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.

What are the objections to offshore drilling? They are primarily environmental and aesthetic. Yesterday, senator and presidential hopeful, John McCain was in California, preaching this same theme to anyone who would listen and he received only tepid support. Governor Schwarzenegger opposes the idea and I saw a few protesters making news in Santa Barbara, where they still remember a 1969 oil spill that caused plenty of harm, but that was forty years ago.

Safety measures and clean-up measures have improved greatly over the last 40 years. The drilling process has improved over that time too. Gas prices are nearing $5.00 a gallon in Southern California and congress is scampering about ranting and raving, more concerned with the political outfall than they are solving problems.

Senator Barack Obama opposes the idea of offshore drilling and claims that we might only get a marginal improvement in overall supplies a few years down the line. That margin may be more meaningful and could only grow if we do nothing now. Have we lost sight of the fact that "it is better to light one small candle than curse the darkness," or that a starving person does not turn down a marginal amount of food?

Besides providing some real motivation to drill offshore, the high cost of oil also affords us the opportunity to take extreme precautions that might have been unrealistic in the past. Furthermore, we now have the capability to disguise drilling rigs to look like an island oasis, a giant sail boat, or the scene of the next James Bond villains hideout.

What we should not do is hide from our problems, point fingers at the other guy, and let the passage of time make our decisions for us.

The following companies are active in the offshore drilling industry and have had a good year so far. Regardless of whether offshore drilling opportunities expand in the United States, they will internationally for a long time to come.

• Atwood Oceanics (NYSE: ATW)
• Diamond Offshore (NYSE: DO)
• ENSCO International (NYSE: ESV)
• Hercules Offshore Inc. (NASDAQ: HERO)
• Noble Corporation (NYSE: NE)
• Pride International (NYSE: PDE)
• Rowan Companies (NYSE: RDC)
• Transocean (NYSE: RIG)

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.