Drilling should be allowed whereever oil is found in this country, ANWR and offshore. No more talk of 'obsene' oil company profits. More refineries and pipelines should be allowed. Taxes from profits should be used for updating and building roads and bridges. Not used for entitlement programs.

Agree w/DEM03504 - most areas should allow drilling. States that do not do so, should be penalized. Any spills [oil, salt, etc.] in these new areas should be fined triple the normal damages, & oil companies should be required to agree w /this when they get their permit. We can no longer afford to buy so much of our oil from overseas sources, or fight lengthy court battles w/ BIG oil firms. More refineries should be required. Any court will grant this if the builder makes a good case that this meets a public need. The argument that nobody will allow this is not true. If BIG OIL continues to act as a monopoly - then break them into small units.

America must find new energy sources for our future and not be dependent on foreign oil from countries that take advantage of us. Americans including our appointed representatives should not care too much what France, Germany etc... say or think about our politics or policies as it pertains to foreign affairs and move forward to ensure energy needs.

We're all waking up now since we heard that other countires may be drilling off the Florida coast for oil - that got our attention!

What kind of life style will our children inherit from us if we don't act now and really start thinking for ourselves. Now we have to take our shoes off at airports, be on-guard domestically for terrorism and watch Wall St. do a number on us!

America the beautiful, the most powerful and most free country on the planet must use its own resources (coal, gas, wind/water and nuclear) to survive or become existent as we know her.

I agree with emily g 100%. if oil is found its for the USA.

WOW!!! So much corporate/political claptrap is just amazing to me. I'm from Texas and fully believe that off-shore drilling is fine, but all this "drill, drill, drill" is just nonsense and points out how little those that expose such understand Big Oil and the energy business.

First, this is just political in nature. Just two months ago, business interests, chambers of commerce, and legislatures were dead set against this for purely monetary reasons. This will be the mindset again as soon as any advantage is past. It will never happen.

Second, Big Oil has no intention to "Drill, Drill, Drill". In ANWR, there is not enough oil to make it really worthwhile at today's prices, but to break that restriction will open the door for exploration anywhere they want. There aren't enough rigs to enter into this fantasy land and BO has no intention of spending billions to build them (unless you want to provide tax breaks) or use to one's they have on oil that may or may not be there and is not easy (cheap) to get at.

Third, repealing the moratorium would wind up being a land grab. Big Oil could buy up all those leases and basically put them into their bank. No one but them could explore/produce there-by shutting out the small wildcat firms that really do add to our energy supply. Look at the Gulf of Mexico now. Probably 60% is leased by the Major Oil Co.'s and go unused. The geology is done but is only brought on-line slowly if at all. That which is not used is well worth the cost of the lease to keep out of production.

Fourth, the idiotic idea that it would be America's oil and would benefit this country is just plain insane. Any oil discovered would belong to oil companies and thus would be used by whoever was willing to pay the price or capped to wait for that price. This is kind of like the "build refineries" argument. Back in the 80's & 90's Major Oil was buying and then shutting down every refinery that it could. Concentrating production to where it was cheapest and most profitable. To corporations, nations and their interest don't matter.

So what we have today is the result of not following through with the last real energy policy America had as set out by President Carter (mocked and dismantled by most likely the same people that scream "DRILL, DRILL, DRILL") and the mania of deregulation of everything, in particular the financial industry, experience had taught us needed oversight. So beware of your current cause without thinking through the consequences, because those that whipped you up have, or you'll be sitting here paying $10 a gallon and wondering what happened.