Free Republic

Santa Barbara, CA (AP) -- The Santa Barbara City Council has voted to support a continued ban on oil drilling off the California coast. The largely symbolic vote came Tuesday night — two weeks after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of lifting the ban. City Council members say their vote was meant to reaffirm Santa Barbara's reputation for environmentalism.

U.S. offshore oil fields could hold enough crude to supply all of the country's needs for more than 11 years. Or they might not. No one knows for certain because, with new offshore oil drilling banned on the East and West coasts, no one has gone looking for oil there in years. Now congressional Republicans are pushing hard to make offshore drilling a key issue in the presidential campaign, hoping to channel the anger Americans feel over historically high oil and gasoline prices. More oil, they argue, will bring lower prices. The federal government estimates the nation's outer continental shelf...

As fuel prices rise, gas tax receipts drop, and money for roads and bridges dries up - Gas prices are soaring. That's the bad news.But as they soar, motorists drive less, and that produces some benefits: less air pollution and less congestion. That's the good news.And then there's the bad news about the good news. The federal gas tax is levied on a per-gallon basis. So the less people drive and the less gas they use, the less the federal government collects from gas taxes. So it is that recent record high gas prices have produced record low gas tax...