In order to gain media coverage, senators and congressmen again called in the oil men.

On one side of the table are men leading large oil companies who, for decades, have spent their time and efforts finding, drilling for, transporting, refining and merchandising oil and oil products.

Opposite them in the plush, cushy, upholstered chairs are the politicians who have spent decades passing laws and formulating regulations that put oil fields off limits, and make transporting, refining and marketing oil difficult, expensive and/or impossible.

The oil men are powerful forces in the oil business, but their companies own or control less than 6 percent of the world's oil. They are powerless to overturn the force of the law of supply and demand.

Politicians are powerful people, but individually or in sum total they are powerless to overturn the the force of the law of supply and demand.

If there is one barrel of oil unneeded by the market, the owner will lower his price until someone will purchase it and place it in inventory; if there is one barrel too few, the person in need will increase his offering price until some owner will decide to sell and do without.

If politicians such as Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Jay Rockefeller continue to thwart rather than help the development of oil supplies from the interior and off the coast of the United States, prices will continue to rise, the value of our dollar will continue to fall and our economy will fail.

We do need a change in Washington. We need to replace those politicians who are more interested in winning their next election than in the well-being of our country.

Chess Howard, Augusta