Images from World War II Era Ration Cards
Posted on 03/07/2011 6:35:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Another session of Sunday morning shows came around and I found myself watching Meet the Press. (Something which happens more and more since ABC made the disastrous decision to drop the indispensable Jake Tapper as host of This Week in favor of Christiane Amanpour.) One of the guests was President Obama’s Chief of Staff Bill Daley, and the subject of the discussion turned to the rising prices of both gasoline and barrels of oil.
“Aha!” I thought. “Now we’re getting down to something important. The administration has been choking off domestic oil production and the unrest on the Arab street is bringing things to a boil. This is a great chance for somebody to step up with a concrete plan.”
Well, it turns out that the White House certainly is considering a plan, but not one that anyone outside of a rubber room could have predicted.
White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on Sunday the Obama administration is considering tapping into the U.S. strategic oil reserve as one way to help ease soaring oil prices.
Speaking on NBC television’s “Meet the Press,” Daley said: “We are looking at the options. The issue of the reserves is one we are considering. … All matters have to be on the table.”
There has been support among Senate Democrats for tapping the reserves. Senator Jay Rockefeller on Thursday became the third Democrat to ask President Barack Obama to tap America’s emergency oil supply to cool prices that have risen past $100 a barrel on the strife in Libya.
I’d like to tell you what was said during the rest of the interview, but I threw a brick through my television screen at that point.
So let me see if I’ve got this straight:
And your solution to the problem may be to start draining our strategic reserves?
Before checking myself into a home for the terminally confused, I dropped a note to Jane Van Ryan of the American Petroleum Institute to see what they thought of such a plan. She writes:
API traditionally has opposed using oil from SPR to address price issues. The reserve was established to protect the United States against an interruption of petroleum supplies, such as occurred after the hurricanes Katrina and Rita. At that time, a few of the oil companies purchased oil from the SPR to maintain the flow of oil products to U.S. consumers.
At this time, there is a significant amount of oil available in the United States, and Saudi Arabia has said it has enough spare production capacity to make up for any shortfalls that might result from the Libyan conflict.
Those reserves are there to protect us, as Jane points out, in the event of a massive disruption in the flow of oil supplies. And for the moment, let’s put aside the commonly held opinion that the Obama administration is currently acting as the biggest disruption of domestic oil supplies. With Libya and other nations in the region experiencing unrest – or the threat of it – I would think that this is precisely the time when the United States would be seeking to top off those reserves, if not expand their total storage capacity. Draining them even before foreign supplies are cut off is nothing short of the height of folly.
And all the while, domestic producers are standing around by the Gulf of Mexico – as our British friends might say – with their tallywhackers in their hands, ready and willing to produce the oil we need, but waiting on Washington approval.
The inmates are running the asylum. I’ve lost most of my capacity to remain civil and balanced on this question. This is a matter of not only energy independence, jobs and fiscal recovery, but of national security. And these sorts of answers rob the Obama administration of any and all credibility when it comes to possessing a sane energy policy.
Tapping the SPR would be the absolute pinnacle of stupidity.
If zer0 were to suddenly allow drilling he’d probably get reelected.
But he won’t.
One of the most idiot-ridden adminstration’s in US history, be assured. =.=
To anyone with half a brain, this would be a deliberate action from Øbama. Anything to usher in more green initiatives and weaken the USA.
The 0bama regime wants to tap the emergency reserves in order to cover up the disastrous results of their failed marxist policies.
Varney said this AM that if we had started drilling as Palin called for 3 years ago, we wouldn’t even be discussing the or right now.
Zero isn’t even mentioning resuming drilling in the U.S.. WHY?
Seems he is more interested in filling the coffers of the Arab States than the Gas tanks of Americans.
Of course, it would take YEARS before there would be any meaningful oil if development up in Alaska were permitted... or if the moratorium on deep-water drilling the gulf were once again permitted... but that’s what they said last year... and the year before that... and the year before that...
I would say that we have CLOWNS for leaders but that would be most disparaging for clowns.
Images from World War II Era Ration Cards
Unless your goal is to render the US military impotent.
While there is a goodly amount of oil in the SPR, it’s important to note that it cannot be pumped out of the SPR quickly enough for our economy.
Properly speaking, the “Strategic Petroleum Reserve” should be called the “Military Petroleum Reserve”, because its real purpose is to keep our critical defense structure operational.
If the government was serious about wanting to keep the oil flowing, the most important thing it could do would be to bust the refinery oligarchy, by building four “strategic federal refineries”, each permanently tooled to either fuel oil, gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel.
If the commercial refineries produce the products needed within market prices, fine. But if shortages are in the works, the appropriate government refinery goes on line to fill the marginal need.
That is, high prices are acceptable. Shortages are not.
As a parallel, if your neighbor's house was on fire, you could do many things. You could, for example, bring buckets of water over, to douse the flames. You could also bring your hose over, which would also be a big help. If you were really crafty, you might even open the fire hydrant, and rig an even larger hose to help put out the fire--all of these methods would help, but some would be more effective than others.
Obama's policies wouldn't consider throwing water on the fire. Instead, he'd come by with tanks full of gasoline, fully prepared to put that on the fire.
Eric Bolling, from Fox Business was this morning on FOX and Friends, and said the exact thing. He also said when President Bush lifted the ban on drilling, the price of gas fell immediately , and if we had started 3 years ago, we could be pumping our own gas. Instead we are listening to the lame excuses of the environmentalist nuts and the libtards
The run-up on gas and commodities should be familiar for all of us. It is similar to exactly what happened during the course of the year in 2008. At one point, if recall is correct, a certain Middle Eastern Kingdom owned close to 60% of all commodities in the market.
The difference right now is there is very real unrest in the ME. Unrest being instigated by supposedly teams from the 0bama administration. Unfortunately they may be there stirring the pot, but the real instigators to watch are Russia, China, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, and a host of others. Oddly enough that 0bama is meeting with later this month!
It is economic warfare and the United States is not playing a winning hand. In fact I see us as more like the dog under the table waiting for scraps.
See post# 14
All tapping into the reserve would do is delay the enevitable by 3 to 4 months, and then deplete our emergency resources.
We need to drill now, open our oil fields and get the gubmint out of the way.
They WANT it depleted because they want US defeated.
Looks like Fox Busines is hot on this story.
We need to drill, but it is not a way to change the prices in the short term. It would take some years if we started drilling now.
Obama likes high gas prices. The media cover for him, so he sees no reason to do any thing about it. If prices get too high early in 2012, he will probably tap into the reserves to make himself look good before November.
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