We are consuming too much, the difference in our views is in the time scale. There is a shortage in the long run. It is a fact that biomass is not breaking down into crude oil nearly as quickly as we are using it. We have a problem and that is that we are using it at a rate which is greater than the rate at which the earth is replenishing it. In the long run, this is the problem, not the price. The price will increase as the oil supply goes down. If we were to drill all of our possible sources right now(ignoring capitol costs), we could drive the price down but that would just mean that we would run out sooner and the price would go up sooner.
What I was trying to get at in my first post is that there just isn't that much oil that can be drilled for in the US. Since oil is a global commodity, you have to divide the US's possible output by the entire world's consumption to get an idea of the difference it would make. The answer is that it won't make a significant price difference at all.
This has played a huge part in the ANWR debate. Of the oil that is actually considered recoverable, if it was only used in the US, it could power the US for less than a year. If the oil was drilled over the course of only 10 years, it was estimated that the total price impact would be less than 3 cents/gallon before the latest set of price increases.
The simple fact of the matter is that the US does not have that much oil that is recoverable. If you are worried about prices, drilling here won't make a big difference. If you are worried about security and kicking our dependance on foreign oil, drilling here won't fix that either. You have to look to the real problem which is our rate of consumption, not our rate of drilling. To fix the problem, we need to cut our consumption by a huge amount either through new technologies or huge increases in efficiencies.