A policy decision to offer large tax breaks for the production of vegetable oil producing crops and operations to process vegetable oil into bio-diesel would be an immediate, viable, short term solution to a large part of the mid-east oil dependance problem.
If we were giving taxc breaks to farmers to produce those crops instead of paying them to not produce anything, we could get the cost of vegetable oil down to at least as low as petrolium oil...
I agree. I'm not surprised that congress is slow to react because they are influenced (bought off) by oil interests, etc. But with oil selling at over fifty dollars a barrel I am surprised that private business has not seized upon the alternative energy opportunity.