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THERE has been much contest between President Bush and Congress and between the presidential candidates about removing the ban steady offshore drilling. This distracts us from which really indispensably to be done to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. We need an emergency strategy for reducing oil consumption now.

If the United States wants to reduce its oil dependency, it could do so by immediately reducing the speed limit to 55 mph and increasing the mileage rating of cars by 10 mpg. These two steps together would within a little thrust out our need for oil from Saudi Arabia.

And for the future, we require to set ourselves on a new energy path toward the post-oil force economics of the future. These policies should include increased efficiency of vehicles, which should include mass production of electric vehicles, tax breaks concerning increased efficiencies in households and businesses, a renaissance of nuclear power, expansion of renewable animation sources and development of solar electrical product.

It is wishful thinking that offshore drilling will make oil more plentiful and bring down the price. Bush recently stated offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil. This set a price on is unverifiable, as seismic surveys with recent technology have not been press in most of the outer continental shelf to see on the supposition that there are any oil-trapping structures, and test wells have not been drilled to see if the structures that might exist be seized of somewhat oil.

Such drilling will not happen soon, as all the world’s deep-water oil rigs are already incommunicative for the next five years. Oil companies already have leases for many eligible sites but they are not developing them. Ironically, they have needed the current high price of oil to make them household.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is related but different. It is not on the external continental shelf but is in a region difficult to develop for the reason that of its climate. It has also not yet been explored because geological structures using modern technology or tested with wells to see if any structures have oil.

Based on comparisons with other regions, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that in that place is a 95 percent probability that there are 5.7 billion barrels of technically recoverable but undiscovered oil in the ANWR. First production is estimated to exist nine to 12 years from endure approval. Peak work was estimated to be 0.6 to 1.9 million barrels of oil per day after 20 to 30 years.

Finally, unless the United States nationalizes its oil companies, any new oil produced would go on the global market and would not necessarily stay in the U.S. The price of oil, which is go down forward the betwixt nations trading market, would be barely affected. According to an Energy Information Administration report on ANWAR requested by Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and released in May, the impact on future oil prices would be minimal.

The account of U.S. oil prolongation is shown in the accompanying chart. The grant from ANWR will nor one nor the other transplant our dependence on irrelevant oil nor enable the U.S. to abide its current level of consumption, that is about 21 million barrels of oil per day.

The U.S. needs to move on beyond the canvass of whether to drill or not and focus its effort on alleviation and solutions to the veritable oil crisis we face: constrained mellifluous fuel.