[Amnorix]

A few stray thoughts:

1. The price of oil is outside the control of any one country, or the oil majors. Oil is now an international business. The price of oil is skyrocketing in large part because supply is fixed (OPEC and the other oil producers are at or near production capacity) and demand is rising quickly as a result of the industrial revolution basically reaching China and India (the world's first and second most populous nations) only now.

2. ANWR won't make a significant difference either way, and in any event will take years to get online. For myself, I prefer to leave ANWR untapped not because of caribou or whatever, but rather because it is a FREE emergency petroleum reserve.

3. The only real way to alleviate the price of oil per barrel, and therefore gasoline, is to either INCREASE supply, or REDUCE demand. And by a very signifciant amount. ANWR will not do this. Eliminating the gas tax will not do this. Ethanol is nice, but is only a small piece to a very large puzzle. The real key, unless we discover another Saudi Arabia somewhere, is to find ***ALTERNATIVE*** fuels. The reason why oil is dominant in our economy is because the generation of power relative to cost has been by far the most efficient. It's time to explore other avenues, and quickly.

As for myself, bring on nuclear power, solar and wind power, to the extent possible, and research the hell out of alternatives. It's a national priority.