WE pay for THEIR gasoline expense?

You just have to know that those with ability to influence whether or not we can safely secure drilling for oil (thus not have to buy it elsewhere) are writing off their gasoline expenses or that it's considered as a 'perk' to their salary.

How else would they not know what the US general population pay or feel our pain?

The whole country has proven (because we have to) that practices in almost every field, including drilling, has proper safeguards to not contaminate the environment and public.

They don't feel the price of fuel directly. They can drive, or be driven, take air transportation, etc., without it coming out of their pocket. The government has to be footing the bill.

So if we, the people, demand, long, hard and loud, that we think they should put those expenses on no go (as we demanded and they finally enacted not to place supplies in the strategic oil reserves) for a period of maybe six months maybe they would finally understand. Don't reimburse them seven months later either. They just have to pay out of their pockets. I will demand that their support staff, be it office workers (I know that's harsh), family members and lobbyists friends or whatever be included in this suspension.

Do a search on the Congress personnel of your area, the White House, your local news media and everyone else you can think may have influence in whether to drill for oil or not, be it drilling on or off shore.

Our pipelines may have to be rerouted or built new, but then people may work and make enough to pay for fuel and at the same time we'll send a message to our 'suppliers' that soon, thank you very much, we may not need to buy as much from you - your prices are way too high.

So do you really want to pay for your fuel and folks you don't really even know?