Can we Start Drilling our own Oil?

When ultra tight U.S. environmental regulations virtually stopped oil drilling here, what was supposed to help the environment actually hurts it. That's because other countries with lax regulations drill the oil for us. They make a bigger mess than we would have. That doesn't make sense.

Then there's jobs. We import over a billion dollars of oil every day. That's a thousand millionaires created in one day -- offshore. Ouch. I want those people in my neighborhood. Or a million people that made a thousand dollars in one day... In other-other words, it's a boatload of money. Okay, three boatloads of the largest supertakers.

We have this unemployment problem. We can pay millions and millions of people's wages by drilling domestically. Every million is another 1% or so unemployment reduction. More when you consider the rippling effects of what those people spend. And we can reduce worldwide pollution.

It should make everyone happy. What's the holdup?