PONDERING AT THE PUMP

Sometime this weekend, you'll be standing at a gas pump.

Maybe it'll be a road trip or run to the lake or the coast. Maybe it's a tax-free weekend shopping expedition or one of those "if-you're-good" family reward visits to Sea World or Fiesta Texas. Heck, maybe it's a quick jaunt to Vegas to see The Police wrap up their reunion tour.

Anyway, you'll be standing at the pump. Cringing as the numbers spin? Setting your own new record high (my next fill-up will be my first $50 tab---it's a very small car. Used to be $27-30). Maybe you'll wonder: where will this end? How high can prices go? Most optimistic pundit: we're at the peak now, and this "perfect storm" of supply/demand/price/futures/weak dollar will eventually blow over. Most pessimistic forecast: these will be the "good old days" as gas hits $12-15 per gallon. At which point life as we know it changes. I don't know which of these predictions is right, or whether either of them is. In fact, no one knows.

There is something we do know and you should know and we should all be talking about, now that gas prices have muscled their way past Iraq, health care and gay marriage to the top of the political issues top 40. Number one with a unleaded bullet: Most of the oil and nearly half of the natural gas beneath public lands in the US is off limits for exploration or extraction. That's 19 billion barrels of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natgas. Off limits by order of your federal government.

Isn't public land ours? No, it's "theirs", held and hoarded in our name. How ironic. It's not like some evil land baron is refusing America energy relief, or timing the markets. It's not that the fields are unreachable. You, your livelihood, and this nation's once robust economy---all being sacrificed on an altar of junk science eco-politics and elitism. The new religion: irrational environmentalism.

As you pay (and pay and pay and pay) at the pump, ponder what is driving the price---and what could be driving it down