Sounds suspiciously like what America says to illegal immigrants: We prefer not to pick our strawberries, so please do it for us, thereby lowering labor costs for our benefit. You could throw rendition into that template as well: We prefer not to torture our prisoners, so please torture them for us, thereby lowering moral culpability for our benefit. George Will claims we've gotten the gas prices we deserve because drilling in ANWR was opposed and vetoed by President Clinton in 1995? BTW - I'm all for drilling in ANWR!
No his point is that gas prices are high because American politicians keep getting in the way and interfering in the market.
Aside from being an ANWAR promo piece with a tad of political bent thrown in the complaint is against Uncle Sam not funding a $100 million oil probe hundreds of miles SW of New Orleans and for allowing China, in cooperation with Cuba, to drill closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are drilling. Keep in mind I've been qualified by no less than the articles author himself.
You're right. And regardless of how "tired" we are all of various people bringing up this point, the situation is NOT going to get better with either Obama or McCain. I believe they've both voted against opening up ANWR and they don't seem very like to allow American companies to drill off American shores. Does that make any sense? I wish someone would explain it to me if it really does.
Government shouldn't pay for it. And its the government that is preventing US companies from drilling off South Florida. It's government that won't let new refineries be built. It's government that gets in the way of nuclear energy. (Hell the government is even getting in the way of itself in regards to Yucca Mountain.) In short government is in the way of energy production. Me too!
So Will, Schumer, and a bunch of other idiots vastly overstate the effect a temporary extra million barrels a day of supply would have on oil markets, and they each do so in a way most appropriate to their traditional political posturing. This is news? Really, there's been remarkably little speculation in the oil markets recently. There's no private hording of pumped oil in the hopes of later real going on at all, yet prices continue upwards. Marginal increases in supply will have negligible effects on current prices and marginal effects on private and strategic reserves and future prices. Of course Saudi oil, which can be pumped relatively cheaply with current technology, will have that same effect on future prices if it's pumped today and held in private reserves until tomorrow as it will have if it's simply pumped tomorrow. And ANWR oil, which is more expensive both to pump and to refine, will probably do a better job of reducing prices if pumped in the future as refining and pumping technologies improve. The ANWR oil will stay where it is, and so long as we continue to use oil, it can always be tapped in the future for a likely greater benefit than if it's tapped today. And if, of course, we make enough progress on alternative energy, new drilling in the ANWR will be obsolete because alternative energy will be cheaper and the ANWR will remain untapped, making everyone happy.
Versus actual US consumption the reserves Will is talking about are practically nil. A millions barrels a day would still leave us getting 95% of our oil from other sources. 15 billion barrels would only cover US consumption for around 2 years.
Except those of us that have to drive, fly, or consume anything shipped, driven, or flown in the mean time.
Oil Import Highlights Monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports shows that five countries have each exported more than 1 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States. Including those countries, a total of five countries exported over one million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for approximately 77 percent of United States crude oil imports. Total crude imports averaged approximately 9 million barrels per day. The top sources of US crude oil imports are: Canada (17.2%) Mexico (12.4%) Saudi Arabia (10.7%) Venezuela (10.4%) Nigeria (8.1%) ----------------------------------------------------- The rest of the top ten sources, in order, are: Angola (500 thousand barrels per day) (6% of imports) Algeria (500 thousand barrels per day) (6% of imports) Iraq (500 thousand barrels per day) (6% of imports) Ecuador (250 thousand barrels per day) (2.5% of imports) Kuwait (250 thousand barrels per day) (2.5% of imports) http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm
Huh. Interestingly enough, I read a couple weeks ago that if Bubba hadn't vetoed drilling in Alaska ten years ago, we'd be pumping a million gallons a day out of there right now. [Whoops. I guess I should'a read the rest of the article first. ]
Or buy anything made with petroleum products. Like the computer you're typing on, the telephone sitting next to it, the carpet in your living room, that PVC shower curtain, that nylon windbreaker...
Amazing. If both those things had happened gas would be at least $1/gallon lower right now. AND, if we'd really taken over Iraq's oil fields, we'd have gas at .50/gal. What have we been thinking?
This forces me to imagine the petroleum in the area as one massive pocket of oiliness that's just waiting for someone to suck it up through a straw. I suspect there's some verbal skulduggery going on here. Maybe there would be more drilling inland?
You or me one is losing some reading compmrehension and I'm not thinking it's me. Will was saying on that point (the $100 million) that where is the logic in raising taxes on companies who have to lay out that kind of expenditures to grow their resources. He's not AT ALL calling for the government to fund it. As for being unhappy with the China/Cuba thing....isn't that more of "Congress needs to get out of the way and let us drill"? Hell, the Commies are likely tapping the same reserve down there WE can tap....that means every gallon of oil they pump while the morons stand in our way Iis a gallon we will never get to. It's insanity!
So, in every thousand barrels... 420 from the US 100 from Canada 72 from Mexico 62 from SA 60 from Venezuela 47 from Nigeria 35 each from Angola, Algeria, and Iraq 29 combined from Ecuador and Kuwait 105 from all others Al the progress we can make towards taking all but the top 2 or 3 off that list is a good thing, period. It's that simple. Starting with hostile governments then moving to potentially hostiles and etc.
Whoops. Off the teat, I say. I wonder with how many day's worth of oil consumption we could make real progress into the right direction. 10? 20?
The very fact that volpone agrees with the original post and volpone is a half wit, should say it all.
Some people don't get the concept of "world market" The U.S. has 100% of its oil prices set by the world market. Bear's 58% number isn't just irrelevant to this argument; it's irrelevant to pretty much all arguments.
And before people start yammering about futures speculation: That's right: July delivery futures had the exact same jump as same day delivery spot prices.
Well.....how about something real simple: the Dem Congress complained about gas prices and promised to "do something" I am paying today just about twice per gallon what I was paying last spring. Gee, thanks Nanc'!
