Under the weight of pressure to curb mounting gasoline prices, President Barack Obama is calling for the U.S. to reduce oil imports by one third before 2025.
Obama’s modus operandi is a slow boosting of domestic energy production, increasing the use of natural gas and bio-fuels; making cars and trucks more fuel-efficient.
In a speech in New York City last Tuesday, Obama said:
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do on energy…The last time gas prices were this high was 2008 when I was running. The other side kept talking about `drill, baby, drill.’ That was the slogan…What we were talking about was breaking the pattern of being shocked by high prices…”
Even if oil consumption drops, it will not have much impact on gasoline prices, since oil is priced globally and increased demand from China continues to put a spike in prices.
The Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday:
“The problem isn’t that we need to look elsewhere for our energy. The problem is that Democrats don’t want us to use the energy we have. It’s enough to make you wonder whether anybody in the White House has driven by a gas station lately.”
To meet the goal of cutting oil imports by one third, Obama will be calling for new incentives for companies to speed up gas and oil production on current and future leases. An Interior Department report said on Tuesday more than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are idle, neither producing gas and oil nor being explored by the companies who hold the leases. These leases could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
It is always nice when the federal government raises revenue and protects the environment while increasing private business profits. This is the reason a recent 
The GAO blames this on a lack of sophisticated technology, outdated regulations and the structure of the energy industry, it seems however that the main issue is ignorance. Up until recently, producers assumed that losses were minimal. According to the GAO, however, advances in infrared-camera technology “Have helped reveal that losses from storage tanks and fugitive emissions were much higher than they originally thought.” But the private sector hasn’t acted alone. Government has also been painfully slow to adapt. It hasn’t updated its venting and flaring regulations since 1980, before the new technologies existed.
Environmental groups celebrated when Governor David Paterson directed a seven-month moratorium on natural gas drilling sites in New York; however, environmentalists feel that this still isn’t good enough.
In vetoing the Legislature’s oil and gas-drilling moratorium, Paterson said it would have been applied to all low-volume, conventional, vertically drilled wells, and effectually pulling the plug on an industry which has operated safely for decades.
Gasoline prices this year are 33% lower than they were last year and the industry is producing way more gas, now that they have uncovered large supplies of natural gas. 
So what’s involved with doing this and, how much does it cost? It appears that If you are a backyard mechanic, you can have your car converted to run ion LP gas for a little as $150, including storage tank or bottle. Or, if not, you can take your wheels to any number of repair garages that specialize in this sort of thing, and get it done for a bit more One garage owner said that a person “can bring his car in early in the morning and pick it up afterwards in the late afternoon. For newer cars (1995 and upwards) a special kit is available that has high pressure hoses and gauges that send the liquefied bottled gas into the engine from a bottle or “balloon” located under the rear baggage compartment of the car (where most spare tires are today).