My apologies friend. I usually spend time editing and polishing my posts so that my point is clear. Didn't do that here so the ramble of my thought processes got through to the copy.

That said,

I didn't think of it that way but yes, we need to be a competitive producer of any strategic commodity. Oil would certainly qualify.
Look at agricultural products. We produce the most cost effective bounty of grains, produce and livestock in the world. Food here is cheap. When was the last time we had to import grain to eat or feed our livestock.
Oh, that was last year when we started burning it in our cars. Perhaps a bad example.

If we can produce enough oil here at $40.00 per barrel, how on earth would Saudi Arabia, or our good friend Hugo Chaves, get us to pay $147.00 like we did last July? And don't be concerned that Exxon would instead sell for more than that to the Chineese because Hugo would sell his new "excess capacity" to them for less.
"Leveraging" our own oil simply means that diplomatically, we would not be indebted to others. Particullarly others who are not our freinds. The pressure of oil supplies would not be a fundimental part of our foreign policy relations. If I have my own hammer and tools and lumber and skills, I don't need to borrow them from my neighbor to build a house. He can offer to help but I don't need to negotiate our relationship to get something he knows I must have.

As to the unproven reserves let me take you back a few weeks when there was talk by both candidates about Anwar. We know, from what geologists have told us, that there is about 20 Billion barrels under the Tundra there. But, the Speaker of the House was quick to point out, along with the Senator from Il, that even if we started now it would be ten years before significant production would begin. Therefore such action would not solve our current oil crisis. It pains me to have to say it. But here, they are right.

So what is the value of knowing we have oil deposits of any amount but have not proven them or made it possible to quickly bring them on line and into distibution? In the event of a cuttoff from OPEC, we are not now in a position to turn on the "reserves" to which you referred. From a strategic and from an economic perpective, they are therefore, useless.

There are thousands of wells in America that have been shut down or capped for years because the oil they produced wasn't economically viable to pump. Last year a lot of these wells were working at capacity. Most started pumping when oil went over $ 60.00 a barrel. When the economics indicate different, they will go into fiscal hibernation. Why not have every known reserve tapped and ready to go. Why not let the economics of the commodity determine the flow of oil from our wells or from Hugo's. Let OPEC decide whether to sell oil to us competitively priced or not.

And let us decide whether to buy it from them...... Or not.


roadster with a stick