Why don't we just drill for oil instead of importing it?

We have so much oil in our land to supply us for idk how many decades. When will obama wake up and see this. All this talk about alternative fuels is nice but but do you really know how long it would actually take for us fully become dependent on that stuff. If alternative fuels is suppose to help the economy, then why do the ';fuel efficient'; cars cost so much. No average american can afford something like that. Oil is the answer people!!!!!!!!Why don't we just drill for oil instead of importing it?
Politics and GreedWhy don't we just drill for oil instead of importing it?
Why don't we just use alternative, renewable resources - which would create many (desperately needed) jobs. If people had a good job, they they could spend good money on things like ';eco-friendly'; cars, light bulbs, and therefore, be ';eco-friendly';. Plus, if we switched over to renewable resources, then we wouldn't have the need to import any oil; there are cars that run on compressed hydrogen, energy/ electricity, food oil, water, and even natural gas (which burns cleaner than oil, and is available here in the United States).





Oil is a great pollutant, and is a large cause of global warming - which is killing the world. Also, the places people want to drill are protected (some not protected) parks and land, and the ecosystem and its animals need it.





To conclude, oil is not the answer, and there is no such thing as ';clean coal';.
If you were not so tragically ignorant this question would be kind of funny... Why don't we just grow all of our mangoes instead of importing them? How about making our own clothes instead of buying cheap textiles from China and Bangladesh?





Regardless of how much oil you can get out of the US, regardless of how bad it might be to the environment, or how politics is played around here, this is all irrelevant when you understand economics. It all comes down to supply and demand. The consumer (the US people) is who makes the choices. As long as people like you drive around in SUVs by yourself to go around the corner to get cigarettes, then the demand will exceed the supply of oil produced in the US. Therefore, there will be no other choice but to import. Also, don't forget that the wages in America are much higher than in oil-producing countries, and that extracting American oil is more expensive here than there. Higher production costs = higher prices at the pump. But as long as there are people like you changing ';Drill, baby drill!'; nothing will get done towards increasing this country's energy efficiency until it's too late.
The US consumes about 7 billion barrels of oil a year. The proven oil reserves in the US is at 21 billion barrels. If you include unproven sources then maybe we have 134 billion barrels. If those numbers are correct, then we really do not have enough oil to supply our needs for more than 20 years. Prior to the economic crisis, we were hoping to transition ourselves to renewable energy sources over the next 20 to 30 years. But now all bets are off.
We don't have ';so much oil';. Most of the US oil fields (texas i.e.) are heavily depleted. The last ';great find'; was in Montana. It was enough to supply the US for 9 months, no more.


Even if we drill out the last drops, it's only a stay of execution. Eventually the last drop will be gone, and that will not be the time to start looking for alternatives.
harvesting oil is chump work for backwards countries like Iran. Look at the oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia and you see that they are no fun to live in. Even if the US has trillions of gallons of oil, it would be smarter to just pay stupid backwards countries for theirs. Did you know oil is cheaper than soda?
Drilling for oil ruins our ecosystem, killing tons of plant and animal life - switching to alternative energy is the smartest thing we could ever do.
It is because we have the supply just not fast enough drills to keep up with our demand and also it is cheaper to import it.
Most of oil we have left (oil shale) cost more to produce than does the oil from foreign countries so if we used only US produced oil the price of gas would be higher.
Politics. The Liberals hate Oil and love sunshine power.