Angel Heart
Conservative Hippie
I agree that attempting to lower fuel costs by turning food into fuel doesn't seem like the smartest approach. I do think that there are problems associated with more drilling that you are neglecting. Greater fuel efficiency seems like the only obvious answer to me.
My mom owns a ranch. She has a few horses, a cow, some chickens and some goats. The last 2 Novembers I've visited her I noticed a major change in her amounts of hay. I asked her why. She informed me that she was having a hard time finding hay this year and when she did the price was a lot higher than the last year. Problem is that farmers that grew hay decided to grow corn for bio fuel. It's stupid to tie our fuel needs into our food needs.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3168.shtml
The United Sates produced 3.9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006 and expanded its output to 6.5 billion in 2007. This took millions of hectares of land out of food production. In 2007, 54 percent of the world's corn was grown in the USA, and 38 percent of US corn crop ended up in gas tanks instead of stomachs. The amount of corn required to produce a gallon ethanol is enough to feed a human being for two weeks. Corn is mainly used to feed chickens and cattle, so the price of poultry, eggs, beef, and dairy products will continue to rise.