Oil Prices

[Lauren]

Woohoo!!

[RiversideGator]

Oil platforms good....mother nature bad.

Oil platforms necessary.  Mother nature largely unaffected.

[vicupstate]

Finding alternative methods of transportation and of energy generation are long term solutions.  We should be doing both.

Okay, so how about we do this.  We allow drilling off the coast of Florida, but beyond the sight of shore.  At the same time, we require progressively higher energy efficiency standards in Autos and homes, that will require a super-majority vote of Congress to repeal.  We require a minimum percentage of oil profits be channelled into funding alternative fuel development. Also, the feds will provide tax credits for alternative fuel research and development.  The feds will also reverse the current ratio of funding between highways and mass transit alternatives. 

The fear I have is that we will allow drilling in these restricted areas, while doing nothing to gain greater efficiencys or to develop alternatives.   In other words, instead of going on a diet, we just take out the waist of our pants, and start driving Hummers again.

Whichever candidate can convince me they would support and enact something similiar to what I describe above, will be the one I vote for.   Given that would be a 180 degree change from the current administration, I tend to think it is more likely to be Obama than McCain, but my mind is open to what each has to say.     



   

[RiversideGator]

Congress has just mandated higher fuel efficiency for vehicles and Bush signed the bill.

We need more nuclear as soon as possible in addition to additional drilling and encouraging the development of alternate sources of energy and transportation.

[jaxnative]

We require a minimum percentage of oil profits be channelled into funding alternative fuel development.

So we now start making more laws to confiscate business profits?  Why don't we channel the automobile industry profits?  Why not take a percentage of everyone's paycheck and pass it along to the alternative fuelers?  Why not take some of McDonalds and Burger King's profits and pass them along to the diet companies?  I wonder who the hell is going to pay for those confiscated profits?  If the alternative fuels industry is so promising I'm sure the venture capitalists and investors will be lining up to get in on the action.

It's damn disheartening to see the American spirit dying as the hand-wringing effiminates take control of our government and the mommy government crowd continues to grow.

[vicupstate]

We require a minimum percentage of oil profits be channelled into funding alternative fuel development.

So we now start making more laws to confiscate business profits?  Why don't we channel the automobile industry profits?  Why not take a percentage of everyone's paycheck and pass it along to the alternative fuelers?  Why not take some of McDonalds and Burger King's profits and pass them along to the diet companies?  I wonder who the hell is going to pay for those confiscated profits?  If the alternative fuels industry is so promising I'm sure the venture capitalists and investors will be lining up to get in on the action.

It's damn disheartening to see the American spirit dying as the hand-wringing effiminates take control of our government and the mommy government crowd continues to grow.

 
The auto companies are broke, in case you haven't noticed.  The oil companies are profiting off the situation, and they will have a replacement for the revenue FROM oil IF they develop the alternatives TO oil.  In other words, THEY will still have a business model and WE will have freedom from foreign oil.   

The Middle East has our security and our economy in a headlock as long as we are dependent on their oil.  I am willing to pay for the war on terror, but I'll be damn if I am going to continue to pay for BOTH sides. 

If Hitler had control over us to this degree, do you think FDR would have done nothing about it??    Would he have said "go shopping"?  No, he would have asked this country to unite, and sacrifice, and defeat our enemy.  In other words, the very things he DID do.  The very things that made defeat of the Axis powers our finest hour as a nation.  THAT was the American SPIRIT at it's noblest.  Of course, FDR wasn't an oil man was he? Nor was his VP.

We don't expect tank production to get venture capital funding.  This isn't just about the free market supplying Hummers to the compensating masses. It is about national security, with a cleaner environment as a side benefit.   


I'll tell YOU what is effiminate--not being willing to change our habits, and lifestyle for the COMMON good and defense of our country.  No one will ever call this generation the 'greatest' anything, except spoiled brats.

[jaxnative]

Methinks comparing the challenge of WWII to the present energy crisis is a BIT of a stretch.  I will tell YOU what, WWII was definately a challenge for the government and the people.  The main difference here is that the government just needs to get the hell out of the way and let some good ole American know how and motivation supply the proven and reliable raw materials this nation desperately needs for it's economy and security.  YOU change your lifestyle all you want.  In the American spirit, I'll continue to make my own decisions.

[RiversideGator]

Excellent piece in the WSJ today on the absurdity of prohibiting drilling in the US:

Drill! Drill! Drill!
June 12, 2008; Page A15

Charles de Gaulle once wrote off the nation of Brazil in six words: "Brazil is not a serious country." How much time is left before someone says the same of the United States?

One thing Brazil and the U.S. have in common is the price of oil: It is priced in dollars, and everyone in the world now knows what the price is. Another commonality is that each country has vast oil reserves in waters off their coastlines.

Here we may draw a line in the waves between the serious and the unserious.

Brazil discovered only yesterday (November) that billions of barrels of oil sit in difficult water beneath a swath of the Santos Basin, 180 miles offshore from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The U.S. has known for decades that at least 8.5 billion proven barrels of oil sit off its Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with the Interior Department estimating 86 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources.

When Brazil made this find last November, did its legislature announce that, for fear of oil spills hitting Rio's beaches or altering the climate, it would forgo exploiting these fields?

Of course it didn't. Guilherme Estrella, director of exploration and production for the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, said, "It's an extraordinary position for Brazil to be in." Indeed it is.

At this point in time, is there another country on the face of the earth that would possess the oil and gas reserves held by the United States and refuse to exploit them? Only technical incompetence, as in Mexico, would hold anyone back.

But not us. We won't drill.

California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill â€" in 1969.

We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of â€" the caribou.

In 1990, George H.W. Bush, calling himself "the environmental president," signed an order putting virtually all the U.S. outer continental shelf's oil and gas reserves in the deep freeze. Bill Clinton extended that lockup until 2013. A Clinton veto also threw away the key to ANWR's oil 13 years ago.

Our waters may hold 60 trillion untapped cubic feet of natural gas. As in Brazil, these are surely conservative estimates.

While Brazilians proudly embrace Petrobras, yelling "We're Going to Be No. 1," the U.S.'s Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama, promises to impose an "excess profits tax" on American oil producers.

We live in a world in which Russia's Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez use their vast oil and gas reserves as instruments of state power. Here, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid use their control of Congress to spend a week debating a "climate-change" bill. This they did fresh off their subsidized (and bipartisan) ethanol fiasco.

One may assume that Mr. Putin and the Chinese have noticed the policy obsessions of our political class. While other nations use their oil reserves to attain world status, we give ours up. Why shouldn't they conclude that, long term, these people can be taken? Nikita Khrushchev said, "We will bury you." Forget that. We'll do it ourselves.

Putin intimidates Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states and Poland with oil and gas cutoffs, while Chávez uses petrodollars to bankroll Colombian terrorists. Cuba plans to exploit its Caribbean oil fields within a long tee shot of the Florida Keys with help from India, Spain, Venezuela, Canada, Norway, Malaysia, even Vietnam. But America won't drill. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said just last month he's afraid of an oil spill. Katrina wrecked the oil rigs in the Gulf with no significant damage from leaking oil.

Some portion of the current $4-per-gallon gasoline may be attributable to the Federal Reserve's inflationary monetary policy or even speculators. But we can wave goodbye to the $1.25/gallon gasoline that in 1990 allowed a President Bush to airily lock away the nation's oil and gas jewels. This isn't your father's world of energy. New world powers are coming online fast, and they need energy. We need to get back in the game.

The goal shouldn't be "energy independence," a ridiculous notion in an economically integrated world. It's about admitting the need to strike a balance between the energy and security realities of the here-and-now and the potentialities of the future. Some of our best and brightest want to pursue alternative energy technologies, and they should be encouraged to do so, inside market disciplines. But let's at least stop pretending the rest of the world is going to play along with our environmentalist moralisms.

The Democrats' climate-change bill collapsed last week under the weight of brutal cost realities. It was a wake-up call. This is the year Americans joined the real world of energy costs. Now someone needs to explain to them why we â€" and we alone â€" are sitting on an ocean of energy but won't drill for it.

You'd think the "national security" nominee, John McCain, would get this. He's clueless â€" a don't-drill zombie. We may mark this down as the year the U.S. tired of being a serious country.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322872046666269.html

[RiversideGator]

Oh, and this is for Lauren:

[RiversideGator]

[Downtown Dweller]

Finding alternative methods of transportation and of energy generation are long term solutions.  We should be doing both.

Okay, so how about we do this.  We allow drilling off the coast of Florida, but beyond the sight of shore.    

China already is drilling 50 miles off shore

[vicupstate]

Methinks comparing the challenge of WWII to the present energy crisis is a BIT of a stretch.  I will tell YOU what, WWII was definately a challenge for the government and the people.  The main difference here is that the government just needs to get the hell out of the way and let some good ole American know how and motivation supply the proven and reliable raw materials this nation desperately needs for it's economy and security.  YOU change your lifestyle all you want.  In the American spirit, I'll continue to make my own decisions.

If that is the case, then STOP calling it a WAR   on Terror !!!   Are we at war or is that just a political slogan? 

This isn't just about paying more for gas.  It is about our dependence on our enemies, for both national security and economic stability. It's having to deal with the Middle East (not to mention Venezuela) for our very economic survivial.  That region has been a thorn in our side,  for my entire 44 years of life. Isn't it time to ditch that tar baby once and for all?

If it were only a matter of scarcity, the law of supply and demand WOULD be sufficient.  But that is not all that is at stake.

The Free Enterprize system is a wonderful thing, but it is not respondnent to national security or enviromental protection.  Believe it or not, some things don't just come down to dollars and cents or our personal 'wants'.  The free enterprize system didn't win WW2 or any war, or put a man on the moon, or turn a nation of renters into a nation of homeowners, and it did not educate the masses. 

Your 'I can do whatever I want, and to hell with the consequences for my world or my nation' is an entitlement mentality that illustrates what a weak willed nation we have become.  I guess the phrase 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country', is like speaking a foreign language to some people. 

Just like the coming crisis in SSN/Medicare, the SOONER we start to really deal with this problem, the less pain it will involve.  We didn't solve it in the '70's, we didn't solve it in the '80's, we didn't solve it in the '90's.  By waiting and doing nothing, the consequences have become greater than ever.  Maybe we need to FINALLY demand that our political system face this problem head-on and solve it.     

No one is saying we have to ration food and supplies or buy war bonds, like the greatest generation did. Just that we agree to certain changes in lifestyle, so we can be a freer and more secure nation.  If that means drilling in new areas, while ALSO requiring more efficiency and doing more to find alternatives, then it's worth it.


Believe it or not, some people actually believe that scarifice and unity for the common good actually builds CHARACTER.   Character in the nation and the individuals that live in it.  THAT is why Obama has such resonance.

 

[Lauren]

Oh, and this is for Lauren:

Oh, and this is for RiversideGator

[RiversideGator]

Good response.   

[RiversideGator]

Looks like public opinion is not with the Democrats on this one:

$4 Gasbags
June 12, 2008

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" â€" everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.

Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.

There are two separate moratoria on offshore drilling: One is a ban that Congress has attached to every budget since 1982, and the other is a 1990 executive order that President Bush has waived in only a few cases. Republicans made failing attempts to overcome both when they ran Congress, but current Democratic leaders and their green masters remain adamantly opposed. The new political opportunity amid record prices is to convince enough rank-and-file Democrats that they'll suffer at the polls if they don't break with this antiexploration ideology.

While energy "independence" is an impossible dream, there's no doubt the U.S. has vast undeveloped fossil-fuel deposits. A tiny corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contains an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil and would be the largest producing oil field in the Northern Hemisphere. Yet the Senate blocked that development as recently as last month. The Outer Continental Shelf is estimated to contain some 86 billion barrels of oil, plus 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Yet of the shelf's 1.76 billion acres, 85% is off-limits and 97% is undeveloped.

Engineers recently perfected refining solid shale rock into diesel or gas, which may amount to the largest oil supply in the world â€" perhaps as much as 1.8 trillion barrels in the American West. That's enough to meet current U.S. oil demand for more than two centuries. Yet as late as 2007, Democrats attached a rider to the energy bill that prohibits leasing the federal interior lands that contain at least 80% of America's oil shale. The key vote was cast by liberal Senator Ken Salazar from Colorado, of all places.

These supply guesses are probably conservative, because the only way to know for sure is to drill exploratory wells. Yet most of Alaska and offshore are cut off even from modern seismic testing. Many areas haven't been examined since the 1960s, when exploration technology was far more primitive. This has led to the believe-it-or-not situation in which the Chinese are prepping to drill in Cuban waters less than 60 miles off the Florida coast. American companies are banned from drilling in American waters nearby.

Yes, we know, increased drilling is no energy cure-all; new projects take about a decade to come on line. Then again, more than a few experts say that new production could affect price as the market perceives a new U.S. seriousness to increase supplies. Part of today's futures speculation is based on the assumption that supplies will remain tight for years to come, even as Chinese and Indian demand surges.

Nor would merely repealing the exploration bans be enough. Between 2000 and 2007, the drilling of exploratory oil wells climbed 138%, but over the same period domestic crude oil production decreased 12.4% and fell to the lowest levels since 1947. Refineries for gasoline are stretched to the limit, but multiple regulatory barriers impede new construction or even expansions at existing facilities. Then there is the inevitable lawsuit downpour from the environmental lobby.

Democrats are going to have to grow up. The oil-rich areas they want to leave untouched are accessible with minimal environmental disturbance, thanks to modern technology. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn't cause a single oil spill. As for anticarbon theology, oil will be indispensable over the next half-century and probably longer, like it or not. Airplanes will never fly on woodchips, and you won't be able to charge your car with a windmill for some time, if ever.

Public anger over fuel prices could hardly come at a worse time for the GOP, since voters tend to blame a flagging economy on the party that occupies the White House. But the opportunity is to offer a reform alternative to Barack Obama and the high-price energy status quo he embraces. It looks like the public is increasingly ready for . . . change. In a May Gallup poll, 57% favored "allowing drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas now off limits." Just 20% blamed the increase in gas prices on Big Oil, like Mr. Obama does.

Recent weeks have seen some GOP stirrings on Capitol Hill, but John McCain has so far refused to jettison his green posturings, such as his belief in carbon caps and his animus against offshore development. A good reason for a rethink would be $4 gas. At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322599645166029.html