Solutions to Energy Crisis Must Spur Domestic Production( Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison )

The Pasadena Citizen ^ | 05/09/2008 | Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

[kellynla]

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, Daniel Yergin, has summed up what many of us are thinking: “We are living in a new age of energy anxiety.”

No one feels this anxiety more than the American families who are shouldering the burden of nearly $125 per barrel oil. The average mini-van owner is now spending upwards of $70 for a tank of unleaded gasoline. And it can cost up to $80 to fill up a pickup truck!

Now more than ever, we must adopt a comprehensive solution that will place more control over energy supply and prices in the hands of America.

Common sense tells us that an increase in our fuel supply will help drive down soaring costs. Yet, there are lawmakers who continue to put forward politically expedient proposals that will neither raise domestic supply, nor solve the broader problem of American dependence on foreign oil.

Some in Congress, including the Democratic presidential candidates, are proposing an irrational windfall profits tax on the U.S. oil industry.

Increasing taxes on production only serves to decrease domestic production and encourage more exploration abroad where costs are lower.

A punitive tax on profits would raise marginal production costs, reduce domestic oil production, and actually increase the overall level of oil imports. Furthermore, it would send jobs that Americans depend on overseas.

This is not speculation. This has been tried, and has failed, in the past. When Congress imposed a similar windfall profit tax on the oil industry in 1980, domestic oil production decreased significantly and jobs were lost. It raised our dependence on foreign oil by 10 percent.

Today, rather than discourage production we should concentrate our efforts on securing long-term sources of energy, especially within our own borders and along our country’s coastline. And the fact is these resources exist.

On U.S. soil and off our coasts, we have significantly more oil than Venezuela’s 80 billion barrel reserve, and our available natural gas reserves exceed that of Iraq, China, Yemen, Oman, Nigeria, and Venezuela combined.

Last week, my Senate colleagues and I unveiled sweeping legislation to begin to tap some of these resources to increase domestic fuel production and lessen our reliance on other countries. The American Energy Production Act of 2008 would leverage both traditional and renewable sources of energy that could add enough domestic production supply to satisfy U.S. energy demand for five years without foreign imports.

The legislation would allow coastal states to petition the U.S. Department of Interior to lift drilling moratoria for offshore oil and gas leasing off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

It would also grant U.S. oil companies access to the 10 billion barrels of available oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain (ANWR).

The legislation seeks to bolster supply and decrease oil prices by temporarily suspending deposits into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently has enough oil to supply our country’s energy needs for over 3 months in case of a disaster or national emergency.

Further, the bill would allow access to alternative sources, such as the over one trillion barrels of shale oil in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. These sources, which presently sit unused, are equal to three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Some of these are not new ideas. Many of us have been fighting for increased domestic oil and gas production in Congress for years. Unfortunately, in 1995 – when oil was $19 a barrel – President Clinton vetoed legislation passed by the House and the Senate to begin drilling in ANWR.

If not for that veto, we would now be producing one million barrels of our own oil a day – the amount we import from Saudi Arabia … every day.

The provisions in the American Production Act are an important first step to boosting our domestic fuel supply. But a comprehensive energy plan must also include the deployment of every economically viable alternative energy source — including advanced nuclear energy, solar power, wind power, and biofuels.

The time is now to set the course to produce and maintain control over our own energy sources and end our dependence on foreign oil. We can’t afford to delay further.

[kellynla]

Please contact your U.S. senator to pass S.2958

We need this bill passed and we need it passed NOW!

[kellynla]

Republican Senators Offer Bill to Increase US Supplies (S.2958)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014187/posts

Domenici, Senate Republicans Unveil Plan to Increase Domestic Production ( S.2958 )
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014017/posts

Oil Economics 101 (American Energy Production Act of 2008)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014015/posts

We need this bill passed & signed into law.
And we need it NOW!

You can contact your senators here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm

[kellynla]

ping

[jazusamo]

We need this bill passed and we need it passed NOW!

BUMP!

[kellynla]

please “bump” your senators. LOL

[Perchant]

It’s like the Democrats are secretly working with OPEC and the oil companies to drive up prices.

When they irrationally point the finger, it’s usually for something they are guilty of. The idea is that the accuser will be immune to scrutiny while the accused are busy defending themselves.

Republicans should call for an investigation into these potential Democrat alliances.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Yeah, sounds great Kay Bailey. How about also promoting some Republicans with the testicles to tell the truth of simple economics to the American people.

My solution: Thomas Sowell gives a speech once a week on network TV, primetime, to the audience. People who watch are given a $50 credit on their taxes.

People who watch and complete a real-time test regarding the content of Sowell's lesson are given a $100 credit.

Now, if we can just get Sowell to do it. ;-)

Alternative plan: Force every "journalist" (i.e. person who has a job in the print or broadcast media), school teacher (anyone teaching first through 12th grade), and or college instructor to read this book:

Also, make this book a part of the "Core" course for every college student--just like English, Math, and History.

[SERKIT]

My Energy Manifesto:

* Cease all ethanol production. It requires more energy to make than it yields and the unintended consequence is higher food costs. Corn production shifted from feed-corn to subsidized corn for ethanol. Just say "no" to ethanol!

* Immediately create only ONE "blend" of gasoline and cease regional "boutique" blends which are stupid, costly, and meaningless. Even if this is the "cleanest" blend, just make it ONE and be done with it. Trucking custom blends around the country is wasteful.

* Lift the restrictions in order to drill for oil in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, and other sites in the CONUS as a matter of national security.

* Encourage the petro industry to construct state-of-the-art refineries and/or retrofit current and dormant ones and crank up production for our newly-found oil in the CONUS.

* Make all “carbon credit” scams unlawful. Discrediting Algore should have been a slam-dunk a long time ago. Stop electing Reps who buy into the Global Warming Hoax.

* Construct SEVERAL, regional Pebble-Bed Reactors (or other similar modern designs) that are not considered "breeders", are rechargeable, and cleaner than any current nuclear generator design.

* Use the residual heat from the reactors above to process motor fuel from coal and/or shale. Even though Clinton "stole" some of the best coal reserves, we still have a lot to use.

* Become independent enough to make the cartels (i.e. OPEC) inconsequential.

* Convince local taxing bodies to lift or cap the sales tax on gasoline so that as gas prices go up, the local tax collectors don’t see a windfall revenue jump at the expense of the consumer. The Federal government could compel the states (and locals) to cap the fuel taxes.

[spunkets]

"Solutions to Energy Crisis Must Spur Domestic Production"

Yeah, what she said bUmP.

[SUSSA]

Kay better grab Lyndon Baines Bush by the collar and straighten him out. With gasoline at all time highs, the nation at war, and the economy slipping, he wants to put more domestic oil and gas off limits to us in order to burnish his legacy.

http://www.star-telegram.com/448/story/629609.html

NEW ORLEANS — In an effort to burnish his legacy as a defender of the oceans, the Bush administration is considering creating a string of marine sanctuaries in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the proposal is hitting opposition from Republican senators fearful that the plan would hamper oil and natural gas drilling and hurt fishermen.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said Wednesday that the proposal “holds potentially grave consequences” for the region’s economy and comes at a sensitive time as Gulf states try to recover from devastating hurricanes.

“The Gulf Coast economies are still in a state of flux, and we should be providing local industries with an appropriate support structure, not hampering their efforts and threatening further recovery,” Vitter said.

He was joined by Alabama’s two Republican senators, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. The three senators sent an April 21 letter to James Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to express their “strong objections” to the sanctuary plan.

The senators are worried that President Bush would invoke the 1906 National Antiquities Act to establish the sanctuaries, which would protect nine coral banks and hard-bottom areas extending in a large loop around the Gulf from Texas to Florida.

[kellynla]

“It’s like the Democrats are secretly working with OPEC and the oil companies to drive up prices?”

I don’t think it is anything more than the “Lefty’s tail waggin’ the dog.” LOL

“Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink.”
P.J.O’Rourke

[jazusamo]

please “bump” your senators. LOL

Not to worry... Cantwell and Murray are mine and I'll take real pleasure in bumping them both on this, especially Cantwell with her anti-drilling stand. :)

[theBuckwheat]

Nothing satisfies demand like supply.

Price serves two important functions. The first, compensation, is well known, except of course by rabid liberals busy coercing assets away from productive people and allocating to “each according to his needs”. The second is to provide signals to everyone else observing the transaction as to the relative value and the direction of change in value. These signals have broad effect even for very limited markets.

To prove this, how many people glance at the price sign at the gas station when they pass yet how often do they actually fill up their tank. When the price is high and climbing higher each day, everyone notices the sign and especially when it changes.

[kellynla]

Thanks!
Your’s couldn’t be any worse than mine...
I’ve got Boxer & DiFi.
And I might as well be talking to myself but I emailed them anyway. LOL

[browardchad]

Um, yeah, I'll bump my senators: Martinez (R) and Nelson (D)-- both of whom teamed up to defeat Florida offshore drilling, with the blessing of former Governor Jeb Bush and his brother. Our present governor, Charlie Crist, hearts Arnold, so I think we can draw the same conclusion. The present GOP candidate, McCain, wants to leave it up to "federalism," which in Florida, is, for all intents and purposes, Martinez, Nelson and Crist, while opposing drilling in ANWR (which he compares to the Grand Canyon and the Florida Everglades). Great science there, Johnny Mac.

It ain't all Dems who oppose freeing us from dependence on foreign oil -- not by a longshot.

[2harddrive]

DECRIMINALIZE DRILLING! Off the Atlantic, off the Pacific, off the Florida Gulf Coast, and in ANWR! Legalize it NOW!