Democrats FINALLY cave on domestic drilling

If I didn't know better, I'd swear I wandered into the Democratic Underground site.

High oil prices don't just drive up the price of gas, they drive up the price of practically everything you buy.

The argument against drilling being used today is the same argument that's been used for 30 years: "Drilling today won't bring down gas prices tomorrow."

No kidding!!! But do you think if we'd started drilling 30 years ago we'd have the prices we have now?

Instead, drilling opponents argue that we should pursue alternative energy sources. I have no problem with that, but that's not going to change anything by tomorrow, either.

As for oil companies, what additional profits they make with high prices is offset by reduced demand. And their profit is only 8 to 10 cents on the dollar, which is low for any industry.

We could have been building nuclear power plants over the last 30 years, but too many people saw a Jane Fonda movie and are scared.

As a country, we're nuts. We're burning our food for fuel (ethanol) while not allowing our natural resources to be tapped for fuel. Meanwhile food prices are soaring, the economy is suffering, and all of the blame gets laid on the president.
 
But do you think if we'd started drilling 30 years ago we'd have the prices we have now?
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Yes I think prices would be the same. We don't have a shortage now, there fore an increase in supply will not necessarily decrease price. If we had a shortage you would see gasoline retailers who had no gas to sell. There is plenty of gas. The price has been driven up by speculation, and by the realization by oil companies that prices had been too low for too long. They are still selling all they gasoline they can make at $4 a gallon. People are willing to pay that. An item is worth what people are willing to pay. People might not particulary like $4 a gallon gas, but if they are willing to pay for it, then the price is fair.

Also there are valid reasons from a standpoint of national security for us not to use up our domestic supply now just so we can have cheap prices. As world demand increases, and we use up everyone elses oil, our domestic supplies become more and more vital.

In 50 years, China will be fully industrialized. What if we get into a war with China? By then the Chinese Army could simply march into the middle east and many other countries and take the oil there. If we use our oil up now to get cheap prices, then our grandchildren will be trying to fight a war without a domestic stockpile of oil. Will you be proud to tell your grand kids you used up all our supplies to have cheap oil when you were young?

For now our oil should stay in the ground. We should explore, find the oil, drill wells, cap them, and save it for a rainy day, not use it up now so we can all continue to leave wasteful lifestyles.
 
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Cost of fuel at current prices =`s among the higher cost of everything, the unemployment average increasing rapidly. Unemployment due to the fact that truckers weren`t making enough money to pay truck payment cause it cost them $1200 everytime they fueled up,plus gotta make truck and ins. payment, lets don`t forget licenses. Wasn`t profitable to stay in bus. What about farmer? Personnal friend of mine farms a mere 350 acres. Fuel bill on weekly average,$4000/week. Where do you think he`ll make up that expense? We`ll see it at the grocery store. IMHO the Dems. will cave in on domestic drilling. Its election time. If Obama gets in White House, the Dems can take the glory for lowering gas prices, something the Reps. been wanting to do for years. Wouldn`t it be nice to have already found,drilled and capped oil wells and not drawn any oil but used ready to go wells as bargaining chips in the overseas oil market.
 
Personally, I think $6 a gallon gasoline, or higher, would be GREAT.

Even more food would be turned into fuel, with the eventual outcome being food prices would absolutely skyrocket, and it would cause a rapid die off amongst the poor.

That would take pressure off the food supply, and with fewer people to use gasoline and heating oil, the price would come down.

Then, we could turn all those corpses into biofuel.

You'd pull into a station and say "Fill'er up with Soylent Diesel, please!"

What's not to love about that kind of scenario?
 
I have never heard anyone ever say that this drilling will lower the cost of gasoline. Just the corporatist whores running to do the bidding of their true masters.

I am not anti-corporation. Quite the contrary. Capitalism = good.

But what I am against is the amount of influence that is bought when it comes to our govt. Ron Paul called it, "evil" and I tend to agree.

It is the opposite of capitalism for one company, like archer daniels midland for example (ethanol = high food prices), to have influence in govt. Corporate welfare is not capitalism.

Are these corporations citizens? Do they have any alliegance to this nation? Then why the incredible incfluence? Because we have the best govt $$$ can buy.

Listen to any (whore) analyst or politician when talking about anwr. "We have to drill in anwr!!! Why? Uhhhhhhh....."

Will it benefit the american people? This is the simple question that should be asked and answered anytime legislation or policy is considered.


Developing alternative sources is our ONLY hope. Wind, solar, water, nuclear to take the strain off of electrical / heating production via coal. Within a few years, nobody should be heating their home or lighting lights with coal produced electricity. That coal should be going toward making fuel.

The military is working hard on it last I knew. Maybe the coal breakthrough will come from there. If they can get oil from shale cheaper somehow, all the better. However, that doesn't mean that US oil will be sold in the US. It may well be on it's way from Montana (or wherever) or Canada to China.

Hybrids, electrics (powered by nuclear, wind, solar plants) and hydrogen will help take the vehicular demand down a few notches and honestly, getting off oil is the only way.

This revolution will be televised. Oh by the way, the jobboom will be incredible. Remember how many folks made millions on communications? How many jobs were created by that whole thing.

Stringing fiber optic cables, etc? That was nothing compared to this. It will take a bunch of worker bees to make this happen.

Will it cost some big $$$? Yep. But this is an opportunity for our govt to stop wasting money and use it for something that matters to americans. This effort should rival our effort in the WWII era. It is the most important issue for this nation, bar none. The economy rides on it and as the economy goes, so goes this nation.
 
armedtotheteeth

The oil companies are already rolling around in their profits like pigs in mud. The CEO of SHELL makes 750 million a year.
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Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer made around $10 million in salary and bonuses in 2007. But don't let that stop you from ranting.
 
How much will gas prices have to go up to before any of you say 'enough'? As long as we are willing to pay for it, they can raise the price to whatever they want. Have you asked neighbors to carpool with you to work or the store? Can you walk or ride a bike to the convenience store? Buy at the local farmer's market rather than the stores that truck in produce from across country? I know everyone can't make changes but that's how the system seems to work.

All I can do is ride my bike to work and walk as much as possible. Stay home or find entertainment locally.

It would be interesting to see the results of alternative energy if it were out of the hands of the oil companies,
 
Wheeeeeee!!!!! Don't you just love it when a plan comes together!!!

Now I can put on my Tinfoil, was copper but it got recycled, hat and have some fun.

The mention of oil resources and possible conflict over them in the Artic was first brought to my attention by the noted Psychic Jeanne Dixon easily 50 years ago. Looked into it but just didn't see where all this oil was supposed to be.

With respect to gasoline price/avalilability. If you absolutely insist that only petroleum based gasoline can be used in vehicles then you have closed your eyes to options that are available. If you rephrase your thoughts to Liquid Fuels suitable to use in present day engines with minor modifications only, then there are a number of options available.

Attended lecture by a Craig Venter(sic) who happens to be deeply involved with DNA research. One of the interesting things he talked about was a genetically modified bacterium which in the presence of H20, Heat, Pressure, and Carbon Dioxide gives off Hydrocarbons suitable for liquid fuels. Apparently they are building Pilot Plant at this time. So they have bacterium and are just in normal developement timeline.

Down Georgia way some good ol boy got gassed by cows flatuence and he remembered that this is a hydrocarbon that will burn. Since cows have the ability to digest all kinds of organic materials the georgia boy found the bacterium that did this in the cows digestive track and moved it into a factory type setting. With Methane you can apply well known and tested processes to convert to liquid fuel.

Out by Silicon Valley some other types have figured out way to do something similiar with a variety of Seaweed.

The ability to convert Coal into liquid fuel has been around since 1920's/1930's. Germans used process to fuel war machine in WWII. Most recently South Africa has been bringing plants online to produce liquid fuels. Info I caught in passing is that process becomes economically profitable around $40-$50 a barrel.

Shell Oil tried to expand their ability to drill and recover petroleum from the Colorado oilshale fields. Congress said "Not NO, But Hell NO!!" Stongly suspect that when Shell Oil patents on processes and equipment run out you will see these fields opened up. ;)

There are plenty of sources for energy, but most do not lend themselves to centralized control and again what we are looking at is not the framed issue, guncontrol anyone?, but the issue of how some small, selfselected elite desires to control others. And with that thought I have once again made this post Gun Related.:D
 
Unregistered and I see things quite differently. He seems to think if people will pay 4 bux or 6 bux for gas it is ok. I say it is wrong. People pay it because they have NO CHOICE. Most own automobiles and need to be able to drive to work.

Things like public transportation aren't available everywhere. And the idea of "we are paying less than other parts of the world" doesn't cut it either. Other countries that had high gas prices when we were lower also get things we don't like INSURANCE...

It is also my belief that the market is being manipulated by the "speculators".

Our nation is quickly becoming one of "haves" and "have nots". Actually quite similar to Europe in the 16th century.
 
Unregistered and I see things quite differently. He seems to think if people will pay 4 bux or 6 bux for gas it is ok. I say it is wrong. People pay it because they have NO CHOICE. Most own automobiles and need to be able to drive to work.
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Driving habits have not changed significantly. People are still going on vacation, making multiple trips per day that could be combined, and overall consuming basically the same amount of gas they always have. If $4 a gallon was a true hardship, recreational and unnecessary driving would decrease. We have not seen that.
 
I drive only what is neccesary, such as work, and home. I shoot alot less no simply because of cost of fuel to get where i hunt and shoot. I would say my driving habits have significantly changed. My poor ole truck gets less thn 3 miles a week on it now.

Oh, Jeroen van der Veer makes well over the measlily 10 million reported. Ill have to redig and find it again.

I know a few local oil and gas guys that spend that every year on aviation for recreation.
 
I do not like paying $4- a gallon either, but I work in the industry and high prices and opening up new fields is job security for me. Some one above said it would take 20 years to see these fields stat up. Do not bet on that. The general consensus out here among the company men is that the government was more than happy to see gas prices sky rocket to get exactly the legislation they just got to start exploiting the oil fields in Alaska, off of Florida and California. They knew they would never get approval for that until the planet huggers were outraged enough by gas prices. Hey this is just the scuttlebutt offshore, make of it what you will.
 
**Pumps gas into the 500 cid Caddy, the 454 M715, the 360 Dodge 3/4 ton and the 429 cid Caddy and wonders what all the fuss is about**

Gas is the price you pay for the ability to drive what you prefer.

Sadly there is the deeeper argument of increased cost reflected in food, etc, but you can stop worrying about that. Even though gas will almost certainly drop back to 2 or 2.50 a gallon after the election(still making the CEO's millions and the P'sTB billions) all those other prices are up to stay. They got there and you all still paid them, so the middlemen will be keeping the increased margin when fuel goes back down.

OTOH, anyone who "supports" $6 a gallon gas for the bizarre reasoning it will stimulate alternatives needs an economics lesson or twelve.
 
My stepdad did that. Giant loser came home drunk everyday from the rig. Spent most of his money on a bottle of Some exotic Whisky, wine or scotch every night. Then he went on to other things. Most of the guys where like that. Oh, and the the bottom fell out of the oil industry in about 86 or so. All the pumpjacks where shut down for 20 years. I have a great job in Aviation doing what i love. I do see the results of industrial increases around here, but, the little guys are taking a beating pretty bad. Ill stick to what I know. Thanks lightning Joe for the recommedation though. I prefer to wear my fingers on my hand. If Im gonna die at work it will be in a fiery smoking hole in the ground,, after all, i am a "pile it" I can "pile it " there or I can "pile it" there, which do you prefer??? :D
 
It's about time someone posted this CNBC article about how much we EXPORT.

It's rather enlightening, and the math regarding how much we export vs how much we import from the middle east is very weird.
 
We are expected to believe they were ALWAYS for domestic oil drilling and that their plan would immediately reduce the cost at the pump.
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This whole thing is crap aimed at uneducated voters. Hell - they can drill in my backyard but the truth is that 1.) Even starting today it will be 5 years before that oil hits the market, 2.) The price of oil will still be controlled by the speculators.

I was reading last night and saw that the "experts" consider $60 of the current price of oil to actually be inflated by speculation.

Drilling the speculators might be a better place to start.....
 
Tin foil hat alert, but maybe some grain of truth in this conspiracy theory.

Over the last 20 years, as the black middle class has expanded, who has been hurt the most? The big cities. Their tax base has eroded. As people moved out of the big cities towards the suburbs or more rural settings, the cities have lost the property tax revenues and the school revenues due to population decreases. They would love to get people to move back in. They can't do that through force, but they just might be able to do it with high energy prices. For folks who have moved to the burbs and smaller towns or rural areas, but still commute to work, the price of gas is putting more pressure on their family budgets. If gas gets up to $12.00/gal, would some of those folks be forced to move closer to the city where they work, and mass transit is more available? Are politicians who are in charge of large cities thinking about this? Are leftist liberals, who seem to want everyone in one small area where they can be kept under closer supervision, thinking about this? Are the public schools hoping for such a scenario?

From "Stairway to Heaven"; "Ooooooooooooo, really makes me wonder".
:)
 
Go pull up the oil company finacial statements ans see how much they start out with in gross revenues and what the net revenue is. Keep in mind not all the revenue comes from oil and gasoline. They are easy to find.

If you look up a list of the oil companies in the world Exxon-Mobil comes up number 14 with a whopping 1% of the worlds oil reserves.

Texas has gone from producing over 1 billion barrels of oil to less that 300 million a year a few years down the road that will be 100 million.

Its about supply and demand.......the demand curve and supply curve are so tight that any event will send the price of oil up.

It boggles my mind that your are willing to believe the same folks who want to take your secound amendment rights away and are willing to believe them about the oil companies.

Yes it will be a few years before the oil hits the market..... when President Bush annouced his drilling iniative oil dropped $5.00 a barrel on one announcment. If the oil suppliers know know that this oil will be coming are they going to keep the higher prices? Are speculators going to speculate less or more money on oil years out?

Do you ever listen to these guys talk about the land already under lease?

Listen for the words could and should.....they are blowing smoke up a certain part of your anatomy.

So if you dont want drilling now....be prepared for much higher gas prices.
 
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