it's just that simple. A reserve is a reserve.
  they say there is enough there to feed us for 6 months, or 30 years, depending on who says and how they figure it.
The point remains.
    Where's our reserve in 30 years if we use it now ?

      numbers
They seem to change.
  The new bill gives 6 or 7% of it's funding to renewable energy according to two democratic representative depending which you ask.
  according to one republican representative Bush actually sent a 6.7 billion energy bill with 72% for renewable energy. It also contained tax deductions of 15% for photo voltaic and 20% for solar heating.
or so he said.
he didn't say what happened to those parts.
  Nebraskan rep says the bill decreases farm corn subsidies over the next 10 years by 10 billion and increases farm income over 46 billion in those 10 years while reducing the trade deficit by 240 billion. he's talking about ethanol production and the cost of corn going up 50 cents a barrel from the increased demand.
  Of course we eat corn in many forms so we trade the oil costs for food costs and the main winners are Monsanto Conagra and AMD. And that is assuming it's not blended with Exon oil simply as a way to extend it for larger SUVs.

      Rep Dingell from mich. the energy and commerce committee ranking member says the energy bill weakens the safe water act and the leaking underground tank program. as well as other problems and he's against the bill.

      rep Boehlert science committee chairman says it's a bad bill, because it is an oil company bill that doesn't replace the need for oil with other sources, but it spends money on tax breaks for oil companies while it cuts the funds for alternative energy systems and research. It maintains the dependency on imported oil and decreases our nations security by doing so.

      rep Honda the science comittee energy sub committee chairman is against the bill also even though he was able to have input on a section of it.

  lets not get started on the other tidbits of allowing producers of the carcinogenic MTBE oxidizer to poison city water wells with no penalties. Or of only allowing the electric companies to license a turbine generator on a dam when there are irrigation dams that could install them. and it seems the city I live in who bought the local dam with it's power house may have trouble re- licensing it since it's not an electric company.

    basically it seems that someone likes the oil companies and does not want any out side disturbance of their multi-billion dollar profits, in fact they want to add to them, with our tax dollars.
  but then, we knew it was their government already, not the peoples