Maybe this is why the Govt won't allow drilling for oil?

[Brucelee]

Now I get why liberals hate cars so much that their prophet Al Gore denounced the internal combustion engine as the greatest threat in the history of mankind. The obsession with extravagantly expensive light rail boondoggles is starting to make sense too. Terence Jeffrey explains:

No device is more in keeping with the American spirit than the automobile. Privately owned cars and trucks allow us to go where we want, when want. They are freedom machines.
Still, some liberals would like to use government to force Americans out of their cars. They believe in socialized transportation, not free-market transportation.
In a free-market transportation system, a person purchases his own vehicle with his own money, buys his own gas with his own money and can drive his vehicle anywhere there is a road — and, if he has the right kind of vehicle, some places where there are no roads.
In contrast,

In a socialist transportation system, the government takes the taxpayers' money and purchases vehicles — often buses or trains — for itself or a government-funded agency. Where and when these vehicles go is determined by the government.
This helps explain why bureaucrats have been pushing gas prices through the ceiling with their excessive taxes and restrictions on drilling and building refineries.

Artificially suppressing the oil supply is the most significant method government is using today to move people from a free market transportation system into a socialized transportation system.
In May, the Department of Interior estimated that U.S. territory contains about 139 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources, much of it (85.9 billion barrels) off our coasts on the Outer Continental Shelf. Development of most of this oil is either forbidden or effectively prevented by federal laws and regulations.
Also in May, when the Federal Highway Administration released its monthly report on "Traffic Volume Trends," it revealed that Americans had driven 4.3 percent fewer miles in March 2008 than they had in March 2007. This was the fifth month in a row that Americans had driven fewer miles than they had in the same month the previous year.

[gmboxster]

AMEN ! However those same idiot politicans dont mind using their private jets and Limos to go wherever they please, and oh yeah, paid for by us Taxpayers. :mad:

[Brucelee]

AMEN ! However those same idiot politicans dont mind using their private jets and Limos to go wherever they please, and oh yeah, paid for by us Taxpayers. :mad:


Perhaps we need another American Revolution?

[Perfectlap]

While I have investments that would GREATLY benefit from more drilling, I don't for a second believe it will lower our gas prices. Not unless they nationalize the new oil and DEMMAND that it be used to fuel domestic consumption. Otherwise all that ANWAR oil and all the other new finds will be sold to the highest bidder (that aint us). If we increased worldwide supply, OPEC will simply tighten the spigot to keep prices from drawing down....cartels tend to that.

In the end new drilling will be VERY profitable for the Big Oil complex and its investors (me) but the average American is unlikely to see lower prices.

This is Wall St. vs. Main St. plain and simple.

The average Chinese or Indian consumes 2 barrels of oil a year.
Americans by contrast consume 27 barrels. What do you think the chances are that Asian consumption ramps up 2 or 3 times their current levels in a hurry?
Big Oil is under ZERO obligation to sell us their tasty new oil discoveries. If anything your gas prices could go up to pay for the ginormous expenditures required to drill offshore and in ANWAR. Those expenses aint coming out their profits! A perfect parallel is U.S. wheat. We have PLENTY to go around but the market is making more feeding the hungry mouths of India and China and the other emerging markets, probably the Europeans as well since its so cheap with a strong Euro. Less of OUR wheat becomes available to us and flour producers then have to charge you $5 for a loaf of bread. Same thing will happen with gasoline. New drilling goes right into the pipeline headed West, wayyyy West.

[senna21]

:rolleyes: The oil companies have had the fix in from day one. If you think it's the GOV get a clue. The GOV has been run by the Republican majority since what, 95 and with a Rep Pres since 2000. If you think these clowns (Democrats included) who've deregulated the banks (Thanks Pres Clinton and Rep Congress) leading to the housing meltdown and thrown the once balance budget into red ink sending the dollar plummeting have the wherewithal to conspire to raise oil prices to get you out of your car your an idiot. Oh, and you do know oil is tied to the dollar don't you? So as the Rep President and Congress pork-barreled their way into red ink along with the war spending that weakened dollar, along with that war, and a growing China and India (not to mention other emerging third world countries) has caused the rise in oil prices.

Now as a note it is known that cities such as Los Angeles, where I live, used to have a wonderful trolley system for getting around the city much like San Francisco. But the oil, tire and car companies did conspire and did get rid of it as they saw it as a viable alternative to their products.

I have many European relatives with wonderful public transportation and none of them are prevented from using that or if they'd rather, drive their car.

As gas is now $4.89 a gallon (premium) here I wish I cold take the subway or train to work and just drive my car on the weekend. As it is it takes me an hour to go the 11.5 miles to work.

I suggest you focus your rage where it belongs.

[Brucelee]

While I have investments that would GREATLY benefit from more drilling, I don't for a second believe it will lower our gas prices. Not unless they nationalize the new oil and DEMMAND that it be used to fuel domestic consumption. Otherwise all that ANWAR oil and all the other new finds will be sold to the highest bidder (that aint us). If we increased worldwide supply, OPEC will simply tighten the spigot to keep prices from drawing down....cartels tend to that.

In the end new drilling will be VERY profitable for the Big Oil complex and its investors (me) but the average American is unlikely to see lower prices.

This is Wall St. vs. Main St. plain and simple.

The average Chinese or Indian consumes 2 barrels of oil a year.
Americans by contrast consume 27 barrels. What do you think the chances are that Asian consumption ramps up 2 or 3 times their current levels in a hurry?
Big Oil is under ZERO obligation to sell us their tasty new oil discoveries. If anything your gas prices could go up to pay for the ginormous expenditures required to drill offshore and in ANWAR. Those expenses aint coming out their profits! A perfect parallel is U.S. wheat. We have PLENTY to go around but the market is making more feeding the hungry mouths of India and China and the other emerging markets, probably the Europeans as well since its so cheap with a strong Euro. Less of OUR wheat becomes available to us and flour producers then have to charge you $5 for a loaf of bread. Same thing will happen with gasoline. New drilling goes right into the pipeline headed West, wayyyy West.


You make some valid points and I was not suggesting that the oil companies are our friends. They are in it to make a buck and that is fine. The govt on the other hand, does not have to help them.

To wit: It is not just oil that has been constricted on the supply side. Competing energy sources like natural gas, coal, nuclear have all been constricted. By who? By govt and the courts.

So, the oil companies have no competition from any other oil company nor any other energy source.

So, why pretel is that happening? Is the govt on our side or on the side of controlling our every movement?

I wonder, I just wonder.

[Brucelee]

:rolleyes: The oil companies have had the fix in from day one. If you think it's the GOV get a clue. The GOV has been run by the Republican majority since what, 95 and with a Rep Pres since 2000. If you think these clowns (Democrats included) who've deregulated the banks (Thanks Pres Clinton and Rep Congress) leading to the housing meltdown and thrown the once balance budget into red ink sending the dollar plummeting have the wherewithal to conspire to raise oil prices to get you out of your car your an idiot. Oh, and you do know oil is tied to the dollar don't you? So as the Rep President and Congress pork-barreled their way into red ink along with the war spending that weakened dollar, along with that war, and a growing China and India (not to mention other emerging third world countries) has caused the rise in oil prices.

Now as a note it is known that cities such as Los Angeles, where I live, used to have a wonderful trolley system for getting around the city much like San Francisco. But the oil, tire and car companies did conspire and did get rid of it as they saw it as a viable alternative to their products.

I have many European relatives with wonderful public transportation and none of them are prevented from using that or if they'd rather, drive their car.

As gas is now $4.89 a gallon (premium) here I wish I cold take the subway or train to work and just drive my car on the weekend. As it is it takes me an hour to go the 11.5 miles to work.

I suggest you focus your rage where it belongs.

There is not enough bile in the US to provide what is due the fed govt. These guys are liars par excelence, or absoutely incompetent, or both.

[silver arrow]

Both :D

It's funny, read articles from the turn of the last century and the automobile was praised as the solution for getting all of the horse crap out of the streets of our major cities, which was becoming a hug sanition and health issue. It couldn't have smelled very good either, though probably not much worse than the crap coming out of Washington now.

[gmboxster]

I too am not suggesting for a second that the oil companies are blameless. In fact quite the contrary. It is collusion at it's ugliest. However if anyone thinks the Government is not involved in this collusion, well then they are just naive. I would gladly take public transportation to work if it were an option, but it IS NOT. Oil companies and Gov have us by the balls. They know it and like it that way. :mad:

[Brucelee]

Junk Science: Greens Thwart Gasoline Production
Thursday, June 12, 2008

By Steven Milloy

E-Mail Print Share:

Four-plus-dollar gasoline is forcing Americans to realize that we need increased domestic oil production to meet our ever-growing demand for affordable fuel. But even if the greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they nevertheless are way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil ever eases our gasoline crunch.

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’ expansion of its Roxana, Ill., gasoline refinery, which processes heavy crude oil from Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The project would have expanded the volume of Canadian crude processed from 60,000 barrels per day to more than 500,000 barrels a day by 2015. After the Illinois EPA had approved the expansion, the green groups petitioned the federal EPA to block it, alleging ConocoPhillips wasn’t using the best available technology for reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Apparently, the plant’s planned 95 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and 25 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides wasn’t green enough. NRDC’s opposition is quite ironic since ConocoPhillips and the activist group actually are teammates in the global warming game. Both belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of eco-activist groups and large companies that is lobbying for global warming regulation.

RelatedColumn Archive
Junk Science: Greens Thwart Gasoline Production Junk Science: Time to Retire 'Denier'Junk Science: Poseur Shareholders Junk Science: Global Warming's New 'Consensus'Junk Science: McCain’s Embarrassing Climate SpeechFull-page Junk Science Archive
So even though ConocoPhillips is aiding and abetting the NRDC to achieve the green dream of absolute government control over the U.S. energy supply, the enviros still are in take-no-prisoners mode, refusing to allow the expansion of a single refinery.

Imagine what the rest of us can expect from the greens.

Meanwhile, in California, green groups are working through the state attorney general’s office to block the upgrade of the Chevron refinery in the city of Richmond. The $800 million upgrade essentially would expand the useable oil supply by permitting the refinery to process lower-quality, less-expensive crude oil.

California Attorney General, ex-Gov. and climate crusader Jerry Brown claims the upgrade will produce an additional 900,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. But Chevron says the upgrade actually will reduce the emissions by 220,000 tons.

Whose figure is closer to the truth?

It’s hard to know for sure at this point, but it’s worth noting that material false statements made by Chevron are prosecutable under the federal securities laws and California state law, while Brown and the activists pretty much can say whatever they want without legal accountability.

Whatever the facts are, Brown and the city of Richmond insist that Chevron eliminate 900,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions so that the upgrade will be "carbon neutral." While the greens remain vehemently opposed to the project, it seems their plans for blocking the refinery might go awry as Brown and the local government eventually may side with Chevron rather than the greens, but only because the company has deep pockets and is open to being shaken down.

Brown and the city have proposed that Chevron ensure that half the total emissions-reduction projects be undertaken on-site at the refinery and the other half be done either in the city of Richmond itself or elsewhere in California.

Translating the latter part of this "offer that can’t be refused:" Chevron essentially must purchase 450,000 tons of "carbon credits" annually from the city of Richmond or the state. As the street value of carbon credits is about $10 per ton, Chevron is being "green-mailed" to the tune of perhaps $4.5 million per year to upgrade its refinery — amounting to perhaps a 1 percent annual "tax" on the gains in gross revenue produced by the upgrade. And the local government officials are not the least embarrassed about this extortion.

"When you’re dealing with a refinery where the project will cost close to a billion dollars and someone like Chevron with tremendous resources, that’s not a constraint, so they should do everything possible," an unidentified state official told Carbon Control News in a June 9 article.

The farcical nature of the entire transaction is underscored by that state official’s apparent lack of understanding about how greenhouse gas-induced global warming is supposed to work.

The official told Carbon Control News that the greenhouse gas emission reductions "are vital to protect low-income minority communities in the Richmond area, which already suffer disproportionate pollution impacts."

Climate alarmism, of course, is based on the notion of global emissions causing global warming, not local emissions causing local warming; moreover, the allegation that low-income minority populations are disproportionately harmed by industrial emissions — the basis of the so-called "environmental justice" concept of the 1990s — hasn’t stuck since no scientific evidence supports it.

Though green and local government shenanigans can be a source of endless amusement, let’s get back to the main point. As the 2005 hurricane season dramatized, oil production, itself, is only one factor in determining gasoline supply and prices.

Damage to Gulf Coast refineries by hurricanes Katrina and Rita reduced gasoline supplies and increased prices worldwide — a real problem given that U.S. refineries operate at or near capacity thanks to other green constraints.

We may produce all the oil we need, but if we can’t refine it, then it won’t do much for reducing gasoline supply problems. So while working to expand domestic drilling, we’ll simultaneously need to expand domestic refining capacity.

It will be quite the Pyrrhic victory to finally produce oil from ANWR and then not be able to do anything with it.