Right now Senators Obama and McCain are in a fight over drilling, energy policy and the best way forward for the country. While McCain is urging for more domestic oil production through offshore and ANWAR drilling, Obama is coming out strong against it. His reasoning? Drilling will not change the price of oil in the short term.

“Believe me – if I thought that there was any evidence at all that drilling could save people money who are struggling to fill up their tanks by this summer or this year or even the next few years, I would consider it. But it won’t. And John McCain knows that.”

Obama’s plan in the short term is to tax oil companies profits and then give the money to people through $1000 tax cuts and rebate checks. While this is an interesting plan, wouldn’t oil companies simply pass off the new taxes to the consumer? Meanwhile Obama is opposed to McCain’s short term plan of providing relief from taxes on oil at the pump, a move that would certainly low prices, though it is questionable what effect it would ultimately have to the pocketbook.

Meanwhile Obama’s only other plan would also take time. While it is estimated 10 years would need to pass for more drilling to take effect, Senator Obama’s plan of investing $150 billion over the next ten years in clean, affordable, renewable sources of energy would also take at least ten years, maybe more, to show substantial changes in the way we produce and use energy.

So in effect, neither side can really change the way we use or produce energy in the short term and yet both sides are attacking one another. Shouldn’t we be doing both? Producing more domestic oil AND promoting energy conservation and new technology? Combined we could start seeing real change in the next few years with the knowledge that both will take time to go into full effect.

Both sides are touting “comprehensive” plans, but neither side is truly comprehensive without the other. So in short, while both stand opposed to the other, neither side is complete.