in Washington is for them to make some decisions about the energy crisis we find ourselves in. But, where drilling and energy exploration are concerned, the politicians are as split as their constituents.

We're faced with the debate between tapping more domestic oil to meet our growing energy needs, and the real environmental impact of drilling for it offshore and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife. Now, a growing number of Americans are rethinking their views on this debate.

In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center late last month, nearly half of all Americans said they now consider energy exploration more important than conservation, up from about a third who expressed that opinion five months earlier. Pro-drilling Republican leaders are seizing on that sentiment, much to the chagrin of environmentalists.

Below are some of the measures now being considered in Congress and the White House to help ease oil and gas prices.

1) Lift the federal ban on offshore drilling. Republicans are looking to ease a federal ban on offshore drilling to allow states the right to choose whether companies can drill along their coastlines.

2) Drill in Alaska.Republicans, including President Bush, are urging Congress to lift a ban on drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - 19 million acres of protected land in Alaska's northeast region.

3) Drill more on already-open lands. In response, Democrats are urging companies to better exploit lands on which they already hold leases, estimating as much as 68 million acres of federal land and waters on which drilling is already permissible are being underutilized.

4) Use America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.Also, many Democrats insist on opening up America's oil stockpile - because they say the SPR was created for exactly the type of trying times the nation is facing today.

Every one of these proposals is highly contentious. Even if one or all of these make it into law, the net results may be negligible. Oil is traded as a global commodity, and growing world demand is at least partly to blame for sky-high prices. So, even a fairly sizable boost in American output might not have much effect on the cost per barrel - and even less on the cost of gasoline.

For example, just opening up ANWR to oil development may not lower gas prices by no more than three cents a gallon, according to the government's own estimates. The question is: Will any of their proposals have any effect on the prices we pay at the pump? What no one is seriously proposing - yet - is a long-term plan to move away from our dependence on oil by using less and switching to energy alternatives.

But that would be too much to ask of our politicians in an election year, who have one short term goal in mind: To get your vote in November by showing us they're doing something today to fix the energy mess we are in.