Bruz...
This is where I can see your government run oil company or some variation come into play;
You're exactly right, and that plan is great for OPEC but sucks for US consumers. That wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that in pretty much every other marker segment in America it is the consumer that drives prices, not the producer.
...for precisely the reason you and Dick ascribe;the ability of foreign entities to take advantage of supply and demand functions to their benefit and our detriment. That would seem to me to be the definition of a national interest.
I have a tough time, however, seeing how your solution would come about;
saying we're going to start drilling for oil the same way that you guys do, i.e., anywhere we want,
But, on the other hand, I also see a tough row to hoe for the 'eggheads' to come up with good alternatives absent market forces which, while in place now with high oil, would, exactly as you and Dick ascribe, be manipulated by our international competitors and suppliers the moment they felt the pinch from us going another direction.
It's simple to see alternatives come on line once oil is truly running low. It's not so easy for me to see absent the realities of supply and demand relations.
So, a national highway system type plan for energy? Companies sprung up to build roads that the market didn't want simply because a customer, the feds, were willing to pay for it anyway.
Thus, what if we used a federal promise of buying 'egghead' fuel in a ramped up fashion over, say 10 years, culminating in a volume actually equal to real consumption, at a set price, in annually adjusted dollars, of, say $2.00 a gallon to be delivered to stations by private enterprise, pumped to you and I at stations owned by private enterprise who get a dollar a gallon to provide the service and we get it...for free (seeings how we already paid for it in taxes).
We each apply for gallon per year allotments of some form.
Oil will get cheaper as this happens, obviously, but we will reach the next level of energy type without the volatile, panicked rush that actual oil depletion will cause.
Call it enforced energy policy.
It makes my skin crawl thinking about it but we must consider the implications of removing the market from our fundamental needs, such as gasoline. This is anathema to me BUT I am very interested in energy stability and independence.
I know they already pay much more than we do for gas and oil but wouldn't theirs be just as drastically going up as the price per barrel of oil goes up? Where's thei outrage - is this a global outrage?
flag going to get tossed on this argument? When we're supposedly all taking vacations year round? Granted there are some people taking vacations now, but enough to effect gas prices nationwide? Get real!
What I am really trying to tell you is the the concept and treatment of codependency is a very powerful tool and it is perhaps the greatest advancement in psychology ever. 
Virtually all the greatest people in the field of psychology have written books about their own findings so all one has to do is read the info available to learn from the experts. I highly reccommend it too.
I can't wait to hear them say that demand is peaking in February now because that's the most boring month and people have recently decided to take long road trips.
