Missourians are frustrated. Gas prices keep rising and Washington is giving us rhetoric instead of relief at the pump. Missourians want a common sense, long term solution to high gas prices.

Congress is discussing short-term solutions for immediate relief like suspending the federal gas tax and stopping deliveries into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. However, unless we acknowledge the fundamental problem—increasing global demand for oil—these measures are nothing more than placing a band-aid on a broken leg. The United States uses approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day. We produce only 5 million barrels of oil per day. Therefore, we must compete on the global market for the rest of our needed supply.

Global demand for oil is dramatically increasing every day. Oil consumption in China and India will grow by nearly 240 million barrels this year. Overall global oil consumption, between now and 2020, will increase by 60 percent. While efforts to decrease consumption can help, we cannot conserve ourselves out of a supply crisis. We must focus on increasing our own domestic supply.

Yet, in the face of increasing global demand, the United States is not allowing itself to go after the oil it has within its own borders. We have billions of barrels of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and off the coastal shelf that just sit there untapped.

I have co-sponsored legislation to allow us to access the oil reserves in ANWR and off the coastal shelf. This is common sense legislation and a long term solution to the growing global demand for oil. Congress should act immediately.