More U.S. Oil Drilling Won't Lower Gas Prices, Experts Say

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/more-us-oil-drilling-wont-help-gas-prices_n_858473.html

Republicans used the politically potent argument about the cost of gas Thursday to pass a bill expanding offshore oil and gas exploration. But analysts say there's a major flaw in their case: More drilling will barely budge prices.

The Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, which passed 266 to 144 with 33 Democrats buying into the scheme, orders the Department of the Interior to move quickly to offer three leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Virginia. The bill demands that the leases be executed by next year.

But the legislation won't reduce the price at the pump, experts said. Nor would a vastly more ambitious effort have much impact.

"It's not going to change the price of oil overnight, and it's probably not going to have a huge impact on the price of oil ever," said Mike Lynch of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, Inc. referring not just to those four leases, but to expanding all U.S. drilling.

so there's that

this country will never learn:-(

Oil companies have all kinds of leases already that they have never bothered to explore. There is a huge surplus of oil right now, but as long as speculators can keep manipulating price till they decide it's time to "burst" the oil bubble again, we will have high prices. There needs to be tougher regulations to prevent the greedy from causing so much damage by manipulating prices. Same with food prices, as long as speculators can manipulate prices we will be paying higher and higher prices.

The BS about drill, drill, drill, is simply a way to take the heat off of the real reasons we are paying higher oil prices, and to try and pin the blame on president Obama for the increase in oil prices!

The storage tanks are full, the tankers waiting off the coast are full, underground storage is full... yet prices go up?