While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.I think most of you who are reading this know that we are dealing with a world market in oil and that this whole argument is brain dead. That's one of the reasons why it's so depressing to have "drill, drill, drill" be such a success. But it seems to me that this would have been a good line of attack against McCain, even though it's equally stupid: "why are the oil companies selling off our good American crude to foreign countries when we need it so badly?"A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.
The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home.