^Nice. Anyway, the Chinese are scrambling for oil, but against huge disadvantages from their late entry into the global oil market. We sewed up huge reserves long ago (remember ARAMCO?) and were cruising along until the chinese outbid us on the slack in the market and things tightened after that (the chinese do have a lot of foreign account money to waive at everyone). What cracks me up is how Hu Jintao visited Venezuela and ceremoniously signed an idiotic deal for raising exports of oil to China from 2% of Venezuela's output to 5%. The rest is obviously going here.

Russia's oil wealth is bottlenecked by a lack of reliable pipelines to seaports and squabbles over rights of way. They're burning it up themselves at a fair pace and scrambling to fill chinese orders...at full price.

As to drilling in the U.S., Chevron sunk some exploratory wells in A.N.W.A.R. in the Eighties and filed the results away secretively. The scuttlebutt is that they were not impressed with the oil there and they haven't really pushed the matter like Republican pols. They do want at those offshore fields in Florida, but again, this is hurricane country and don't for a minute think that oil prices would be stable if drilling happened there.(Remember Hurricane Rita?)

" Those fkers, exxon, mobil, etc. own the fields, the ships, the refineries, the pipelines, etc, etc. They control it all. They use foreign banks and dummy corporate structures to get around the laws and regulations. Even the Saudis are just pawns in the game. Wake up."

You are a moron - most of the world's oil is owned by NATIONALIZED producers.

And all of you idiots screaming for alternative energy sources are using computers that are made of plastic, WHICH COMES FROM OIL.

Maybe we should go back to horses and you all can live in the shit filled streets.

Oil is up because you watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) have made it IMPOSSSIBLE to drill for oil and refine it in the U.S. for DECADES.

Meanwhile Communist China (among others) has increased their use of and need for energy, and THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT NO MATTER THE PRICE.

You don't have the balls or the desire to protest the Chicomm's grabbing up all of the energy resources, becuase they are your friends or you are cowards.

What the hell do you think happens if we all stop using Oil in the U.S.? We slide into the third world and then China and Russia rules, but you morons think "we deserve it..."

And the libscumtards screaming for assassinating Bush, thanks for bringing the Secret Service to monitor every post on every gothamist board nationwide.

I hope everyone of you winds up in gitmo.

#34, oil was a commodity in high demand and getting increasingly scarce when it was trading at $60 a barrel. The only thing that's changed is that speculators who sell paper contracts to each other have driven up the price to ridiculous levels. This bubble's gonna blow and when that happens, we will really be faced with a conumdrum: do we stay committed to getting off the oil habit? Or go back to our old ways and enjoy $2.69 a gallon gas? This will really test our resolve.

The Enabler-in-Chief. Declares that we're addicted to oil and then does nothing about it except seek new sources of oil. This of course is nothing but cynical political posturing by the worst administration in history, designed not to solve any problem but just to shift political culpability.

It's designed to distract us from the fact that we went to war for oil and are now paying through the nose for it.

It's to distract us from the fact that almost every major life necessity -- from energy to food to health care to housing to education -- has skyrocketed in price under George W. Bushleague.

That he's leaving the country with a huge and growing deficit, a shrunken currency, a major banking crisis, a severe recession, a crashing market, soaring inflation, rising unemployment and historic stratification between rich and poor.

And this is what he has to say for himself? History will not be kind to this loser.

Nobody is "getting around regulations". Nobody is "price gouging". This is the free market, people. Oil is expensive because there's a limited amount and we use too much of it. Bush's stance, not surprisingly, is bass-ackwards, in that it entirely fails to address the need for conservation or alternative energy sources.

Bush still needs Congress to repeal the ban, and I don't think Congress will do that. Plenty of Democrats and even some Republicans that live in coastal states oppose offshore drilling.

Bah. This is a representative democracy and his actions mirror those of the dopes he governs....even the ones who didn't vote for him. Just stand outside and look at the types of cars driving by or at the mcmansions out in the burbs'. It's even worse out in the red states.

Complain about Exxon, Wallymart, Starbucks, et.al all you want, but the sheep can't fork over their bucks fast enough.

If as a collective, NY'ers had the balls to put their money where their mouths were, there would be a 4 dollar per gallon gas tax to directly feed public transit and pay down debt and eventually get guzzlers off the road.

You'd even do an end-run around the EPA roadblock Kalifornia is dealing with.

How do you think that would fly?

Gotta love the Democrats opposing increasing domestic energy production in an election year... Especially when everyone (driving or not) is feeling the high oil prices. Keep it up!

Assassinate Bush and he becomes an immortal presidential martyr, despite his sagging popularity. Don't even mention something like that.

How has he not been assassinated? Two words: President Cheney.

Yeah seriously, how has he not been assasinated? The state he is leaving this country in is a joke. This move is just political lip service since the oil will take 8-10 years to reach the market.

All of you that are quoted as saying "he gets away with everything", "He's a cunt". etc..... Sheep, passive sheep. The time is now. The people need to fight back. As we lie here in our blissful state as our govt. runs us into the ground, we shouldnt be surprised when it is all taken away...

oh shit, I got a resi at KO. good luck suckas!

This is the Enron presidency.

"If you don't want oil drilled domestically, that's fine. Or not that's fine. But you have to pick a side. You can't complain about high gas prices and then complain when the govt starts drilling domestically."

I do want them to drill domestically in hopes it will bring prices down, but I highly doubt oil companies are willing to bring prices down even if they do drill domestically. They're making too much money.

legislate that every car sold has to get 40mpg and have that increase regularly every year - until everyone is driving smaller, more efficent cars - that would be a real change - all these other measures are utter bs

Good for him. Drill more pay less.

w's a drunken moron. we should be consuming less oil not drilling for more. this would increase supplies and bring the price at the pump down.

Please, if someone could shoot him now. Thanks.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was not meant to control fuel prices. It is an emergency supply of oil in case of a massive disruption in supply and any attempt to draw from its wells just to knock a couple pennies off the price of oil would be unwise.

It was just a matter of time before the executive order was rescinded, and Congress will follow through with lifting the Legislative ban as well. This is where we start to destroy the environment to squeeze the last few drops of oil out of the tank.

I don't mean to be coarse, but Bush is a cunt.