So far, we haven't faced any true problems of scarcity of oil or other fossil fuels. What we have faced are high prices, which are the result of constraints in fuel production, shipping and refining around the world. Finding more oil will not necessarily bring down the price of gasoline in the U.S. unless supply significantly exceeds demand — and there's no incentive for oil producers to make that happen. What's more, U.S. refineries now export around 536,000 barrels of gasoline a day — more than we have since World War II — so U.S. consumers pay the world’s going rate for gasoline.

Talking about our oil predicament in terms of scarcity and abundance doesn't get at the real problem we face: High gas prices are causing the U.S. economy to hemorrhage money, and U.S. consumers are paralyzed to do anything about it. This year, American drivers are on track to spend $490 billion on gasoline alone. A study the New America Foundation released last month found that many middle class Americans simply can't respond to higher gas prices by reducing the amount of gasoline they use, and are caught in an energy trap as gasoline whittles away disposable income. If we help U.S. workers reduce the number of gallons of gasoline they buy, we'll free up more money to circulate in our economy while reducing the hidden costs of oil: pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and oil security. But we need to stop dreaming of gushers of oil and concentrate instead on finding profits in reducing the gallons we consume.