Why Drill, Drill, Drill Has Not Succeeded

Is our objective self-sufficiency? Should not the United States be the world’s largest oil producer? Environmentalists aside, the greatest opposition comes from international oil companies whose primary interest is to protect the value of their reserves at $100 per barrel.
Everyone seems to agree on natural gas as a substitute for oil. Not mentioned is drilling for natural gas which again accounts for the reticence of big oil.
Only a national demand for increased oil production will succeed. Even disincentives like excess profits taxes—whatever works. The enemies are big oil and the environmentalists—a strange alliance. Only McCain and Palin can square this circle. Supply breaks cartels whether headed by corporate giants or environmentalists.
Who owns the oil at the continental shelf? Any answers? If leases are granted on lands not owned by the United States, who gets the oil? The drillers, the oil marketers, the refiners? Who slices the melon? How big are the slices? Who knows?
My confidence stems from a New York Times editorial written in 1921. It proclaimed that the world would run out of oil in ten years. I believe there are tens of millions of barrels of oil within our grasp. We need a government with a will to find it. Only United States technology can succeed but only with a supportive government.