The fools on the Hill.

I just read that the US Congress (Led by John Conyors) is trying to pass legislation that will allow the US government to sue OPEC countries for price fixing and they blame the current spike in gasoline prices on the high cost of crude. Their logic is that since the OPEC nations have reduced capacity and output of crude by 1.1 millions barrels a day, this has been the direct cause of the spike in gasoline costs. The problem with this theory is that the capacity reduction started several months ago yet the spike didn't occur until just recently. The real problem is that we are dependent upon oil from other countries, have limited our ability to drill and produce oil on our own soil, and haven't built a refinery in the US since the 70's. Allowing the building of new refineries, opening drilling in off shore areas that have proven reserves, and encouraged conservation and innovation to find new sources of energy would reduce our dependence upon other countries and thus bring down prices. Supply and demand. It's simple. Streamlining the refining processes and reducing the number of distilled products could go a long way to controlling fuel prices as well as bringing our energy needs under our own control. But noooo, congress decides that it's better to blame others for our inability to fix the issues. Do they really think that sueing other nations will work? Why would another nation allow us to have jurisdiction over them? They won't, but congress lives in a fantasy world where they believe that they have domain over other countries. How did we ever elect these fools? We are being made to be the fools for electing them.