According to the endlessly repeated Democrat talking points, it would be useless to drill in the ANWR wasteland, off the coasts, or anywhere else environmentalist extremists have forbidden it, because it would take years and years to get the oil out, and it would only lower prices by a few pennies anyway. But wait, what's this from liberal AP:

Khurais Oil Field, Saudi Arabia — This massive oil field surrounded by the desolate sands of Saudi Arabia's vast eastern desert feels like the middle of nowhere. But what happens over the next year at Khurais, one of Saudi Arabia's last undeveloped giant oil fields, could hold the key to what drivers will pay at the pump for years to come. […] The project forms the centerpiece of the Saudi plan to increase the total amount of oil it can produce to 12.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2009 — up from a little more than 11 million barrels per day now.

It seems that oil can be extracted from the ground in less than a decade, and that increased supply really will lower prices, just like we learned in Economics 101 — but only if it's someone else's oil.

Here's an idea: why don't we give Alaska back to the Russians? Then they could drill the oil, and we could buy it from them. Cuba and China are already helping themselves to the neglected oil fields off the Florida coast.

On a tip from Matt L. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.