It's hard for the United States to complain that other countries limit access to their reserves when we're doing the same. If higher U.S. production reduced world prices, other countries might expand production. What they couldn't get from prices they'd try to get from greater sales.

On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies for ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it's vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America's Future Energy, an advocacy group.

Perhaps oil prices will drop when some long-delayed projects begin production or if demand slackens. But the basic problem will remain. Though dependent on foreign oil, we might conceivably curb the power of foreign producers. But this is not a task of a month or a year. It is a task of decades; new production projects take that long. If we don't start now, our future dependence and its dangers will grow. Count on it.

How much more pain must Americans endure before our masters in Washington let oil companies punch a few holes in the Alaskan tundra? Must we shiver pennilessly in the dark before we may extract new domestic petroleum deposits? Or shall we simply keep buying $114 barrels of oil from people who want us dead?

In case Congress missed the news, four U.S. airlines have gone broke during this month alone. Frontier declared bankruptcy, but will continue flying. Even worse, Aloha, ATA, and Skybus blamed unaffordable fuel as they grounded their jets. Aloha said sayonara to 1,900 employees, NBC News reports. ATA’s demise destroyed 2,200 jobs, while Skybus sacked 450 workers, atop the 80,000 positions lost across the economy as unemployment spiked from 4.8 percent in February to 5.1 in March.

Will we finally grow up and harness our resources, or will we childishly weep over imaginary threats to wildlife, dispatch supertankers of cash to the Middle East, and watch our petrodollars sponsor bomb belts and exploding aircraft? Merely asking this question illustrates how desperately this nation needs adult supervision.

Many experts believe that gasoline taxes should be increased for a variety of reasons. Their arguments are unpersuasive. Oil is not disappearing, and when it becomes more expensive, market agents will substitute away from gasoline to save money. The link between oil price shocks and recessions, although real in the 1970s, has been much more benign since 1985 because of the termination of price controls. Market actors properly account for energy costs in their purchasing decisions absent government intervention.

State and federal gasoline taxes should be abolished. Local governments should tax gasoline only to the extent necessary to pay for roads when user charges are not feasible. If government feels compelled to more aggressively regulate vehicle tailpipe emissions or access to public roadways, pollution taxes and road user fees are better means of doing so than fuel taxes. Regardless, perfectly internalizing motor vehicle externalities would likely make the economy less efficient -- not more -- by inducing motorists into even more (economically) inefficient mass transit use.

The arguments advanced against increasing gasoline taxes are applicable to the broader discussion about America’s reliance on oil generally. The case for policies designed to discourage oil consumption is nearly as threadbare as the case for increasing the gasoline tax -- and for largely the same reasons.

We saw a hint of this six weeks ago. Chavez demanded that Latin American nations recognize FARC (as well as a few other terrorist groups) as “legitimate armies” despite their track record of kidnapping and drug trafficking. As the Washington Post noted, even allies of Chavez balked at that notion. Now it looks as though Chavez will take Venezuela to war to support these terrorists, hoping to undermine President Alvaro Uribe and the democratic government in Colombia.

Exxon Mobil, a $440 billion company with operations across the globe, has for decades dealt with crazy, corrupt governments. It routinely does business with the likes of Chad, Russia and Angola and knows all about them. But it's never run into a partner as outrageously bad as Venezuela. That's why its unprecedented move to take Venezuela all the way to international courts over Chavez's seizure of its assets is a big blow from the private sector against a dictatorship that otherwise seems to hold all the cards.

Exxon sends the message that playing within the rule of law is a far better means to succeed, win and play with the big boys than to break contracts, steal assets and violate internationally recognized norms, as exemplified in Chavez's Venezuela.