Posted on 05/17/2008 12:25:14 PM PDT by Libloather
US Congress moves to bring down oil prices
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, May 14: The US Congress has voted overwhelmingly to prevent further rise in oil prices, ordering the government to stop depositing oil in a national reserve.
The Senate voted 97 to 1 on Tuesday to stop putting 70,000 barrels of oil a day in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the remainder of this year.
The House of Representatives later approved a similar bill by a 385 to 25 vote.
The move aims at bringing down the price by forcing more oil into the market. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure could cause the prices to drop by 5 to 24 cents a gallon.
The White House strongly resisted the move, saying that it would have only a modest impact on the price while create security and market risks. National reserves guard against future supply disruptions. However, a White House spokesman told journalists that despite his reservations, President George W. Bush would not veto the bill.
In both the chambers, the Republicans also voted en masse for the measure, ignoring pleas from their own administration not to do so.
Political analysts noted that the public pressure is forcing politicians to take some action to bring down oil prices.
They noted that a White House veto in an election year could badly hurt the Republican Party, already criticised for leading America to an un-winnable war in Iraq.
Similarly, the lawmakers realise that the price hike has badly hurt their constituents, particularly those from lower and middle income American families.
President Bush, who no more has to run for an office, is urging consumers to change their habits if they want to bring down the gas prices.
“The truth of the matter is that in order for there to be a substantial change either the consumers have to change their habits -- which we’re encouraging through alternative tax of automobiles -- or there has to be an increase of supply,” he said in a recent interview.
Republican lawmakers have proposed investment in alternative energy as a long-term solution to the oil crisis.
The Democrats plan to present their own energy plan within weeks, which calls for new taxes on oil company profits to pay for alternative energy investment.
But the Republicans strongly oppose new taxes and can prevent its passage.
Some lawmakers -- both from Republican and Democratic parties -- have proposed reining in speculation in the oil markets, noting that speculative sales drive the prices up.
But Senate majority leader Harry Reid opposes the move.
A group of Democratic senators also sought to put pressure on Saudi Arabia. They are urging the kingdom to increase its oil production or face the possibility of the Congress blocking a pending arms deal.
Drilling does the same thing.
Unreal.
Our supposed leaders are out of touch with reality.
Politicians think we’re stupid. And apparently enough of us to keep them in office are.
Right on both counts.
We can all thank the extreme enviro’s for this one. No new refinery’s for 20+ years and no drilling anywhere. If we had a good alternative, this wouldn’t be a problem. A good alternative is probably years down the road, if that, it could be decades away. And there scare tactics of we are running out of oil is nuts. What I’ve seen of the other alternative energy sources, there are draw backs with everyone of them.
There are a few libs at work that said 10 years ago they wanted gas to be more the $5/gal. They claimed it would force us off oil and to environmentally friendly sources of fuels. As gas hits $4 and no alternative in sight.... they are starting to panic a bit. Their little idealistic world is starting to crumble. They should be in full blown hysteria if the dems control both houses and the presidency and things are still oil centric.
It is impossible to conserve at a higher rate than the growing number of people using oil products. That leaves one and only one solution. DRILL AND PUMP MORE OIL AND BUILD REFINERIES TO PROCESS IT! I doubt the dems heard my yelling.
Anybody who uses ANWAR instead of ANWR has not done the homework.
That is where I stopped reading.
Someone should ask Pelogosi, "Exactly where is our Strategic Petroleum Reserve located?"
And what happened to “building oil refineries” on all those military bases that were closed a few years ago.....enquiring minds seek answers.....
A few thousand barrels a day will bring prices down 25 cents but drilling 20 million barrels in the Alaska Desert will only drop it a penny in ten years.
If you like $4/gal, Thank Congress in November.
Simple, Liberalism hard at work.
I think we were lied to.... again.
$200 dollar oil also brings China’s potential ugliness as a world power to a screeching crawl. It’s a lot more beneficial to the world to curtail China’s might thru market forces on it’s blood (oil) supply.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Thank you Democrat Congress. No wonder their approval rating is the lowest in history. Last I checked they were hovering at around 9 percent.
The headline here is a complete lie. Nothing the Congress has done here will do anything to bring down Oil prices. In fact, even if you do the whole Democrat Energy plan the price of Oil will go UP, not down, since it will put additional barriers to development of US Energy resources and make us even more dependent on imported oil
Americans are so GD stupid. They suffer from memory loss too.
No kidding. Like changing their voting patterns
Not true. http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/
Only problem is the “quote” from President Bush is a lie. He never said any such thing.
With the franchise expanded to every idiot in the nation and now illegal aliens voting to boot, this Republic is doomed anyway.
It was a nice try, but the Founders warned against expanding the franchise to the landless, women, and those under 21, and we just didn't listen.
Constitutional amendments 15,19,24,26 and Motor Voter have finally tilted the balance forever towards socialism.
The Republic is in decline, the Founders warnings not heeded.
Its all downhill from here.
>>Nancy Pelosi said the measure could cause the prices to drop by 5 to 24 cents a gallon. >>
So? Prices have gone up that much in a week or two. It takes Congress years to do something about gas prices, and all they can muster is a two-week fix until prices are back up where they were? WTF? We pay too much in taxes for this incompetence!
Signed,
A professional driver whose gas bill has TRIPLED since 9/11.
So the same Democrat Senators who were all over the Broadcast media a week ago screaming how "We cannot drill our way out of this problem" think having the Saudis do the drilling instead will solve the problem? And we are stupid enough to fall for this transparent lie? If the problem of high gas prices can be solved by having the Saudis pump more, it sure as heck can be solved a hole lot better by having US pump more! At what point are the American people going to quit buying the DC Machine's lies on Energy Policy?
Although Congress has had the time since the 1973 oil embargo to address oil independence, history is essentially repeating itself. This is why I'm keeping an eye on the energy options.
Although I don't use this product, since people are starting to use bicycles more, people might be interested in this autoshifting bicycle.
Autoshifting bicycleAlso, let's consider developments in bio-fuel production.
First, the bad news about ethanol. Ethanol fires are evidently harder to control than gasoline fires.
Ethanol fires hard to control 1Hopefully, ways will be developed to make controlling ethanol fires easier.
Ethanol fires hard to control 2
On the brighter side concerning ethanol, there's now evidence that people might get as much, or more, bang per buck for their gas dollars with gas / ethanol mixtures.
Gas-competitive gas / ethanol mixturesAlso, I was surprised by the introduction of a machine (popularly known as a still) for making home-made ethanol.
EFuel100In stark contrast to the 1700 gallons of water required to make one gallon of corn-based ethanol as indicated by the OP, the EFuel100 uses only 170 gallons of water to produce 35 gallons of ethanol In other words, the EFuel100 uses less than 1% (about 0.2%) as much water as corn ethanol, under five gallons, to produce one gallon of ethanol.
But also note that the water used in the EFuel100 process does not take into account the water needed to produce the sugar that is used for this process.
And watch out for fines for violating biofuel regulations.
Fines for violating biofuel regulationsAlso, progress is being made in the development of other non-corn ethanol production technologies as well.
Non-corn ethanolFinally, I've also been hearing good things about biodiesel production but need to find some links.
I'm not holding my breath.
Congress: Keep your greedy hands off the oil companies! Throw out any injunctions against drilling stateside as well as repairing and building refineries@ No amnesty for illegals! We, the people, are watching you!
Somehow I'm not encouraged.
WOW!......bfd.
FMCDH(BITS)
I Agree.
Proved me wrog. Thanks. Is there any way social security monies could be kept there too?
“The move aims at bringing down the price by forcing more oil into the market. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure could cause the prices to drop by 5 to 24 cents a gallon.”
and when it has no impact or the price goes up, then she has a ready-made “big-oil” boogey-man.
This is a political masterpiece. Do nothing, or next to nothing, proclaim that it will solve the problem, when it doesn’t, you then can go after the target you originally wanted.
I wish republicans were as smart politically as democrats - with such a target-rich environment for conservative issues, if republicans were actually conservative, they could have a field day pulling stunts like this. Instead, the GOP slogan is “Just like democrats, just a little dumber”
What we need to bring down gas prices is to raise taxes...yeah that’s what we need. (sarcasm)
There may have to be another revolution or civil war to stop that from happening.
They need to stack up the polar bears and drill right through them for the oil.
That and new drilling will just have to wait. Our simple minded US Congress has more important things to do. Two examples: saving the polar bears, turning us all green and.. least I forget making the food they eat in their dinning areas more upscale.
“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices…” (Nancy Pelosi, Press Release, 4/24/06)
Gee..think Nancy is a lieing liar?
I thought we were getting plenty of crude but lacked refining capacity to get it into the distribution channels? That the ever increasing environmental regulations mandate refinery downtimes, change over for seasonal fuel blends, and an increase in fees and taxes that are creating some of the real problems...
“There is no actual strategic petroleum reserve in the sense that there is some place where 70,000 barrels of oil is tanked into each day and stored.”
WRONG!!! You should check your facts before making such blatantly false statements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve
Our politicians have been screwing around with the energy policy for 30 years. When they finally wake up and start doing the right thing it will take 30 years to get out of our current mess. It makes me feel sorry for our children. They will be the first generation in American history that will see things get worse.
The group of idiots we have in Congress and the 3 idiots we have running for President have shown me the light....better hunker down. I have no ‘hope’ for ‘change’ just more of the same.
We make too much money to have qualified for the stimulous but I have spent money lately on things I have never done before this year.....plant a garden, stock up on ammo, new security system, built a huge new pantry, stock up on staples that will keep as they come on sale, ready my house for less energy, and finally prepare our house for family entertainment for everyone.
I installed a back yard theater for all the family and friends. I bought tons of pool toys and games to keep the kids happy.
I have a really bad feeling about the future and what is coming. Our home will be a refuge to us, our family, and friends.
This is where a smart politician can make hay out of the Dems. Everybody knows that the government doesn't spend money on what they say they will spend it on.
So, why doesn't someone nail these lying liars with their "we want to steal more money from the sucker voters, while we pretend to fix the problem." charade? They want to take MORE MONEY and DO NOTHING!!!!! We are lost if the American people still vote for this line of bull.
I expect that there will be a terrorist attack that takes DC, Congress, and the POTUS with it, then the military will take over and start from scratch.
This time no quarter given to the enemy within.
Anybody know where this quote came from? I Googled for it and came up empty.
IMHO, President Bush did not say this.
Come on, you are not THAT lazy are you?
VIDEO Link go to 7 minutes 20 seconds in the clip.
President Bush... “The truth of the matter is that in order for there to be a substantial change either the consumers have to change their habits -- which we’re encouraging through alternative tax of automobiles -- or there has to be an increase of supply,” he said in a recent interview.
see post 46
70,000 barrels, 5 minutes supply. What will we do with all the extra gasoline?
One of the better columnists, I forget who, said today that you can forget any promises of smaller government.
His major point was that government is going to grow in the most accelerated manner you have ever seen; that the fight is not over whether government will grow, but over who will control it.
Meaning, of course, who will get to put his hand in the till.
This growth will occur because of the emphasis on global warming and alternative energy.
Who controls also controls the money.
Think about it. You are in politics, possibly about to be put in control of the biggest money stream in US history (DOD may be the exception), so are you going to blow the whistle and get your gravy train off the track?
Not if you are a politician. Only you, an honest person might.
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