Prices won't have to get much higher before the people will MAKE government do something. The reserves offshore are tremendous but state government in California and some of the state governments on the eastern seaboard will not allow exploration. The US Congress is preventing exploration in Alaska. I work for a company here in Houston that makes oilwell drilling equipment. The tools are safe and dependable. The pressure controlls have gone from manual at the turn of the twentieth century to hydraulic to electrohydraulic to electronic. The mechanical components are of newer and more exotic materials. Companies around the world are spending billions, that's right, with a "B", on equipment made here in the US to get at oil other places in the world. Viet Nam, China, Russia the Balkans, India, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Venesuela, Brazil, Great Britan, Scotland , Ireland, Norway. African nations like Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, not to mention the Emirates. These countries and many more are drilling for oil. When they have pumped it out of the ground and have taken what the need they sell the rest. To countries like the US who would rather go 'hat in hand, begging, because our lamp is almost dry' than produce their own. Buy it from and be dependant on the stability of that countries economy and government but also the stability of the economy and governments in the reagion. Then to rub salt into the wound the Senate is debating the Leiberman-Warner bill to impose yet more taxes on fuel and use the funds to prevent further global warming, if it indeed exists. So were talking a $5.00 to $5.50 gallon of gasoline, until the price goes to $6.00 Sorry, I didn't mean to make a speech but we have such potential and it's going to waste.