[Onelifetogive]

It was never a viable concept in the first place.

The way I see it: Oil under the seabed is worth somewhere close to $0/barrel more or less. Oil in a barrel is worth closer to $40. Irrespective of "energy independence", pulling about a billion barrels of oil from under the seabed and putting it into barrels (I know, they don't really do that) would create about $40,000,000,000 of wealth for Americans. This $40,000,000,000 would be divided between the shareholders of oil companies (a small piece), the government (a bigger piece) and oil workers and oil support workers (the biggest piece.)

[4woodenboats]

Don't forget the banks, doctors, shoe shine boys, car dealers, grocers, insurance companies, bars, hookers, local, state and federal tax collectors, pimps, restaraunts, etc.

The Dhimbat plan is much simpler - give the money to states that sponsor and train terrorists to kill us.