How high do gasoline prices have to go before . . .?

Question

you would agree to allow drilling in Alaska? How about offshore, USA drilling? How about drilling in another state? How about drilling in your neighborhood?

I'm thinking, everyone has a price. People are squawking about $4 a gallon prices NOW. If it goes to $10 a gallon, would you vote for drilling in Alaska, or in your neighborhood? How about $25 a gallon?

Answer 1

We should be drilling everywhere to make America energy self sufficient.

Answer 2

To me, it's not about price...it's about where the money ends up.

I'd rather the money I pay for gasoline go to an Alaskan than to go to a government who wishes to do Alaskans (or any other American) harm.

Answer 3

That's really the wrong question.  You are assuming that drilling in Alaska and offshore would bring prices down.  But that's not true at all, even industry experts admit it.

President Clinton gave the big oil companies millions of acres of proven oil reserves in the continental US.  They drilled exploratory wells and then capped them.  They are sitting on them waiting for the price to go up to $10/gal.  Why don't they drill -that- oil?

Also, nobody ever seems to mention that the ANWR oil is not planned to be sold here.  It's cheaper to ship it to Japan and China, so that's where it's all going.  How will that lower the price of oil here?

We had a ban on the export of Alaskan oil.  It ran out during Clinton's second term and was not renewed.  Today 15% of American oil production is exported.  Why not renew the export ban?  THAT might lower oil prices.

Answer 4

There are two things people don't realize about our oil resources and how they would impact gas prices.  A lot of people will claim that it will take too long and won't give us enough oil.

It's true that there is question about how much oil there is exactly in those areas. However, they neglect to factor in how oil trading is almost like the stock market now. Simply by us starting to drill the price of oil will drop even before we get a drop of it out.   Also something is better than nothing.

Drilling technology has gone a long way, so it would not take 7-10 years to get the oil.  The only possible cause to make it that long would be political red tape, which needs to be eliminated as well.  The drilling itself would not take as long as people think.

Secondly, the second part of the "drill now" plan includes getting the shale in parts of the midwest.  This is our huge source of potential oil.  From what I gather, it is a coal-like substance that can be turned into oil. More importantly it's about an 800 billion barrel source of oil which would handle our needs for probably 70-100 years on its own. That would mean complete oil independent for that time.  Hopefully by then end of the time a true alternative will be discovered.

Answer 5

When all other options have been exhausted I will consider it.

You have not been to Canada, or Europe have you?  The prices there are much more than they are here in the U.S..

Answer 6

Higher pump prices create the demand mechanism for the new EPA and California regulations to work.  Without the demand, the auto companies may never have sufficient scale to amortize the high development costs required, making their future bleak.  US tastes for autos changed drastically over a six month period.  It'll hurt in the short term, but that must continue.  

I'm personally a fan of a federal tax per gallon to pay for our war, but that's politically unpopular - somehow less popular than the war itself.  Besides it wouldn't exactly do stellar things for the economy in the short term either.

This whole off-shore drilling thing is just a lame duck nod to his TX cronies.  I'm waiting for him to limp home.