I happen to be a drilling consultant in the Oil Industry. It’s something that is truly a fact of life. You are correct. There is no over night solution.
We are drilling heavily now, and have been since 2003. You still have not seen the result of all that activity. It will still take several more years for it to even effect the price by a few percentage points. In the World scheme of things, it is only a drop in the barrel.
“It’s too late to start drilling our own oil now. It will take years to even see a difference on the price.”
“It’s never too late but it’s nice to see some realism about how effective starting to drill right now will be. We do need the oil but it won’t be a magic pill. “
OTOH, if Clinton had not vetoed the Republican passage of ANWR drilling 10 years ago, we could be pumping 1 million barrels a day of ANWR oil right about now, which would be worth a cool $30 billion a year! And oil prices would be considerably lower if it were online. Drilling in ANWR will help us get over the oil crises of 2015-2025 that are sure to come as post peak oil gets more scarce..