Consider me as one of the 50% or so Americans who does not support your blanket statement of unlimited drilling within the US.
I am against offshore drilling and I am against drilling in ANWR. If we can get some oil shale out in Wyoming, or crude oil out in other areas in the US without damaging the environment too much, I would be for it (I think most people, including most environmentalists would support that).
To quote someone else:
Drilling for oil would be a short term remedy whose benefits would be almost negligible and it would take a couple of years to even appreciate the effect.
That pretty much sums it up. Short term solution that does nothing to fix the overall long term problem. Effects on supply and prices would be negligible, except for damaging the environment. Even if prices came down, we would consume more oil (just look at the growth in oil use over the past 10 years when oil was dirt cheap). If we are really concerned about high oil prices, access to energy, and shipping the American wealth overseas (I guess that is a national security issue too), we should focus on alternative energy. Fortunately with these high oil prices, alternative energy is now becoming price competitive. There is only so much oil in the ground and it will run out eventually. I would rather we solve this problem now than wait for it to turn into a true crisis.
Fortunately, both presidential candidates are against off shore drilling and drilling in ANWR. So I would not count on this happening in the next 4-8 years. After that, the US will have cut oil consumption significantly enough to not worry about offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR.