It doesn't matter whether the peak is in 2005, 2015, or 2115. This misses the point. The president himself said the country is addicted to oil in his 2006 state of the union address. In my view there are 2 kinds of addicts, those who want to be unaddicted and will try something different to be free of the addiction (halting maybe but never stopping trying) and those who give in to the addiction and barrel ahead (no pun intended), denying all for the addiction. Can anyone tell me about one addict or group of addicts who became unaddicted using all of their resources to insure supply of the addictive substance without making any other MAJOR efforts to not use the addicitive substance? How about any addict who didn't have to make LIFESTYLE changes to break and stay free of the addiction?

I wish I could say I am surprised for new calls to drill our way out of this problem without any sacrifice on anyone's part AT ALL, but I am not. Past administrations and congresses of both parties are not faultless, but they have not been in power for a full 5 years now. Drilling is not THE answer today and won't be any time soon. I will vote for any candidate of any party in the future who puts conservation measures as the top tier of their energy program and relegates this supply malarky to the last on the list where it belongs. Drilling should be an integral and necessary, BUT NOT PRIMARY, part of a day-forward energy policy. The DOE budget for 2007 has increases in alternative fuels research that are better than cuts for sure. But this is too big of a problem to be left to the special interests of oil and venture capital and minimal increases in gov't funded research to take care of. The government must lead us into energy self sufficiency by showing the way and setting examples with conservation and much larger research budgets and joint ventures, not lead big oil into another round of royalty free oil.

Alden Bowles
2005 Toyota Prius II HSD