Why We Need to Drill Here and Drill Now
It is truly astonishing how the Obama administration has not only failed to address the problem of rising gasoline prices, but actually spent the last two years making the problem worse.
In 2008, with a federal offshore drilling ban in place and a Congress that cared little for allowing more domestic energy production, gasoline prices began to spike toward $4 per gallon. With billions of barrels available for development offshore, our government’s decision to keep those resources under lock and key received the justified scorn of Americans who suddenly had to work longer just so they could afford to drive to and from work.
With the entire country holding their feet to the fire — even then-candidate Obama reversed his position on offshore drilling — Congress finally lifted the offshore moratorium in September 2008.
So what did candidate Obama do when he became president? He and his administration spent two years recreating the same web of regulations and bans that led to record-high gasoline prices in the first place.
Upon taking office, President Obama’s Department of Interior, led by Ken Salazar, began taking deliberate steps to reduce domestic drilling. From canceling oil and gas leases throughout the American West to banning offshore production to refusing to issue deep water drilling permits, the Obama administration has imposed virtually the same regulatory agenda that Americas soundly rejected in 2008.
The result of these policies is also the same as last time. Oil prices above $100 per barrel for the first time since 2008. Two years ago the Energy Information Administration predicted a 9% increase in domestic production for 2011, but because of the Obama administration’s bans and delays on offshore drilling, EIA now projects a decline of 220,000 barrels per day in 2011. Several drilling rigs have left the Gulf, and at least one major drilling company, Seahawk Drilling, was forced to file for bankruptcy after “an unprecedented decline in the issuance of offshore drilling permits,” according to Seahawk’s CEO.
Meanwhile, gasoline is heading back to $4 per gallon. Prices at the pump set a nationwide record for February, and some experts are predicting $5 per gallon gas by year’s end. Recent unrest in the Middle East has intensified the situation and caused prices to spike even further.
What is the White House doing in response to these rising costs?
President Obama thinks Americans should just “ride out” the situation and hope that prices will stabilize. The deputy secretary of energy says OPEC has “ample supplies” of oil, and the administration’s position is to hope that foreign dictators “will continue to support our economic recovery.” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says consumers just shouldn’t worry about higher prices, while White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee miraculously claims that high gasoline prices won’t hurt the economy.
In fact, the president’s latest budget actually includes billions of dollars in new taxes on American oil production, which will further increase gas and diesel prices, kill more American jobs, and increase our dependence on overseas energy.
So, again I scream as loudly as I can. . . . “Why aren’t the Repubs yelling “Drill, baby, drill!!!’? No one is saying anything!I have written my own Senator, Jim DeMint, and not received a reply. . . . What the h*** is going on?!Here is a chance to nail oblammo’s balls to the wall, and NO ONE is doing it. . . . .WHY??!!!!
BECAUSE THEY ARE ‘SCARED’ OF THE LEFT!!!
REPUBLICANS ARE WIENERS AND WHINERS…
Seriously, I feel you pain..*clinton*..we have lost so many jobs due to the drilling shutdown.
We have so much oil alllllll over. We should be drilling, trying out and perfecting green energy (which ain’t never gonna come to fruition anyway). Someone out there wants us dependent on other countries.
AND quit screaming about the middle east folks!!! most of our oil comes from Canada and mexico!!! question why the unrest over there spikes our prices!!
someone on another post suggested we invade Mexico, take their fields, drill, and use the oil to pay for all the illegals,insurance,education etc from mexico…I thought that was a good start.
…Politicians need to be cornered and demanded to answer your question.
i really believe republicans are afraid and don’t really care, they’re politicians with an agenda to stay in office not bring true prosperity…
We need more jindals and palins to lead this march for drilling. at least they have knowledge and experience.
Obama is out to destroy this country and he’s doing a mighty fine job.
Instability in the Middle East causes our oil prices to go up because oil is practically fungible. When the Middle East is unstable buyers in Europe and Asia look to places like Canada and Mexico to buy oil. We have to pay a higher price to keep the suppliers from sending their oil across the ocean.
You’re right – someone does want us dependant of foreign (whether Canada, Mexico or whereever) oil. Proof is the government swooping in and taking land from states (who want to develope it for oil) and declare them national parks – untouchable. Several states have challenged this and every one of them has lost in court. What do you do?
Because they don’t pay for their own gas.
This really is a simple fix check this short article out (http://www.unsalvageable.org/drilling-ban.html)and tell me why we don’t do the same?!?
If we just repeat this part of history we would see prices fall quickly!
There is a simple fix to the rising gas prices. Read this short article http://www.unsalvageable.org/drilling-ban.html and tell me why we don’t just do what has a proven track record?!?
Speculator moguls, that buy all oil before it reaches the surface, control the price per barrel and the market. Boone Pickens vast investment in wind energy and water sources may give you a clue as to what we’re in for other than more of the same from the oval office. Don’t expect any relief until ineligibility is reported by TV media,. If you really want to see the action then push DeMint on the issue but expect unlimited court delay protection to continue. They must all make their own beds but many don’t know taps when they hear it.
“It’s time to drill here and drill now.”
Republicans have been saying this for about 25 years now. Also, we have made huge advances in the production of nuclear energy and are NOT taking advantage of it. And what about coal? We have literally tons of it and clean coal has not even been talked about. And what does Obama do? Why, he wants you to drive the Chevy Volt, of course. Yet he never seems to talk about where the electricity for that Chevy Volt will come from. It’s as if some “magical” power in your wall powers your Chevy Volt and the White House never considers how much that energy costs and how it’s made. Memo to the President: You need either oil, coal, or nuclear energy to power those electrical plants that supply electricity for your crappy little electric cars!!! And if the price of oil goes up, so do the electrical costs and, by extension, the cost of running that crappy little electric car. But you never seem to hear anybody in the White House talk about this, the law of unintended consequences.
We need to do all of it NOW. We need to drill, we need to use more natural gas (which we have a lot of), we need much more nuclear power (the “Green” Europeans have more nuclear power plants than we do), and we need to exploit clean coal if we can. And if we don’t do it soon, we will replay the gas lines of the 1970s all over again. Seems like disco isn’t the only thing that’s coming back into style these days.
Ahhh, But wait a minute wasn’t it Biden who campaigned on the Fact that if elected both he & Obama would develop “Clean Coal” Technology to lessen our dependency on foreign Oil and create millions of Job’s ? As far as those “Electric” Vehicles like the “Leaf” or “Volt” which cost more to build and there’s hardly any profit not to mention the $7,500 in Tax Credits they don’t mention but for the Average American such as myself who normally doesn’t have a Tax Liability at the end of the year which would be needed to take full advantage of those “Tax Credits”
Also those Electric Car’s have a few hidden cost associated with them such as the Electric Plug that I am sure you would be required to hire a Licensed Electrician to hook up and I’m thinking that’s not going to come cheap, pile that on top of the Extra Taxes built into these vehicles that no one talks about as well. Now just imagine when you do buy one of these vehicles, such was the case in the State of Washington, where there was a large sector of the Population who owned a hybrid, or electric Car that they were not buying enough Gas to contribute into the States coffers they normally otherwise would get from those who own a Gas Powered Vehicle that they had to pass a law where all electric Car Owners will be subjected to a annually Fee of $100 to go into the States coffers as a form of Gas Tax and I can imagine that Fee will only go higher !!! I guess they forgot the Gas Tax that wouldn’t be collected when we had a Million Electric Cars running around huh ??
We use 20 Million Barrels/day, pre BP we were producing roughly 7 Million Barrels/day, then the BP SPill we rapidly dropped production to 6 Million Barrel’s/day and now I think were lucky if were producing 5 Million Barrel’s/day. However it’s been calculated for us as a Nation to force the price at the Pumps downward we have to ramp up Production not only to the normal rate of 7 Million Barrel’s/day but we need to make a statement to teh Oil Industry that were serious in getting off foreign Oil by bringing up production to at least 10 Million Barrel’s/day or more on a regular basis and there’s no reason why we can’t !!! We have ample resources thru out our Nation in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming Down South and off shore as well as in Alaska as we well know is more than ample Oil Reserves So were in effect 3-4 Million Barrel’s/day off the mark to get us up to 10 Million Barrel’s/day on a regular basis so absolutely Drill here, Drill now, Drill everywhere ASAP !!!
“….we need to exploit clean coal if we can….”
Clean coal? That’s to mollify the “Greens”, correct, or to reduce “man-made global warming”? Last I heard, the past 3 years have been relatively cooler than normal, and we haven’t had global temperature rises during at least the past 10 years, even while CO2 levels have been rising, according to none other than the British Royal Society. If you have been listening to NOAA, NAS, and NASA about warming continuing to rise, they all toe the Obama Party line, on who their budgets depend. I think that coal as clean as it is now is good enough, at least for the present. Let’s not complicate things.
You have clearly not been looking at NASA’s data because it shows a global rising temperature over the last decade, with 2010 and 2005 being the hottest in our record.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
It wasn’t hotter than it was in the 1930′s…wonder if the carbon levels were being spikes by 50000 cars in the US…or was it the cows?
Brian, give it a break. You keep insisting the “scientists”, particularly GISS and their head whore Hansen, are believable. They are not. They have been largely discredited and shown to be dishonest in the extreme. The climate change schtick is now pretty well recognized as exaggerated BS. An anthropogenic contribution to “climate change” is probably negligible. Even if it were not we have virtually no ability to change world wide climatic conditions without reducing the entire globe to medieval (or earlier) economic levels and maybe not even then. There is no will, interest, or ability on the part of world governments to do this. Quit being such a liberal, scientific ideologue. The stupidity is unbecoming.
The only way to hedge a bet (investment) based on lies is with more of the same. Not to worry, the stacking height limit has already been surpassed. Watch out for the splash when you see the newly created EPA enforced fees piled on top of their hedged cesspool cover.
According to the left’s new mantra, we have no oil, so we cannot drill but we must “invest” (also a new mantra) in green energy. Watch them. Every time they are on T.V. they are pushing this new talking point. We have no oil. It is all a big lie. I guess they think we are still being hypnotized by the “One” who promised to calm the seas, etc. etc..
You gotta love the Democrats who keep yelling that drilling for new oil will not help us till 10 years down the line, when it finally gets to the gas pumps. They’ve been saying this for 30 years and we idiots keep listening while oil drifts further toward Islamic control. If we would’ve ignored their nitwit point of view 30 years ago, then we would’ve had our own oil at the gas pumps 20 years ago. Do the math and stop listening to those who give aid and comfort to our enemies.
Steve, I agree with you 100%. I was going to comment on the same thing but you stole my thunder. I remember them saying 20 years ago it took 5-7 years to bring in a producing well. Now it’s ten. Probably thanks to all the environmental regulations.
If you’re going to quote Sarah Palin (“Drill here, drill now”), common decency suggests you should at least credit her.
You will never convince me, after the chaos creating actions of Obama and his minions over the last two+ years that these apparent actions of incompetence and ineptitude are not intentional.
Ditto.
Just keep in mind that he’s only the front man for the hidden agenda of his czars and the rubber stamp idiots in congress. Many have already exposed their arrogant ignorance but only voting records will reveal the sleepers. Vigilance is required. His hidden history has placed the ball in your court long before campaigns begin.
According to Robert Bryce author of “Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future,” The Four Imperatives — power density, energy density, cost and scale — ruthlessly police energy production and usage. “Green” energy violates every one of The Four Imperatives, and, without massive subsidies wouldn’t even be seen as an active player in a field dominated by fossil fuels.
What are “the Real Fuels of the Future?” According to Bryce, a self avowed manmade global warming agnostic, they are natural gas and nuclear. US gas and uranium reserves provide ample resources to power the country for a very long time while creating jobs which improve the economy. Finally, in the words of Robert Bryce, “If you are anti-carbon and anti-nuclear you are pro-blackout.”
When the northern(read liberal)states go through this coming winter with the high energy prices on tap, I predict doom for the Democrat party come 2012.
I will go one better than Bodell. Obama is intent on destroying this country. He listened to Jeramia all those years and learned well. Socialists and Marxists want to cause our downfall.
I cannot believe that BHO is allowed to get away with as much as he can to ruin this country. There’s got to be something in place to stop this madness. This one man is holding this whole country hostage to his agenda. Can every liberal that supports this nut case afford $4-$5 a gallon gas? So what are they going to do when they can’t afford it?
They will try to force us to afford it. Those European gods that Obama admires so were paying $8-$10 per 2 liters (gallon) at the pump, before this recent hike. Higher fuel prices also reinforce the Democrats’ and Greens’ agenda of making carbon energy more competitive with wind and solar power. How many times have you heard some lefty stating that fuel prices should be higher for our own good.
Those European gods that Obama admires so were paying $8-$10 per 2 liters (gallon) at the pump, before this recent hike.
No. 2 liters is not the equivalent of one US gallon. One gallon is 3.7854118 liters. In other words, it takes just under FOUR liters to make one gallon.
Can every liberal that supports this nut case afford $4-$5 a gallon gas? So what are they going to do when they can’t afford it?
Blame Bush. That’s the fall back position.
Obama told us that under his program utility bills would skyrocket. We elected him any way. And now it’s coming to pass.
If we survive long enough to vote him out in 2012, it’ll be a miracle.
Obama is nothing but the current face of the Democrat Party. The Party is pulling his strings, and it is their agenda.
Obama’s more than an empty suit; He’s also an empty skull.
This is so tiresome. People need to stop expecting President Kim Il Obama to act like he has the best interests of our country as his primary objective. He is a marxist and is in bed with his fellow marxist environmentalists and the last thing he will do is allow any kind of drilling to increase the domestic supply of oil. He wants higher gas prices which he thinks will force Americans to use expensive, worthless green energy, and will also make mass transit including high speed rail popular. Look for the media to suddenly start touting the economic benefits of mass transit versus the freedom of using one’s own car and stupid Americans will swallow the lie without bothering to take the effort to realize that another slice of their freedom has been taken away.
Here’s a rule of thumb regarding Obama’s future actions regarding this nation, if it is harmful to our standard of living, liberties, and national security then you can bet on him to take that course of action. The mainstream media, which shares his hatred of this country, will back him up no matter what destructive policies he implements.
As for the Republicans, they have yet to prove that they got the message in November 2010 and are still acting like members of the ruling class elites. Why are they not using this crisis, like in never let a good one go to waste, to paint Obama as the chief architect of a disastrous energy policy. The silence is deafening.
Its apparent that Barack Obama is pleased with the increase in gasoline prices. His policies are: no drilling, no exploring, no mining, no agriculture, and no fishing. He is draining our economy of its vitality.
This is not due to incompetence, but planned constraint and decline.
Anyone who voted for Barack Obama had to see this coming. He said he was going to redistribute your wealth and make your electricity bills necessarily skyrocket. His plans are playing out before our eyes.
I am constantly amazed at the Republicans(and some Dems) who are not speaking up for the American people. I can count a few consistent voices out there like Bachman, Palin, King-ever since the Gulf oil spill he has practically shut down the industry.
http://potterwilliamsreport.com/2011/02/28/americans-throttled-at-the-pump.aspx
It doesn’t look good. Millions of Americans still depend on the 90% leftist media, and many pay no attention at all. Undoubtedly Obama is trying to destroy America, the real problem is, the media agrees. Scan the NY Times, as an example they hardly want a penny reduced from the destructive budget and deficits.
Maybe a difficult concept to grasp for Normal People, but it’s total hate unleashed. Don’t think so? Keep your eye on the ball.
Wake up friends,and quit listening to the liberal media,listen and see what’s happening ! Use your common sense .You’re not that ignorant.
And I repeat my comment of last week that, according to an impartial, Christian Minister working in the oil fields, there are oil wells oil that are even drilled and capped on Alaska’s north coast the oil from which has been deliberately kept out of the supply chain.
It seems that any environmental reasons for not using the oil are mainly excuses for not using the oil and that the real reasons are to do with the impoverishment and subjugation of the American people.
I urge someone to investigate this.
It’s only “astonishing” if you are clueless about his Marxist agenda.
There’s no reason to be – he’s talked and written about it plenty.
I don’t look for an improvement in our energy supplies, the economy, or anything else until we get rid of that ideological, anti-capitalist bunch in the White House. I only hope we’re not in a world war before then.
Mr. Everley’s article is poorly researched. As an example, we have 4.6 million acres under lease here in Colorado for oil & gas development. Much of it is undeveloped, or wells that have been capped, by industry. You want “drill here, drill now;” then talk to the energy companies. Why should industry get more land for exploration when they’re not developing what they already have?
Mr. Everley doesn’t tell you that there is no economically viable means to develop oil shale. Production of even 100,000 barrels per day would require a new power plant the size of the existing largest plant in Colorado. You want 200,000 barrels, then two power plants. The most promising technology is very water intensive. Where will the water come from? The Colorado River already is over appropriated.
You want nuclear? That means mining for uranium; and dealing with the 1872 Mining Act. The long obsolete act allows companies to patent claims for a few dollars per acre, regardless of the value of the minerals. Oil, gas, coal companies all pay royalties to the US Treasury (i.e., the taxpayers) for what they extract on OUR land. Hard rock mining companies pay nothing. This act is in need of major reform.
#12 Patty Mor: “His (Obama’s) policies are: no drilling, no exploring, no mining….” Prior to the start of the big recession in 2008, energy companies were sitting on over 60 million acres of undeveloped oil & gas leases, both onshore and off-shore. Yes, there is a moratorium on off-shore drilling right now because “drill, baby, drill” turned into “spill, baby, spill.” Suggest you read John B.’s comments in #16 about wells being capped. Maybe the energy industry will uncap wells and start producing when gas reaches $5 per gallon.
Just because a land has been leased to an energy company does not mean it can use the land to produce energy. The lefty lawyers/wacko greenies you support have stopped all the production from those leased lands.
“Mr. Everley doesn’t tell you that there is no economically viable means to develop oil shale.” Nice try but since oil shale production is still relatively new it USED to be prohibitively expensensive but the cost has decreased dramatically since the 1980s.
‘“spill, baby, spill.”’ Cute but ineffective as an argument. The Odummer response to the spill was not to let an “crisis” go to waste. As for the crisis part, the spill was negligible in scope and damage. But it was the perfect excuse for you, the left, and greenies to further damage our energy producation capability.
Blotto: you’re funny. You think I support wacko greenies & lefty lawyers. Republicans for Environmental Protection happens to be one of the groups I do support. They’re a conservative organization in the historical tradition of T. Roosevelt, Goldwater, Reagan. If you actually lived here in the Intermountain West, you’d understand that the only thing preventing production from most of the leased lands is the failure of the companies to produce. The so-called greenies and lefty lawyers aren’t doing much of anything. And why would you assume that lawyers are necessarily “lefty.” To conserve is conservative.
Not to imply that Obama is a Nazi or any other form of socialist using the power of state to manipulate industries and economies for a long term goal of socio-politico-economic re-organization, but…
The BP spill was probably as close to the Reichstag burning as Obama et al were going to get for their intended purposes of energy/economy conversion while undermining the political power of the oil industry.
Again, not a conspiracy theory (though there are some out there). This is about poor management and lackadaisical application of safety protocols. It is simply lucky for the Democrat’s and their agenda that it happened. Of course, it helped considerably that BP’s head came across as a completely arrogant, irresponsible corporate jackass that was only interested in protecting their own profits and screw “the little people”.
On the other hand, the idea that this one incident or any of the comparatively few others over the course of the entire history of oil production in the world is a case for destroying the industry is just straight ridiculous. it is simply the cry of the left who are eating up their leader’s BS while Obama and company swill at the Big Energy trough and sell the American free economy out from under us.
But, please, let’s keep covering our eyes, ears and mouth so we “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil”.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on the economics of extracting usable oil from oil shale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_economics There is considerable discussion over the point at which oil shale becomes commercially competitive in price with traditional oil. Even the most pessimistic of these estimates, US $95/barrel, are being exceeded by current oil prices. In other words, if oil prices stay over $100/barrel, oil shale is profitable TODAY by even the most pessimistic assumption about the cost of producing it.
But various projects are anticipated to – or are actually bringing in – usable oil from shale for much MUCH lower prices, as low as $12/barrel. That means that THOSE projects have the potential to be MASSIVELY profitable TODAY and will remain profitable as long as gas prices exceed prices for traditional oil that we are unlikely to ever see again. Or does anyone seriously imagine that oil prices will again come down to the $12/barrel level?
It sounds to me like private investors should be getting into shale oil extraction in a big way RIGHT NOW. It will obviously take some time to ramp up production to the necessary levels so the smart investors should get moving. We should also start negotiating purchases from companies in other friendly countries like Australia and Canada that are producing that oil already. That should definitely drive prices downward and increase oil security.
We should also expect to see an increase in environmental damage because oil shale recovery is not yet particularly clean. But that too can be handled with careful attention to the engineering and sufficient investment.
Quoting Wikipedia in a serous discussion is the intellectual equivalent of shouting, “Oh, YEAH?!?!”
As a recognized expert in my own field, I have given up trying to correct the misinformation in Wikipedia. I have abandoned it to the kiddie fan-boys. They have the numbers and the power to keep things the way they want them, truth be dammed. And this is in a technical field.
It’s even worse in any area that is in the least political.
You may find a nugget of info there from time to time, but to rely on Wikipedia is foolish.
I have my qualms about Wikipedia too. Edits I’ve attempted over simple, uncontroversial corrections have been discarded/reversed for no reason I can conceive. I did not mean to cite Wikipedia as if it were a final authority on anything. In fact, it was more in the spirit of saying that if even Wikipedia says that shale oil can be extracted for a worst-case scenario price of $90/barrel, then the real price of extraction is probably much lower and the potential profit is much higher than Wikipedia would let on. But I thought it might be too cynical to phrase it like that too overtly.
Do you know of any source where I could get a more accurate estimate of the cost of extracting oil from shale? I’m very curious to know but I know very little about petrochemical engineering so I have no idea where to get more trustworthy information.
I was told the same about capped proven wells, by a petro geologist friend. Well, economic realities, and regulations, are part of business decisions, I don’t know the why’s.
My valley is fighting the imposition of a giant solar panel installation. The absurdities of green energy are equalled by the harm they impose on neighbors and the land. Green jobs are a joke.
And the “10 years til we get the oil” is downright childishness. If a farmer said, land prep and growing will take 6 months to get crops, that’s too long, so I won’t grow – we’d all starve to death. If I said, going to the grocery store takes 2 hours (more, I’m rural) so I won’t go shopping – I’ll go hungry tonight.
Green energy in no way can meet our needs in 10, or 20, or … years.
Our families farms and ranches have over a 100 capped oil and gas wells from the late 50 and early 60′s. They exist everywhere especially, in the Plains States. They are part of the national strategic reserve. The populist rhetoric when speaking to the nations oil reserve is the ‘tanked’ reserve and after Bush 43, increase, still reamains a sad
700 + MILLION barrels of oil. Most old timers living in the areas of where the oil and gas reserves are, knows the facts. After the U.S. seismic folks developed the Arab and gulf off-shore oil fields it was cheap to buy the foreign oil and save the American oil fields. Then, systemically the global economy changed and it became popular for the U.S. to sell its off-shore oil on the global markets while still paying discounted prices for the Arab oil. Then that game came to a halt when the Arabs formed OPEC and took back control of the global oil markets. Now, we are where we are still playing the oil game…at least domestically while sitting on an estimated 200-300 years of supply.
Interesting article Henry. Thanks for the reference. But read the fine print about the energy and water issues. Shell had planned to buy water rights in the Yampa River basin to the north of the Piceance, where their experimental plants are. However, they stopped that plan due to local opposition and the matter of existence or not of any unappropriated rights. Shell does have some water rights, but they aren’t all senior rights.
Private investors already are involved. There are pilot projects underway in all three states; and some of the companies have private land they are using. Doesn’t really matter all that much what the companies say now about the economics as the pilot projects aren’t completed yet.
The environmental damage is another key. Outdoor recreation and tourism provide far more jobs in the oil shale states than does energy extraction. Mr. Everley also commented on the Obama Administration withdrawing energy leases. Some of those were near Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument.
Obama campaigned as a high energy cost candidate and people still voted for him. He had no desire or motivation to move his position. Too much money is being made by people that support him. Too much damage is being made to the nation that thrills some people who support him.
Why fix something that isn’t broken in his eyes.
Now people, think about it. Would you rather live on a beautifully pristine planet in dugouts and tents and caves and neat places like that with running water in the streams and hearty fires to heat up the rabbits and racoons that you catch with clever traps, and plenty of healthy plants to wipe up with after you do your you know….or in asthma inducing oil fired, co2 spewing houses and driving behemoth iron vehicles that spew poison into the atmosphere, and with nasty indoor toilets that consume tons of water that the plants and animals need to survive.
Well I think the answer is obvious. If you are a rednect racist empirialist you should be delighted with the pristine tents and hearty fires, but if you’re a sophisticated intellectual leader of the masses, you pretty much have to hold your nose and use the toasty houses and iron behomeths just so you have enough time to keep the peons in line and manage your harems.
FOLKS, Its difficult to (UNLESS YOU ALREADY FOUND THEM? GUILTY) wade through all the charges and counter charges, opinions, pontifications etc. of the amount of recoverable oil (pick your price point $50.00 – $150. per barrel) left in the ground of the lower 48, the Gulf of New Mexico, Canada, Alaska etc. But it is by any measure substantial.
What is no longer debatable (I believe) are these facts.
1. We have to cut down to size the environmental lobby to have a prospering economy
2. We have to primary (think Tea Party) those of both parties who will not sign -forth coming pledges that we citizens will insist upon to cut Government, cut departments, cut spending!
3. It appears the Democrat party has no sense of economics.(the GOP not much better to date) Since the majority of we citizens do has a sense of economics. It is likely the 2012 primary season will be, “Robust” for both parties.
4. We have to survive this government and this congress through 2012.
5. We can and will reverse this idiocy in the next cycle.
5. We are about to find out whether the GOP has a yellow streak if they do?, Bye Bye
Both parties ought to really be checking their “6″
It’s not about the oil or even “energy independence”. It’s about electricity, the big conglomerates and their investors that banked Obama’s senatorial and presidential campaigns and their attempts to a) use federal government to enforce “deregulation” on the states to allow them to expand and monopolize their markets; b) obtain government tax breaks, subsidies and guaranteed loans to improve their plants and transmission lines (upgrades their own capital management and investors would not support as too risky with little return) c) use federal government to mandate use or enact incentive’s to increase the use of electricity for vehicles and other “fossil fuel” mechanics (clean energy for government facilities and fleets supplied by none other than these very large energy corporations who are putting up a few wind farms and one or two “clean coal” plants to satisfy this alleged movement as well as forcing the fossil fuel auto industry to convert, ending in massive layoffs, reduced production, major profit loss, near destruction, government bailout and, yeah, part of the deal was to start manufacturing hybrid or total electric cars); d) created a major industrial-political group that has increasingly supported both the Democrat Party and the last Presidential candidate (Obama) with money in direct competition of the Republican oil base.
And, it isn’t just about these individual companies (like Commonwealth Edison, Exelon, Con Edison, Con Edison SoCal, etc). The major holders for these “investor owned” corporations include UBS, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, etc. Ask yourself why these companies’ names ring a bell.
All of them received bailout money, all of them (their PACs, individual employees and executives) were major donors for the Obama presidential campaign as well as his earlier senator race out of Chicago (ComEd’s and Exelon’s home base) where one of his few accomplishments was voting for the 2005 Energy Bill. A bill these energy companies knew was coming up, supported Obama to become a Senator for the purpose of shaping and passing the bill. (And this is just the top of the iceberg for the Obama and friends connections to “Big Energy”).
What was in the 2005 Energy Bill? It was lambasted as once again giving “Big Oil” tax breaks and incentives, but the majority of the bill dealt with and gave a collective majority of tax breaks, incentives and “guaranteed federal loans” to energy companies ostensibly to build new energy efficient and “clean” energy plants or alternative energy (wind farms, solar, etc).
However, the most important part of the bill was the creation of the national interest electric transmission corridor. What this essentially does is bypass state regulation and control of energy production and transmission by creating a “national corridor” that allows the federal government to give right of way to any company to install huge underground transmission lines and begin supplying an entire region with electricity.
Ostensibly to create greater competition and reduce energy prices. It’s bogus on its face because it actually allows larger companies into markets where the competition actually cannot compete and would be forced out of business leaving the market at their mercy. For instance…
The first regional corridor established was between New York, New Jersey and the Philadelphia region. The important history here is that Exelon first tried to purchase PSEG, the major supplier of electricity and gas for New Jersey. It was thwarted by the NJ Board of Public Utilities that rightly feared the monopoly of Exelon and its sister “investor owned” corporation in New York ConEd over the Eastern Seaboard market. A problem that has been swept out of the way by Obama’s Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The same problem that is about to be swept away for ConEd SoCal in Southern California by the Southwest Corridor. Even though earlier attempts at deregulation in California contributed to the extremely problematic rolling blackouts in 2001 and 2005 and launched multiple investigations because ConEd was accused of manufacturing these blackouts for economic gain (ie, draining one area of electricity to provide to another, more lucrative area and artificially driving up the rate per watt).
Anyone looking at their electricity bill over the last two years will have discovered that this national move to “deregulate” energy (nonsense because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by title insinuates regulation) and create alleged competition to decrease the cost of energy has done no such thing. In fact, most energy bills have increased somewhere close to 50% or above.
What does this have to do with the rising price of oil?
First, look at the top ten “investors/holders” for these utilities, then find out who the major investors or providers of funds for these “speculators” driving up the price of oil futures. In 2008 right before the near collapse of the market, when oil futures began to rise at a phenomenal rate to $148/bbl, which companies and funds were buying at highly inflated rates or using proxies to do the same? Then proceeded to sell off at a “loss” causing the market to destabilize? If you guessed one of the top three investment firms listed above, you would be correct. Do you know who and what funds are “speculating” now?
What would be the purpose of artificially inflating and then destabilizing the oil market? What’s the purpose of inflating it now when oil reserves are still relatively high, technology to extract it cheaply is available and refining even the most “crude” crude oil has become easier?
First, to create a national priority for a change in energy dependency from oil to electricity/natural gas. Global warming as an imperative simply wasn’t being bought by the masses (Guess who the top investors of Al Gore’s Green Energy initiative are?). The only way to change consumers’ buying patterns is through their wallet.
Secondly, as oil remained rather cheap to produce (even in the midst/height of the middle east destabilizing Iraq war), barely rising above the higher rates of the 90′s (28/bbl) to around $36/bbl, “renewable” energy (like wind farms and solar energy) were costly and not very profitable in comparison. In fact, it does not become comparatively profitable until gasoline goes above $3/gal and stays there.
Even if it could produce the type of energy necessary to completely convert the economy, energy storage is short term at best and “expires” or dissipates if it is not immediately used. Meaning that, unlike oil that can be produced and stored over a long term, profit from unused energy literally dissipates into thin air.
Further, transmission lines would have to increase exponentially in size and numbers to deliver the necessary amount of electricity for this future conversion. Very, very costly and a long process. Something investors and the energy companies are unwilling to risk without substantial guarantees from the federal government from subsidies to tax breaks to loans and, most importantly for the future of a reliable, controlled investment platform that can only grow, a monopoly on substantial markets with captive consumers, increased, mandated utilization that negates the loss from necessary build out costs and unused energy production.
There are so many other ins and outs of this situation including deregulation of energy, the separation of energy production and energy delivery (much of which in areas like Chicago’s ComEd is corporate sleight of hand with production being sold to ComEd subsidiaries so ComEd can claim they are not making a profit, but passing on the costs of the producers to the consumers; producers who are essentially themselves) and the entry of smaller producers/suppliers trying to edge in on markets, that it is extremely complicated. Complicated situations make people’s heads spin. Spinning heads can rarely follow the path unless it is boiled down to simplistic slogans (like war for oil).
This does not necessarily imply some gigantic, centralized conspiracy of the greater Marxist/Socialist/Democrat Energy conglomerate to take over the United States. Complicated conspiracies usually fall apart early because too many people and too many interests are at play. It is the same reason that the giant conspiracy of “war for oil” was actually a bunch of mularkey.
Further, while there are enumerable connections amongst all the players, there are certainly no written documents, video or audio that actually supports a real conspiracy or greater plan for manipulation. then again, who is investigating it or reporting it?
It could simply be the convergence of market realities, investment planning, political desires and national interest. Maybe the “unstable” middle east and other unfriendly producer countries (like Venezuela) are a danger to our future energy stability. Maybe the probability of a growing China and India consuming greater energy resources could outstrip future production, cause oil prices to rise exponentially and be the precursor to future conflicts/collapses (world wars for resources; reminder of why the imperial Japanese objected to and tried to oust US projection of power into the pacific and is a continued cause of unease between Japan, China and North Korea).
the major problem here is the manipulation of the US economy and the continuing buying of the US government. Far from being a free economy and a free people allowed to make their own decisions (health, energy, transportation, etc) we are continuously manipulated by mercantilist, protectionist policies and opportunistic politicians (or surely, aside from substantial donations to political war chests, there is substantial evidence of collusion in a form of congressional insider trading that has allowed many to come to congress near paupers and leave millionaires or even create greater wealth; Pelosi as one example who is heavily invested in several “green energy” developments, the Obama’s as another; very little of which is investigated by any ethics committee because everyone would be under investigation).
One must find the irony in the left’s continuous insinuation that the right is bought and paid for by big oil money when it is obvious that the Democrats are up to their lying eyeballs in “filthy lucre”. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to be up to my eyeballs in “filthy lucre”. I just don’t think that the proper manner to do so is by getting elected to office and then using my legislative and executive power to empower and fund my investment vehicle of choice and insure donors for my long term employment as an “elected” representative. At the expense of the American citizen taxpayer and destruction of our republic and the free market.
Republican “Big Oil” and Democrat “Big Energy”, name your poison, we’re being screwed right and left. In the name of national security or whatever slogan fits the moment. The free market has been compromised.
Our founders must be rolling in their graves.
Actually, I don’t mind paying a higher price for my fuel, from now until the presidential election; I consider it my cost to insure Obama’s defeat. And it looks to me like the most cost effective way to guarantee his downfall.
rome fell with in and so will we !!!
rome fell with in and so will we !!!