"hmmm ...there are enough people who think otherwise, so much so that they will gladly invest in drilling if allowed."
Given the worship of money above all else in this society, if allowed, people will also invest in whore houses, crack houses, etc. The willingness to invest is not sufficient reason to permit something.
If entirely used and extractable at the rate of consumption (not technically feasible and detrimental to the ultimate yield of the reservoirs if we try) currently available US oil reserves (~22 billion barrels) theoretically could provide the nation's needs (provided the demand doesn't increase - yeah, right) for another 14 or 15 years. The ANWR oil reserves (median extractable oil estimate of ~ 10 billion barrels), again if entirely used and extracted at the rate of consumption, will add perhaps another 6 or 7 years (I keep seeing that six months number and I can't come to the same conclusion when I run the numbers). Remember that we can't get the oil out that fast - prudent stewardship of the reservoir would require more like 25 to 30 years. This means if we were cut off from foreign oil we'd have to instantly use 75% less oil and any and all efforts wouldn't increase available oil enough to offset the decline of domestic fields.
Conclusion: all domestic reserves (every last bit) and production rates will not offset in any meaningful manner the ongoing decline of US oil fields. To maintain our present behavior we will have to import increasing amounts of oil.
Some numbers (compiled July 2007) to put oil consumption and production into perspective:
US daily oil consumption: ~ 21 million barrels per day
US domestic production: ~ 5 million barrels per day
Daily production of Texas: ~ 1 million barrels per day
Daily production of Pennsylvania: ~ 11 thousand barrels per day
For the non-oil patch types, a barrrel of oil is defined to be 42 US gallons.
There is a disaster coming and if we had any long range wisdom in this country we'd gradually raise the price of petroleum derived fuels to 4 or 5 times current levels. This would help ramp us into the needed changes with less pain and suffering. The one hour plus commutes in the ton and half vehicles carrying one person will end - we can do it the easy way or hard way but they will end. Given the proclivities and ignorance demonstrated by the electorate in recent decades I have no faith an easy transformation will occur; I expect instead the disaster.