F... gas prices

[FRPLG]

Anyone who thinks we are ever getting off of oil without the oil companies actually leading the charge is fooling themselves. The best way to get off of oil is to make it worth the oil companies time and efforts and ultimately lead to more profit for them.

Plain and simple, oil companies have more resources to make this happen than anyone else. They just need the motivation. Removing OPEC from the equation(finding alternate sources of oil (ANWR, deep gulf drilling and oil shale) clears a major hurdle in creating a truer free market in the oil industry (OPEC is a cartel. It is the exact opposite of a free market entity). Once that happens then the market forces will start to churn and we will get the most effective and efficient transition to new energy. It may take a while but it wont bankrupt our country, is completely feasible and probably represents our best chance at an effective transition. A transition that leaves us our place in the world economy and maintains our standard of living.

We need to start getting serious with mandating alternate fule vehicles. Within a reasonable, but aggressive timeframe we need to have an achievable goal percentage-wise for alternate fuel vehicles. I'd say 20% new cars sold in 10 years can be done. This stimulates a new energy market which will have somewhat less barriers to entry increasing competition and spurring innvoation. At the same time we need to offer some type of serious tax incentive for oil companies. I know it sounds like more of the same but in the end IT HAS TO BE PROFITABLE for oil companies to do this. Some type of structured tax incentive that dies away over 30 years will be enough time-wise and incentive-wise to build a new architecture and create a more complete transition.

If we force big oil to do this by creating a super competitive market we will be better off as a country in so many ways.