ANWR Amendment (Cantwell) DOES NOT PASS

[BladeLWS]

Cantwell amendment HAS NOT PASSED THE SENATE!

[Pharmer]

My liberal colleagues in the neighboring booths are having a fit!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :) :) and again :)

[ClancyJ]

Environmentalists and liberals have made sure no new refineries are being built.

They also have caused large oil corporations to move their primary operations overseas resulting in less jobs here.

They also seek to claim American lands for environmentalist control. By the way, a lot of that control is by other nations due to agreements made tying use of American land to environmental agencies which are not run by Americans but by foreign persons.

Can you possibly see an environmentalist threat to the use of American land by Americans? Could they possibly limit American growth and power? Seems to me that the whole purpose of environmental groups IS TO CONTROL AMERICA'S USE OF AMERICA'S OWN LANDS AND PUT THE CONTROL INTO THE HAND OF ULTRA LEFTWING ORGANIZATIONS.

(Of course I expect to be called stupid).

[oldcomputerguy]

"What is fact and fiction here"

It is simple, if there is no oil up there worth producing no one will bid on the leases. If they bid them up, the envirowackos have been lying thru their teeth.... the mostly likely scenario.

[keysguy]

Cant you guys put up somebody good against her. She look like nothing more than a pretty face with an empty brain.

[Lokibob]

"The government says oil goes to Japan for "balance of trade" and such ... which is why you hear of no oil shortage problems in Japan."

 

This is the exact opposite of what is happening.  Not one drop of Alaskan crude leaves North America.  One of the big fears was that people like you would not understand the balance of trade, so congress passed a law that said "Alaskan crude will be used in the U.S. and Canada only" .  It would be cheaper to export crude to Japan, in trade for Japan buying Saudi oil and bringing it to the east coast (panama canal problems), but instead, we are stuck with the higher prices on the east coast.

 

If you have and documentation of crude being sold to Japan, I would like to see it.  Everything I see on line and in the Library of Congress states that no Alaskan crude is going overseas.

[demlosers]

Dems: Landrieu, Akaka and Inouye voted NO

I can understand Louisiana,... but Hawaii?

[JoeV1]

"...which is why you hear of no oil shortage problems in Japan."

There is likewise no shortage of oil here. Home heating oil and gasoline are plentiful.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The old Pennzoil organization wanted to build a 200,000 bbl/day refinery in Arizona. The Greens didn't stop it. Chevron did.

[Robert A Cook PE]

To clarify, the Budget resolution included a reconciliation measure regarding drilling in ANWR and the Cantwell Amendment would have removed that reconciliation. Her amndment to strike ANWR from the Budget was defeated.

I think that 90% of the cr*p in the federal code of regulations is this kind of "a vote against denying the xyz's petition to prevent the denial of the repeal of the committee report back to the sub-committee to restate the denial of the reversal of the prevention of the witness's denial of loss of protection in he budgetary hearing against the removal of the lack of protection of the ......

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Not to hi-jack your post, Blade, but this piece from Victor Davis Hanson sums up (for me) why it's so important that we get out from under so much imported oil. We really need to understand how we've all contributed to the WOT through our foreign oil use. I'm not judging anyone because I own a car, heat my home, use plastics, travel on trains, planes and city buses; just providing some food for thought to those that think we shouldn't bother to do all within our power to be a more oil self-sufficient country:

March 8, 2005
Blood for Oil? No Oil Money for Bloody Terrorists
by Victor Davis Hanson (Tribune News Services)

Even in the face of spreading reform in the Middle East, Americans remain divided over the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein and then staying on to foster democracy in Iraq. But petroleum should not be part of that controversy. Nevertheless, the most persistent smear of this war has been this idea of "blood for oil"—whether the so-called Afghanistan pipeline or Halliburton "grab" for concessions and profits.

True, our foreign policies, like those of all industrial powers, are in part guided by strategic considerations. Cheap gas, however, is not the supreme driving force behind American intervention. The lack of oil may explain our wrong decision to ignore Rwanda, but not our right choice to stop the dying in the Balkans, Somalia and Indonesia. In fact, China, not America, is already the world player most guided by Oilpolitik.

Whatever George Bush is, he is certainly no longer a realist oilman content with the status quo of propping up dictatorial Middle East regimes. Pulling troops out of Saudi Arabia and toppling Saddam—while putting Iran on notice—sent shivers up an oilman's spine. After the Americans invaded Baghdad, the price of petroleum skyrocketed, enraging voters back home. America currently pours billions into oil-rich Iraq, rather than siphoning Arab petroleum out. That is why the same critics who once claimed that we were thieves now deride us as dupes.

Invading Iraq was not to loot its oil treasure, but more likely to cease the recycling of its petrodollars that went to terrorists and weapons procurement. Oil revenue allowed Saddam to attack four countries. His oil money subsidized terrorists like Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas. He sent cash bounties to suicide murderers on the West Bank and helped al-Qaidists in Kurdistan. Petrodollars empowered him to butcher his own people, and thus indirectly led to endless Western patrolling of two-thirds of his airspace.

In contrast, Iraqi oil revenue is now transparent and under the control of an elected government. Reserves are no longer pledged by a dictator to France and Russia in sweetheart deals and at extortionist rates. Nor is petroleum diverted by greedy insiders of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program.

Oil, remember, is also not just an American interest. Japan, Europe, India and China depend on imported fossil fuels far more than does the United States. Impoverished Third World states need moderately priced petroleum to salvage their chronically weak economies. For all the pampered terrorists' bluster about "stealing our resources," the real moral onus is more often on the opulent oil producer like a Saudi Arabia, Iran or Kuwait rather than a destitute consumer like Bangladesh or Peru.

Oil is pumped out of the ground in the Middle East at costs of between $5 and $8 a barrel. Through the power of a cartel, it is then sold to the world for $50. The Saudis, Gulf States and Iranians—who sit atop it but neither developed it nor can pump it without foreign expertise—have exclusive rights of possession protected by international protocols and ultimately the U.S. Navy.

As thanks, the oil producers have formed a monopoly—every bit as ruthless as any 19th century creation of a John D. Rockefeller—in unison to cut production and jack up the world price. This price-fixing harms millions from rural Brazil to Albania. OPEC, not the United States, is the real cutthroat petroleum profiteer.

Every gambling spree by a Saudi sheik in Monaco or outlandish $1,000 a night hotel in the Gulf comes in part from the income of a peasant in Bolivia or Chad. The money for mustard gas in Iraq, a nuclear reactor in Iran and hate-filled propaganda of the Saudi madrassas all derived from rigged oil prices and went to regimes that were neither elected nor capable of creating real wealth through the participation of a middle class.

Such an easy slur like "blood for oil" persists because the alternative explanation is apparently unpalatable. After Sept. 11, Bush abandoned the realist policies of his past and the Cold War calculus of a half-century, by zeroing in on the old pathology of the Middle East: dictators paying off theocrats and terrorists to redirect popular anger at their failures onto the United States.

If Bush's democratic gambit succeeds, the world will be a far better place. But until then as we work on reform in Iraq, let us also conserve, develop new sources and wean ourselves from foreign oil. Promoting democracy also means keeping astronomical profits out of the hands of both failed autocrats and killers. By reducing world demand to weaken the cartel, we will both help poorer nations and restore the financial integrity of the United States.

Those who scream "no blood for oil" would do better to chant "no oil money for bloody terrorists and dictators."

©2005 Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson030805.html

[MNlurker]

Imagine how costly gas is there. The senators would have been strung up if they hadn't voted for drilling.

I'm hoping that Coleman was voting nay because we already had the numbers or I know someone who won't be getting any money from me.

[deport]

Wow...cheap gas is on the way now!

---

Despite a pledge by OPEC ministers to increase oil production, don't expect much of a break on oil prices. With crude oil prices hitting a record $56 a barrel Wednesday, OPEC ministers meeting in Iran have been grappling with a problem they haven’t confronted in the cartel’s 45-year history. In the past, OPEC tried to cool overheated prices by pumping more when supplies got too tight. But most OPEC producers say they’re already pumping as fast as they can. And despite the high cost of a barrel of crude, world demand shows no signs of slowing...

[ClancyJ]

Wonder why there is no shortage here? Could it be because we have to import from the Mideast at higher and higher prices?

Does this mean we need to keep on being dependent on Mideast oil? (since there is no shortage?)

The real shortage is in refineries. Environmentalists have made it nearly impossible to run a refinery.

So, environmentalists now run our country and we are totally dependent on Mideast oil. Their reasoning? The poor caribou, or the need for a pristine location that no one has any desire to ever see, or the regulations, upon regulations that drive out any possibility of maintaining a refining operation no matter how well done.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Another reason to prevent McCrime from getting anywhere close to the 2008 nomination.

[Graycliff]

(My problem is the Fed's should not own Alaska )
They don't most is state land.

(I also know, the vast majority of oil in Alaska goes to Japan )
Haven't heard that one before.

(Our second problem is one we drill, where to we refine?)
It can be refined there or pipelined to the lower 48 for refining, which ever is the most economical.

(Here in California you cannot due to government regulations )
That would be state regulations. I dare to say, it cost more to produce a barrel of oil in California than anywhere else. Between Unions and Environmentalist, I'm amazed their industry still exists.

[ClancyJ]

And why did Chevron stop it? Because it was not profitable, because of the regulations and red tape involved?

Possibly because it was cheaper to do outside America?

If it had been doable, profitable, and could be maintained, I feel sure it would have been done.

[JoeV1]

"I suggest you tune in with something called EARTH - it;'s a planet. There are people on it."

Yes, people....and liberals also.

[Hoboto]