Bush to Urge Congress to Lift Restrictions on Oil Drilling

[Excim]

There is a lot more to it than that.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/18/markets/oil/?postversion=2008061815

That's a big part of it, but...

Do you know who the #1 supplier of crude oil used in US refineries is? Canada.

Here is the list:

1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Venezuela
5. Nigeria
6. Angola
7. Iraq
8. Algeria
9. United Kingdom
10. Brazil

What?!?!? only 3 countries from the middle east?

In 2004, United States refineries produced over 90 percent of the gasoline used in the United States. Although the United States is the world’s third largest crude oil producer, less than 40 percent of the crude oil used by U.S. refineries was produced in the United States. Net petroleum imports (imports minus exports) account for 58 percent of our total petroleum consumption. About 50 percent of our petroleum imports are from countries in the Western Hemisphere, with 19 percent from the Persian Gulf, and 18 percent from Africa and 13 percent from other regions

I made mention of the middle east, but clearly they aren't our only problem. There has been a huge trade deficit in this country for a long time, not just in oil production facilities. If we can start becoming more self reliant on our own resources that EXIST within our means to gather, then we would creat jobs for our citizens, create more cashflow, and as a result begin to stabilize our failing economy.

Bush said opening federal lands off the U.S. coast -- where oil drilling has been banned by both a presidential executive order and a congressional moratorium -- could yield about 18 billion barrels of oil.

That would meet current U.S. consumption for about 2 1/2 years, but it would likely take a decade or more to find the oil and produce it.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_22_17/ai_75435167

(My mouse is broke, thank god for the touch screen)

It's not the idea of becoming self suffient on oil, but becomeing less reliant on outside energy sources. According to these statistics, opening up ANWAR could help us cut import costs by nearly 10%, for roughly 25 years at normal production capacity. Which would help shield us from those who are trying to take advantage of our unwillingness to provide for ourselves. It's not an end all be all cure, but I think we could all agree that a buffer from further increases would be a helpful start.

And again, it's not just ANWAR that we have available to us. There are reserves just off our eastern shores that would be a boon to our own reserves, along with ANWAR and the oil shale potential we have, we could viable shield ourselves from economic self destruction for at least another half a century until a more viable resource becomes readily available.

As said, I agree with Dante, keep the $4.00/gal price, it gets people roused from thier American Idol induced comas, and has gotten Detroit to finally pay attention to the crisis at hand. We WILL have a better fuel source, and soon (Electric cars are looking like a majour possibility for being mainstream), and in the meantime, why shouldn't we protect ourselves monetary wise?

Exxon Valdez is the worst oil spill in US history. That was in 1989. Almost 20 years later, Exxon still won't pay the $2.5 Billion they were order to pay. As a matter of fact, now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Exxon try to explain why it shouldn't pay. Yet the High Court won't hear anything from anyone as far reasons why the award should be restored to the full $5 billion that a jury of peers decided was necessary to punish the corporate giant back in 1994.

Exxon Valdez, iirc, was an oil tanker which ran aground, and leaked crude into the surrounding ocean water. While truely devastating, these ships still navigate our shores today, and will continue to as long as we import oil from outside sources. I was making reference to Oil Rig incidents, and the idea they are a consequential threat to the environment. If you have any facts to counter my point on that, I'd be willing to concede, but I believe my facts hold water.

You know, the republican presidential nominee, John McCain, is on the side of "liberal media and the extremists on the left".

McCain has been criticized by some Republicans for not supporting oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and off Florida. On Monday (June 16, 2008), he stuck to his opposition to drilling in the ANWR but suggested he might be open to exploration in other places.

"I believe that ANWR is a pristine area," he said. "But I also believe that lifting the moratoria from offshore drilling or oil and natural gas exploration is something that we place as a very high priority."

You are correct here.

Now I have to say something about the "liberal media". There isn't one.

There are 2 groups, the mainstream media, which attempts to be objective, and the right-wing media, which does not. The mainstream media does not have a liberal bias, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and the rest at least try to be fair. The mainstream media do have biases toward sensationalism, the easy story, and soft news. The right wing media, including Fox News, The Washington Times, and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, are not interested in conveying the truth. They exist to further the cause of American conservatism by advancing stories and themes that work to the benefit of conservatives and to the detriment of liberals.

The claim of media "liberal bias" is a myth used by conservative politicians. Propagating this myth serves three functions. First, it creates reluctance among mainstream media outlets to cover issues that conservatives don't want them to, for fear that they will be accused of having a liberal bias. Second, it allows conservatives to deny or dismiss reports in the mainstream media, regardless of whether they are true, because they have discredited the source already. Third, attacking the liberal media can be effective at increasing conservative voter turnout.

I will say that many members of the media are quite liberal. However, that doesn't neccesarily mean there is liberal bias. That means that the people who go all over the world and see what is actually happening with thier own 2 eyes are liberal. The people that have the most experience with happeneing around the globe are liberal.

But still, the people that own these media outlets are not. Ultimatly, they are the ones that make decisions about what gets reported and what doesn't.

I would also point at stories where the "liberal media" criticizes liberals.

Here is a link to a story where the Boston Globe asserts that democrats want things to go bad in Iraq.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...s/2007/08/29/good_news_but_not_for_democrats/

Here is a link to a page that that explains How the Left has ENSURED the destruction of the Black Community, and how republicans are the champions of minorities.
http://www.nodnc.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=5

Here is a CBSnews article about Obama not letting muslims sit behind him on tv.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/politics/politico/main4191084.shtml

I would go on, but I just got a phone call and I have to leave. But yeah. That.

I kinda got swept up in what I was typing, even though I don't fully agree that there isn't a liberal spin on many of the stories I see, I will say the point should be made that you need to check all of the facts yourself anyway you can, and not just take the spoonfed crap that the news tries to feed you.

And just because you lean to the left on issues, it doesn't make you an extremist. Leftists want rights for illegal immigrants, extremists think there should be no borders at all and we should share everything we've worked for with everyone else.


Disinformed citizens will be the end of this country. Even if you and I disagree Trippy, at least you've got a mind to say more than "I believe what that guy said." Well done.

 

[Celvantes]

Alternative energy takes time to develop, and honestly, the current options are NOT solutions.

Biofuel is a joke, and has already jacked up certain sectors of the food market. The amount of corn we would have to grow to support even a fraction of our current energy needs would require more farmland than the entire country currently has.

Wind and solar energy is a viable option, but the efficiency rate of solar cells still isn't at a level where we can meet our current energy needs without covering an insane amount of landmass with solar panels. Wind turbines are very good, but expensive to set up. Furthermore, there are limited places in the world where the wind blows at a constant enough rate and a high enough velocity to make building turbines there a viable option. It's a nice addition to our energy portfolio, but not a replacement for the current system.

Europe got on board with nuclear power a long time ago, and we need to do the same. However, while nuclear power could conceivably solve our power generation issues with regards to fossil fuels, you can't (and shouldn't) power cars and aircraft with nuclear power.

Actually, I'm wrong on that... you can power an aircraft with a nuclear reactor. The Air Force did it a few decades back but it was horribly inefficient and emitted radioactive exhaust.

One might point to electric cars, but the problem is that under the current system of energy production, you would need to burn almost as much fossil fuel *generating* the electricity to power all of America's cars as you would using internal combustion engines in the first place.

In the long term, electric cars utilizing power generated by nuclear reactors would form the cleanest energy system we could create with current technology. It is important to note, however, that it would take decades to build the number of reactors necessary to produce the required power for such a system. It would take decades more to change over all our cars from internal combustion to electric motors. We would also need to develop a far better way of dealing with nuclear waste than simply burying it in the desert.

In the mean time, so that we can develop such an infrastructure, we need to make current energy as cheap as possible. This means producing as much oil as we possibly can. Yes, drilling in ANWAR and off our coast would not drop oil prices back down to the $1.25ish we were paying in '99. But, OPEC is insisting upon sitting on some of its oil so long as we do the same. By showing our willingness to drill, we will encourage the nations who *do* control the largest chunks of the world's oil to increase production as well.

Furthermore, oil prices are influenced by speculators, who simply look at supply and demand. Oil is unique in that the demand for it is as close to truly inelastic as we can get in the real world. This means that the demand for oil *almost* never diminishes no matter what supply (and therefore price) does (vice demand for any other product dropping as price increases). Because of this, the oil market supports speculators who bet on oil prices rising, and by doing this, they actually help it rise.

By increasing US oil produciton, we introduce price stabilizing psychological factors (yes, psychological factors in economics... they do play a heavy role in the speculative market). This means we won't see $2.00 gas again, but we can keep it at $4.00 and hopefully keep it under $5.00 until such time as we can make a major move away from fossil fuels.

To those who say we need higher prices to motivate people to develop alternate sources of energy, I say simply:

YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Higher gas prices effect the *entire* economy, and bring us *all* down. Corporations, government, and private institutions need spare income to fund research and development so that they can give you your precious alternative energy sources. High gas prices reduce *everyone's* discretionary income, including that of corporate America and the federal government.

All the motivation in the world isn't going to matter at all if there's no money to fund research.

We need to do two things at once. The first is to do everying in our power to hold gas prices where they are at. This is not a permanent solution, it is an act to buy us breathing room so that we *can* do the second thing: develop a viable energy infrastructure that does not involve crude oil.

But to get to that "green" future, we need to rip every last drop of oil out of the ground we own, and we need to do it *now.* The longer we wait, the harder it's going to be to develop new technology, and there will come a point from which we *can't* recover. Our economy can only withstand oil prices to a certain point, and then we *will* start to see economic breakdown a la 1929.

 

[Raesvelg]

I'm just shocked that Trippy denied that the NY Times has a liberal bias.

 

[Valandil]

Just imagine how useful those billions of dollars we've spent in Iraq would be if they were put to implementing a whole-hearted effort towards alternative energy programs.

 

[Excim]

Just imagine how useful those billions of dollars we've spent in Iraq would be if they were put to implementing a whole-hearted effort towards alternative energy programs.

YES.

 

[Celvantes]

Just imagine how useful those billions of dollars we've spent in Iraq would be if they were put to implementing a whole-hearted effort towards alternative energy programs.

Not nearly as much good to counterbalance what would have happened had Nutjob Dictator destabilized the region. A single dirty bomb (not even a nuke) near the Saudi oil fields = far worse crisis than what we're seeing now.

This is not, however, the place to discuss the merits of the Iraq War.

That said, the policy of the one does not have anything to do with the policy of the other. The money spent in Iraq has largely been deficit spending - it has not been taken out of any other purse in the US budget other than that of the military itself. It's not like Darth Bush (as you see him) is ripping money out of the hands of poor innocent ecoscientists to fund the Imperial Ameritroopers on his conquest of Iraq. [/sarcasm]

If you want to look at money misspent, look at the $500 billion+ that is mandated every year to be spent on social security, medicare, and medicaid, all of which are horribly inefficient or otherwise broken systems. *THAT* kind of cash (which, by the way is greater than the entire US defense budget) could produce results when it comes to changing our energy infrastructure.

 

[Valandil]

Not nearly as much good to counterbalance what would have happened had Nutjob Dictator destabilized the region. A single dirty bomb (not even a nuke) near the Saudi oil fields = far worse crisis than what we're seeing now.

This is not, however, the place to discuss the merits of the Iraq War.

That said, the policy of the one does not have anything to do with the policy of the other. The money spent in Iraq has largely been deficit spending - it has not been taken out of any other purse in the US budget other than that of the military itself. It's not like Darth Bush (as you see him) is ripping money out of the hands of poor innocent ecoscientists to fund the Imperial Ameritroopers on his conquest of Iraq. [/sarcasm]

If you want to look at money misspent, look at the $500 billion+ that is mandated every year to be spent on social security, medicare, and medicaid, all of which are horribly inefficient or otherwise broken systems. *THAT* kind of cash (which, by the way is greater than the entire US defense budget) could produce results when it comes to changing our energy infrastructure.

Except when the Pentagon pays KBR $100 per bag of laundry done in Iraq and other areas across the world. Or when Haliburton continues to be awarded Cost Plus contracts and is allowed to burn transportation vehicles that break down for simple repairs such as flat tires and bill the Pentagon $75,000+ for a new vehicle. That money is budgeted into the Federal budget. The point is that that Defense Department spending is absolutely ridiculous and if there were any decent oversight done by the GAO, Congress, or the actual Defense Department itself (which falls under the jurisdiction of the Executive branch), then the literally billions of dollars that be absolutely WASTED could be budgeted for other things, such as research and development, economic stimulus for middle/lower classes, hell even lowering the cost of higher education.

 

[Trippyhippy]

Not nearly as much good to counterbalance what would have happened had Nutjob Dictator destabilized the region. A single dirty bomb (not even a nuke) near the Saudi oil fields = far worse crisis than what we're seeing now.

This is not, however, the place to discuss the merits of the Iraq War.

That said, the policy of the one does not have anything to do with the policy of the other. The money spent in Iraq has largely been deficit spending - it has not been taken out of any other purse in the US budget other than that of the military itself. It's not like Darth Bush (as you see him) is ripping money out of the hands of poor innocent ecoscientists to fund the Imperial Ameritroopers on his conquest of Iraq. [/sarcasm]

You are correct about all that. [/sarcasm]

But like you said, this isn't the place to discuss the merits of the Iraq war, even though you talked about it anyway.

If you want to look at money misspent, look at the $500 billion+ that is mandated every year to be spent on social security, medicare, and medicaid, all of which are horribly inefficient or otherwise broken systems. *THAT* kind of cash (which, by the way is greater than the entire US defense budget) could produce results when it comes to changing our energy infrastructure.

First off, on the topic of Social Security...

Social Security is not part of the Federal Budget general fund. It is a separate account and has its own source of income. Social Security payments do not go into the general fund, they go in the Social Security trust fund, and should NOT be counted as general revenue. The trust fund is supposed to be used to pay future benefits. But....keep reading....

Currently, there is more being payed into the Social Security Trust Fund than is being paid out to beneficiaries. What's left over is routinely being "borrowed" and used as if it were general budget revenue. Government agencies using that money promise to pay it back (IOUs). All of the money in the Social Security Trust Fund has been spent! That's part of the National Debt. So Social Security is just a very large tax collection tool.

Beware the term "Social Security Surplus"; there is no such thing. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, there is never more in the Trust Fund than will ever be needed.

Social Security will need to be fixed. Here is more information on the Root Problem with Social Security.

And medicare and medicade would be fine if the deficit spending would stop.

Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow. The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.

Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $9,000,000,000,000 and growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt.

If we Didn't have to pay interest on that huge debt, then we would have plenty of money to pay for free healthcare for all.

When your deficit spending creates a problem for your healthcare program, you don't blame the healthcare program.

 

[Darkdante]

To those who say we need higher prices to motivate people to develop alternate sources of energy, I say simply:

YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Higher gas prices effect the *entire* economy, and bring us *all* down. Corporations, government, and private institutions need spare income to fund research and development so that they can give you your precious alternative energy sources. High gas prices reduce *everyone's* discretionary income, including that of corporate America and the federal government.

All the motivation in the world isn't going to matter at all if there's no money to fund research.

We need to do two things at once. The first is to do everying in our power to hold gas prices where they are at. This is not a permanent solution, it is an act to buy us breathing room so that we *can* do the second thing: develop a viable energy infrastructure that does not involve crude oil.

But to get to that "green" future, we need to rip every last drop of oil out of the ground we own, and we need to do it *now.* The longer we wait, the harder it's going to be to develop new technology, and there will come a point from which we *can't* recover. Our economy can only withstand oil prices to a certain point, and then we *will* start to see economic breakdown a la 1929.

Fuel has been cheap all this time, where has that gotten us other than ever more dependant on oil?

Everyone has basically been twiddling thier fingers up until now. A *Crisis* is needed to get everyone off thier asses and find a solution. Public sentiment is what forces goverments to make faster change.

What better way other than to create a crisis in our economy before the real dire one hits? The real crisis being when we either run out of oil, or pollute our oceans and planet getting to that oil or from the continued use of oil.

Your *lmao* discretionary income does not fund research. What they are doing is creating "Public Sentiment" by taxing you one way or the other, and using that money as research, and also get your support for alternative *cheaper* fuels at the same time.

Most people simply do not change unless they have too.