The Texas oilmen -- Bush and Cheney and the oil companies -- are pulling off the biggest conspiracy that has ever been pulled off in America. In Bush and Cheney's first term, they tried to get approval to drill off-shore and open more ground up in Alaska. They didn't succeed.

Back when Atlantic-Richfield got approval to drill in Alaska, the newspapers and TV spread the propaganda of how America would have all the oil needed for years to come. However, no American has ever used a drop of that crude oil converted to gasoline and oil other than the gasoline in a car or truck you purchased. Every drop of that crude oil gets shipped to Japan.

Now the Texas oilmen -- Bush, Cheney and the oil companies -- have created a conspiracy in the last few months of Bush's last term to open up off-shore and Alaskan territory for drilling for crude oil. Anyone who watched the Senate hearings with the oil company heads might believe that if the government would let them drill off-shore and open more territory in Alaska, gasoline and fuel would come down in price.

Do the people of America know that the oil companies have a 50-percent oil depletion allowance which means that if they make $40 billion in profits, they only have to pay taxes on $20 billion? They never used this allowance to upgrade or build new refineries. If allowed to drill in Alaska, where would the oil companies send that crude oil if it can't be refined in America?

The reason we are paying outrageous prices for gasoline and fuel is that the oil companies are using their oil depletion allowance to speculate crude oil prices in the Wall Street market, which has raised the price of crude oil up to 40-50 percent. It's really hard to believe that the elected politicians are so blinded by special interest groups and their self-serving greed that they have forgotten who elected them and who is paying their salaries.

Robert Temple,

Turbotville