Wednesday, May 14, 2008

We Could, But We're Not Producing Oil. WHY?

Cal Thomas has published a column which explains a lot. In Defense of 'Big Oil' is a good example of why we pay more than we should. The cause is our Congress (particularly Democrats) and the Environmentalists.
Senate Democrats last week sought to ingratiate themselves with voters, while doing nothing to produce more energy, with a familiar attack on "big oil." They want to repeal $17 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies over 10 years and on top of that impose a windfall profit tax on companies that don't invest in new energy sources. This is political expediency at its worst.
Oil Companies are spending LARGE sums of money on alternative energy research.
Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, told me it's a myth that oil companies are not investing in new energy sources. He says last year alone, Chevron spent $20 billion exploring new sources of energy. [Emphasis mine]
A windfall tax will result in less being spent on energy alternatives. Yet one of the biggest problems is the lack of Congress to allow Oil Companies to search, produce and market KNOWN DOMESTIC Oil Reserves
Robertson said there would be plenty of oil available to the United States if the oil companies were allowed to get it: "Eighty-five percent of offshore oil is off-limits." Responding to objections to offshore drilling by environmentalists and their allies in Congress, Robertson noted that some of the strongest pro-environment nations in Europe - he mentions Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom - lease offshore locations for oil exploration. The technology has become so good, he said, that during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, "one thousand offshore wells were destroyed (in the Gulf of Mexico), but not one leaked." Australia, he said, has allowed offshore drilling for 40 years without any environmental damage. [Emphasis mine]
Note that 1,000 offshore wells were destroyed, but not one leaked. If this isn't enough, the Environmentalists (with the help of Congress) have prevented construction of new refineries. In fact no new Refinery Capacity has been constructed in the US since 1976. That's 32 years, and demand is going up!

How much Domestic Oil is Available?
According to government estimates, there is enough oil in areas accessible to America - 112 billion barrels - to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. [Emphasis mine]
But we can't touch it, because the Environmentalists, with the aid of CONGRESS, have made such a fuss about so little.
... the Alaskan pipeline was built despite protests from environmentalists who claimed it would destroy the caribou. It didn't, but the environmentalists are back with the same discredited arguments. Because most of the oil remains "off-limits," we are becoming more dependent on foreign oil.
More things to think about when you fill your tank as I did last night at $3.839 and when you vote. That price is for Regular folks and some stations here are as high as $4.079 this morning.

If Congress was really serious about the Gas Price, wouldn't (and Shouldn't) they do more to allow Domestic production and Domestic Refining?

I need to point out the obvious. WE ELECT OUR CONGRESS.

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