I agree with both of you, and for the reasons you stated, but I'm going to adopt a slightly contrarian point of view. I don't think there's that much oil out there, and as I outlined in my opening post, it probably won't help as much as has been promised. I also believe the push to drill in these places has been essentially political, and cynical, a way of saying "well, if they would only let us drill, the problem would go away, so it's all their fault". My favored approach is conservation, and that is exactly what the market is forcing us to do now. Too bad we couldn't have done it a few years ago when the cost would have been so much easier to bear.
But at the same time, I don't think active drilling would hurt as much as the other side is claiming it will. First, it will produce some oil and that can't hurt, especially in time of a major war when you can count on the oil industry being nationalized, at least for the duration. Two, it will give the people a psychological boost and our oil rivals a scare. Third, it will create good, high paying jobs here at home, where we need them, and the money spent here will be cycled back into our economy, not someone else's.
Most important, the main reason not to drill, environmental pollution, has been highly exaggerated. For starters, the technology has much improved and the corporate and public consciousness has been raised to a point that the drillers are going to be VERY careful. Fear of litigation by state and local governments will do wonders for safety and clean drilling as well, a constraint that a more industry-influenced administration will do everything it can to minimize. Accidents will happen, that is unavoidable, but it will not be the litany of disasters that has been claimed.
There is a further issue the environmental lobby has also failed to consider. Oil pumped from other countries will have to be brought here by ship. And ships, especially the unregulated flag-of-convenience rustbuckets that carry the world's crude these days, have accidents and sink all the time--every tanker shipwreck causes more environmental damage than any offshore rig accident, and certainly much more damage than any spill on land.
I'm in favor of drilling offshore and in public lands, just as I am for nuclear power, but like nuclear power, it needs to be done right.