Why would American oil companies drill and produce from their US leases when it costs $17 a barrel to get oil out of the ground in the US and it costs only $3.70 a barrel to get it out of the ground in places like Saudi Arabia?

The next best thing to a monopoly of a market is an oligopoly, which looks an awful lot like 5 companies controlling 50% of American refining capacity and 10 companies controlling 80%. What happened to the Sherman Anti-trust Act anyway? Isn't the gov't guilty of malfeasance and misfeasance to have allowed mergers of mega-sized oil companies in the first place? Hell back in the 30s the gov't forced Chevron and Standard Oil to break up for becomming too big, and they were tiny compared to today's oil giants.

And then we have hedge fund investing driving the "surge" in oil prices. It's been a lot more successful than Bush's surge in Iraq, but that's OK since Bush's buddies, you know, the "have mores", are all in the oil business.

And somehow this is all Al Gore's fault? Gore may be influential, but his influence isn't even a pitance compared to the above.