[Politicians] want lower [gas] prices but don't want more production to increase supply.

They want oil "independence" but they've declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment.

To which Dr. Hurd will add: The government can't solve the energy crisis. Yes, the government can impose still more taxes on corporations who produce oil. But those corporations will only pass that expense on to the customers, as any business will. Yes, the government can shout, scream and pass laws declaring that there "should" and "must" be alternate sources of energy. But there won't be--and cannot be--without the discoveries of science and the business marketing of unfettered capitalism to deliver the benefits of science to the masses. This is how oil production, as we know it, got started. There was no EPA declaring, "Be gone, horse and buggy" so that a superior source of energy could be obtained. Science and business will save us. Without science, business has nothing to distribute. Without for-profit business, science can discover all that it wants but its practical value won't make it to the consumer.

Government's job is an important one: To protect the intellectual rights of the scientists to do science, and the property rights of business to do business. Beyond that, government must get out of the way.