"These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them."

The preceding quote is a line from the classic David Mamet play, and subsequent film, Glengarry Glen Ross, a story which is pivoted around the sale of real estate. The Glengarry leads are sales leads for a new property, and to the agents who are trying to sell real estate, they are gold. The new property is valuable, and the leads are fresh; they are the names people who are interested in spending money, and would likely bear fruit and net the agents actual commissions. The problem is, the agents can't get those sales leads until they sell off worthless property to a bunch of dead sales leads.

Does this sound familiar? If you've been following the current oil crisis and the debate about offshore drilling, and drilling in Alaska, it should. The oil companies have a bunch of existing leases which are not very promising in the prospect of actually obtaining any oil. Democrats in Congress are insisting that they will not open up any new land to oil exploration and drilling until the oil companies drill on the land they already have. It doesn't matter that the actual leases the oil companies have are poor prospects, and the actuality of recovering any oil is negligible. Rather than letting them drill in areas where we know there is oil, they want to punish the oil companies by making them spend their profits in a search for fool's gold. Nobody wins.

The continental shelf and Anwar are the new leads. They're the oil-rich leads. And to the oil companies (and the Amercian people who would like lower gas prices) they are gold. And the oil companies (and the Amercian people who would like lower gas prices) don't get them.