No one, two, ten or even hundreds of people could control the world price of any commodity. Remember when the Hunt brothers tried to control the silver market? They had billions of dollars when there were only a handful of billionaires in the world, and they couldn't corner the market on such a small commodity as silver. How would you expect McCain, Bush, Cheney and Halliburton, who pale in wealth compared to the Hunts of the 70s, to control the price of the biggest commodity in the world? That is absurd!

The answer to who would benefit by recovering every last drop of oil available in the ground in US territories is every citizen of the US. We would benefit by increasing employment; by increasing our national wealth; by increasing the supply of oil, thus decreasing its cost, which would lead to decreasing the cost of most every consumer product and service; and most importantly, by freeing us from relying on some of our enemies to provide us with a most necessary and strategic resource. Leaving a valuable natural resource in the ground doesn't make any more sense than a farmer leaving his crops in the field.

“The thousands of unused leased acres of oil land” that you refer to isn't what you might think it is. Not all of the oil leases of public land are held by oil companies, and all of the leases do not necessarily have oil that can be profitably recovered. Many of the leases that you refer to are held by private citizens like you and me, not by an oil company. Check http://wid.ap.org/oilgas/lease_acres.html for a list of the top 100 oil and gas lease holders on federal lands according to the Bureau of Land Management as of March 2004. I doubt that you will recognize more than a dozen names.

If you believe that by making a public land available for oil and gas leases means that oil and/or gas exists on that land, I have a bridge for sale. Neither the government nor the potential leaseholders have any idea if any recoverable oil or gas is there. Why should oil companies spend millions exploring for oil when they already know a vast amount is? That makes as much sense as our digging for gold in your or my back yard.

I don't know who you think George Bush is that you think he can influence a “self-serving manufactured crisis” that affects the price of the most valuable commodity in the world besides food. You are talking about a lame duck, warmongering, failed president who is if not the most unpopular man in the world, one of the top two or three. He doesn't even have enough influence to get a bill through the US Congress let alone control the worldwide price of oil.

Get over it, whatever it is. An overwhelming majority of us believe that we should drill oil offshore and in ANWR. Are we all wrong and the few who believe otherwise right? I don't think so.

And what is the answer? The opening of off shore drilling all over the nation? Now who would benefit from this, we the people? Not that I do not agree that America should supply her own oil, but we have thousands of unused leased acres of oil land. The timing of this crisis concerns me. I keep wondering if this is another Bush self-serving manufactured crisis.

The original article stated that “a slim majority of voters (51 percent) in this battleground state (Florida) think reducing gas prices is more important than protecting the environment.” Reader ajm8127 challenged the thinking of those who were surveyed. My response was intended to defend them by pointing out that the environmental risk of offshore drilling is less than slight, and that the environment is being threatened more by shipping oil on the ocean that it is by drilling for it there.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS), a bureau in the U.S. Department of the Interior, is the Federal agency that manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf (OCS). They say on their website that the record of the last 50 years shows that the offshore industry is one of the safest industrial activities in the US and that in the last 15 years there were zero platform spills greater than 1,000 barrels. Compared to worldwide tanker spill rates, outer continental shelf operations are more than five times safer. Imports present an environmental risk of spills about 13 times greater than domestic production. In fact, annual natural seeps account for 150-175 times more oil in the ocean than OCS oil and gas operations.

The other point I made was that if the price of oil continues to escalate at the record pace it has been, the standard of living of not only the US, but also the entire world would be threatened. It makes no sense to sacrifice quality of life for the majority of us because of the unfounded fears of the minority. The price of gasoline is a contributing factor to food costs increasing at twice the rate than it has in the past two decades. For example, milk increased 26% and eggs jumped 40% in price over the last year. Escalating food costs could present a greater problem than soaring oil prices for the national economy because food accounts for about 13 percent of the average household's spending. Are you willing to subsist on bread, beans and rice?

My next response challenged hagajim's making the ridiculous and unfounded statements that he did. Sterling Burnett wrote that it is estimated that there is enough oil offshore to fuel 60 million cars in the United States for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. That was said to be incorrect by hagajim who said, “

FACT: there are 86 billion barrels of oil in “proven” reserves offshore (Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico). Of those 86 billion barrels, 68 billion are in areas already open to drilling, and 18 billion in areas that are off limits.

The reason that the oil companies are not drilling in those areas of proven reserves that are open to drilling is that it is not “economical” to drill in those areas. This is mainly because the ocean is deep in those areas which obviously increases the cost. If the oil companies actually cared about the American people they would sacrifice some of their record profits to increase the oil production. They don

1) The US currently EXPORTS how many barrels of oil per day:

a) 1000

b) 100,000

c) 500,000

d) 1.6 million

Correct answer: 1.6 million barrels per day are EXPORTED from the US to other countries

2) True or False: Oil companies have thousands of leases for which they have not drilled over the past 10 years.

Answer: True: They have 10,000 leases for which they have not drilled.

3) The price you pay at the pump is determined by”

a) Oil futures

b) Spot market

c) Refining capacity

d) b) and c) above

e) a) only

The correct anwser is b) and c). But if someone is willing to pay on the spot market the oil in a ship can go anywhere.

For a commodity they use so much of (21 million barrels per day) Americans are appalling ignorant of how the industry operates on a global basis. You have a fearful, not courageous, populaton easily manipulated by simple answers given by McCain….a population looking for any excuse not to be summoned to their greatness and taking risks but taking the easy way out…if that be the case just wait until oil hits $7 a barrel and NOT ONE DROP of any additional oil will ever come to the US, NOT ONE DROP.

I agree that we need to wean ourselves off of oil, but tell me, how will you do that in enough time to save the economy? While you are saving 2% or 3% of our energy usage each year through conservation, the American people will not be able to afford to buy necessities. Do you think the government will take care of all of us?

What do you mean by “not thinking of the future of our planet?” You obviously aren't even thinking of your immediate future. Without oil, what kind of future do you think there is for most of the people on the planet that need it for energy?

Get real, we have no choice but to use the God-given natural resources that are available to us. What harm will come from recovering oil from under the ocean's floor, something we have been doing for over 50 years? We have been drilling oil in Alaska since 1977. Why do we have to quit doing that to save the planet? I don't get it. Please help me understand.

The only way we will ever get any kind of change is to get off the oil “tit” and develop a comprehensive energy policy that drives us to a non-oil future. Those who advocate more drilling are being incredibly selfish and not thinking about the future of the planet or what this world might look like for their kids.

Health care has been an issue ever since I can remember, and the economy still grew.

We have been through many wars, even two world wars, and the economy still grew.

However, we have never been through a rapid and sustained increase in energy costs like we are currently experiencing, and because it has an impact on the price of everything we need like food, clothing and shelter, it has the potential to change not only the American standard of living but also that of the entire world.

We must do everything possible to bring down the cost of oil ASAP. That can be accomplished in two ways, by increasing the supply of oil and/or by decreasing the demand for it.

The demand cannot be decreased overnight. It will take a decade or two to reduce it enough to have a significant effect on the price.

On the other hand, increasing the supply will have the immediate effect of slowing down the rate of increase of the price and a long term effect of lowering the price.

Oil producers, if threatened with an increase of supply, will increase production to sell as much as it can before the new supply hits the market. That will cause the price increase to slow down, level off or maybe even drop.

When the new supply comes on line, the amount will determine how much the price will drop. The larger the new supply, the less the price.

According to “We don't have to take $4 gas prices — we can drill,” written by Sterling Burnett in the Houston Chronicle (5/21/08), “It is estimated that beneath America's coast lies enough oil to fuel 60 million cars in the United States for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years.