Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, is launching a new TV ad that puts the blame of $4.00 gasoline at the feet of Barack Obama. As reported by Breitbart.com the ad asks, "Gas prices-$4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?" The answer is Obama.

The fact is that while I doubt only Obama is to blame, the nominee, along with the power brokers in the Democratic party, have presented no solution to help ease pain at the pump. If the jump in crude oil is based on a a supply shortage, then the Republican solution of more drilling, both offshore and in Alaska makes sense.

Obama has rejected this, but has put forward no tangible solution. On the one hand, he agrees that the U.S. needs to be energy independent, but on the other hand, offers no serious way of getting to independence. Wind power and other non-nuclear alternatives don't have the scale to power an entire nation. Just an aside, but isn't it odd that when talking about 'alternative energy,' nuclear is never mentioned, though in other parts of the world like Europe it produces a sizable amount of energy.

As for environmental concerns, oil is now brought out of the ground with cutting edge technology, so worries of huge oil spills isn't all that realistic.

Consumers should stop being held hostage by election year politics, and for the good of the nation, Obama should cross party lines and agree to increased drilling.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 7/21/08.

It's time to start drilling for oil and natural gas offshore on the east and west coasts. We are wasting our time and our money, and risking our future by not doing so. The energy needs of the United States have made oil our number one import and the biggest factor in our imbalance of trade.

It is not just that oil holds us hostage to the rest of the world. This imbalance of trade means we cannot support ourselves and must borrow from others to get by, and I, for one, have a very hard time with that notion. I prefer independence -- remember that? I think it was an important concept in our founding, way back when.

The imbalance in trade is a mortgage against the future of our children and it is getting worse year after year. The money often goes to foreign governments whose interests are not aligned with ours and they hold us politically and economically captive. Nothing is more shameful than President Bush pleading with Saudi Monarchs to pump more oil.

"One of my favorite indicators for the energy markets is the quarterly conference calls and earnings releases from Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB)," says energy sector expert Elliott Gue.

In his The Energy Strategist, he explains, "In this quarter's call, Schlumberger's management team was notably upbeat, the most positive on industry growth expectations in more than a year. This is a key shift in sentiment that has broader implications for the energy patch at large."

"Schlumberger's reports and conference calls have proved extraordinarily useful in the past for determining the most profitable trends and investment themes. The reason for that is simple: Schlumberger is the largest oilfield services company and has its hand in just about every imaginable market all over the world.

"In addition, the company has traditionally offered long, detailed conference calls; CEO Andrew Gould often relates far more than the outlook for Schlumberger and offers considerable color and detail concerning trends for the industry in general.

"This quarter's conference call was no exception. Schlumberger's outlook this quarter was far more upbeat than in its third and fourth quarter 2007 earnings calls.

Transocean Inc. (NYSE: RIG), the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, reported its first quarter earnings this morning, and surprised Wall Street by posting a profit that more than doubled for the quarter.

The company said its quarterly profit jumped to $1.19 billion boosted by soaring crude oil prices. The offshore drilling contractor also benefited from strong sales from its acquired competitor GlobalSantaFe Corp. Going into today's earnings announcement, analysts had been expecting the company to post a profit of $3.33 a share, but Transocean surprised everyone by earning $3.80 a share during the quarter. This is a nice rebound from the same period last year when the the world's largest offshore oil driller reported earnings of $2.62 a share.

Looking at revenue, Transocean said its quarterly sales sales more than doubled to $3.11 billion, compared with $1.33 billion in the same period a year ago, helped by strong sales from GlobalSantaFe. Analysts, on average, were expecting the company show $3.05 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.

EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) is one of the country's largest oil and natural gas companies in the U.S., headquartered in, you guessed it, Texas. The company's most recent earnings report, for 2Q 2007, is a challenging read. Some numbers are up, some are down. Overall, the numbers are headed in the right direction so that CEO Mark Papa has raised FY guidance for total growth, all of it organic and none by acquisition, from 10% to 11.5%. This is great news considering how challenging 2007 has been for EOG Resources compared to 2006.

1Q 2007 net income dropped by 50% to $216.8 million from 1Q 2006, despite the fact that 1Q 2007 natural gas production increased by 21%. 2Q 2007 net income improved to $306.1 million from 1Q 2007 net income, but was still less than 2Q 2006 net income of $329.6 million. EOG Resources lost a lot of ground with its financial commodity contracts in 2Q 2007. These contracts amounted to $18.6 million for the quarter, compared to $47.3 million in the previous quarter, which was itself hit with a $40 million drop in prices for natural gas. EOG is divesting itself of some of its assets, including its shallow gas holdings in Appalachia, in order to focus on shale gas opportunities that have the potential for greater production, and hence greater return on investment.

Despite price decreases, EOG Resources continues to increase natural gas production quarter over quarter. Total North American natural gas production for the first half of 2007 is up 7% from the same period a year ago. EOG has had significant capital expenditures for a new natural gas processing facility in east Texas, a facility necessitated by increases in natural gas production to compensate for price declines. EOG Resources continues to invest in technology that increases initial natural gas production rates and increases the efficiency of the recovery process so that more natural gas can be produced without the expense of digging additional wells.

The stock has been up and down since opening the year at $60.66. In mid June the stock was trading up 30% at just over $80 per share. Since then the stock has lost ground, closing Friday at $71.58, but is still up about 15% for the year.