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This is looking at it the wrong way, or the way we get bombarded by Hollywood and a sheepish Congress.
When drilling and exploring oil on our soil, we will not spend money for importing.
Think of balance of payments, strength of $$$, and...creating jobs from steel to earth moving to installations of pipe, drilling rigs, electrical and numerous related industries.
Two Democrat presidential candidates, Gore and Kerry wanted to tap the national reserve while blocking drilling in Alaska at the same time.
Clinton in fact did attempt this but then found out to his consternation that there was no refining capacity and national reserve oil needs to be shipped to Mexico first for refinement.
We hear it's only 10% to be gained from drilling, without mentioning the billions of cubic feet of natural gas that come along, plus there still is the continental offshore shelf, similar to the Gulf of Mexico.
Over an extended time and with steadily increasing drilling techniques geared towards more as well as cleaner extraction methods we gain in good paying jobs, reductions of capital outflow, and an assured reserve that does not have to be bought first abroad and then stored underground.
Even if "only" 10%, go figure current daily US usage of 9.4 million barrels of gasoline and we come up with a sizable advantage for earned wages flowing into the economy plus savings of not importing 10% of a commodity that fetches nearly $2.70 at the pump per gallon, taxes included.
By the way, consumers looking at prices need to realize that some taxing bodies make huge profits by extracting their take on a percentage sales tax.
Have yet to hear of returning excessive tax takes.