Drill, Drill!!!

UPDATE: No fuel for you--environmentalists block Conoco Refinery in Roxana, Illinois (near St. Louis). WSJ:

The Illinois EPA had given the Wood River project a green light, but last Thursday, the federal EPA's Environmental Appeals Board sent the decision back to the Illinois agency. The appeals board was acting on a petition by the American Bottom Conservancy, an environmental group, and the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club.

Give them a piece of your mind!
***The public is now in favor--drill, drill in the US. Let's drill it into the politicians' heads (this bill went down to defeat--it's a start) --mostly Dems, but McCain isn't on board yet. A few points via Larry Kudlow:

And while Mr. McCain favors some off-shore production and has been strong on nuclear development, he is against drilling in ANWR Alaska.

Then there's the oil nobody is talking about. The Bakken fields beneath North Dakota, Montana, and Canada hold an estimated 400 billion barrels of oil. In comparison, Saudi Arabia's biggest field, Gahawar, has an estimated 55 billion barrels, while ANWR has an estimated 10.4 billion barrels.[snip]

Sen. McCain has a great pro-growth plan to slash corporate tax rates, a move that would be a strong tonic for jobs and wages. But he must bolster that plan with a new emphasis on deregulated energy markets that can produce a total portfolio of conventional and non-conventional energy, including major new drilling. He should couple that with a strong-dollar message to curb both energy and non-energy inflation, which is shrinking consumer paychecks and damaging corporate profits.

At least the Republicans in the Senate staved off the Dem windfall profits tax, which would have increased gas prices to consumers even more, and discouraged production here in the US. And why can't we drill in ANWR and 50 plus miles offshore? But no:

A Democratic-controlled House panel voted 9 to 6 in a party-line vote against lifting the 27-year-old offshore drilling moratorium at a time when gasoline prices are expected to float at or above $4-a-gallon for the summer. [snip]

The U.S. Minerals and Management Service estimates there are 86 billion barrels of oil under the Outer Continental Shelf, the sloping undersea plain between the continent and the deep ocean. By some estimates, there could be 3.88 billion barrels of oil within 125 miles of Florida's Gulf coastline alone.

Why are we funding through our oil purchases some of the very same states which support terror? Energy independence, and our national security needs can only be met by drilling in the US.