Smoke, mirrors and lies
Even Newt dived in and unleashed his own 30-minute blast (including some flat out lying, which is standard in partisan political rhetoric these days; play the 3.5 minute audio clip). Democrats point to levels of domestic energy production higher than under Bush. Republicans dismiss that as nonsense because domestic energy production is up despite Obama's opposition to generating domestic energy, not because of him. Meanwhile, the April 20, 2010 Gulf oil spill is completely forgotten as trivial ancient history, while BP quietly whittles away its liabilities via shrewd negotiation tactics. We get lots of smoke about America's energy options but no real light. And, as usual, the mainstream press is generally of little or no use in blowing the smoke away or shedding any light. 
BP Gulf oil spill - May 2010
Ocean on fire, lots of smoke, not much light
Where's the beef?
When gas prices spike like now, the politicians just blow the dust off their old talking points and let the rhetoric fly. The problem is that neither democrats nor republicans have the faintest idea of how to do anything about raising gas prices any more than they know how to do anything about falling gas prices when that happens. They are both largely powerless but (i) are clueless about their situation and/or (ii) know they can't do much but just cannot let a good crisis go unused. Its such a good opportunity to manipulate reality and public opinion to benefit the political status quo. Building the XL pipeline won't do anything substantial for years because it will take years to build. Even if it is built, Canadian oil is still foreign oil and it will still cost global prices. That would be true even if the oil was produced in the U.S. Neither U.S. nor foreign oil companies do charity. They all charge international oil prices for a global commodity. Period. And, Canadian oil won't help our perpetually negative balance of trade, which exists largely because of imported oil.
Our energy dependence and hopeless negative trade balance will take decades to fix, assuming it can ever be fixed under standard two-party politics. All of that completely ignores global warming. Canadian oil is dirty oil, but that doesn't faze republicans. They think global warming doesn't exist. It doesn't seem to faze democrats much either - they don't even mention it.
Gulf of Mexico
April 21, 2010
As pointed out here before, America's energy policy is a failure and it has been for decades, assuming we even have a credible energy policy. We were warned long ago about our vulnerabilities and our leaders chose to do nothing of substance. There was some talk, but essentially no action. Given the democratic and republican record of failure, its hard to take anything that any of them say seriously now. Its just empty blither from clueless ideologues.
Public vs. private
The real question is whether it makes sense to leave energy production, an absolutely critical resource, in the hands of the private sector. Its a matter of national security. Its not as if the two political parties or the oil industry has our back. They just look out for themselves, as they should. Business (including political parties) is in the business of business, not making America a safe place. Government, not the private sector, is there to defend the public interest. Oil companies have essentially no interest in helping the U.S. with anything. That's not a criticism - its a neutral statement of fact. Oil company shareholders and executives demand profits. Partisan politicians are the same. They demand power and reelection and that generally does not serve the public interest very well. The American people are on their own. Our political leadership either has no idea of how to deal with high or low gas prices and/or don't want to seriously interfere with a good thing (for them). On top of that, the situation is largely out of their control as long as oil companies remain private and oil remains a global commodity subject to global prices regardless of whether it is produced in the U.S. The situation is unfortunate for all of us because we are going to pay dearly for our political "energy policy" failures for a long time. As argued here before, our standard of living remains threatened, e.g., by a negative balance of trade and no coherent national energy policy.
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