ANWR
Posted on 03/16/2005 9:46:43 PM PST by FairOpinion
RUSH: The US Senate just voted to keep the language that would open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The vote was today. Senator Kerry tried to stop it, but he loses again. "The Bush administration wants to give energy companies access to the refuge's billions of barrels of oil to boost domestic supplies to help reduce US dependence on crude imports." You know what I've been thinking of producing here? You know how entrepreneurs who have resort areas, they put together videos to show you what you'll see if you come visit their resort and so forth, and other people, after they have visited these resorts, put together a little video to show their friends and other family members where they were? Do you realize what one of those of ANWR would look like? The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge is being portrayed as this beautiful, pristine place on the planet that we cannot disturb because it will terribly upset the balance of nature and all this other garbage. It's just like they opposed the Alaska pipeline. They said, "If we put in the Alaska pipeline, we will destroy the caribou heard up there." Well, they put in the Alaska pipeline, and you know what happened? The caribou herd quadrupled -- and you know why? Because the pipeline produces heat, and the caribou, even though they're wintertime beasts, enjoy a little warmth now and then, particularly during, uh...uh...uh...shall we say "procreation," and the wackos are wrong.
If you put together a video of ANWR, you would see nothing but snow and rock. It is no place anybody's ever going to go. The wildlife that lives there wishes it didn't but it's too stupid to figure out how to move anywhere. They don't have moving vans sent to their places like people in Philadelphia do when they want to get out of someplace. This is absolutely absurd. The same people opposing this are the same people that complain and whine and moan about our foreign oil dependence. It's a catch-22. Now, I'll tell you something. To you alternative fuel types, let's talk about shale oil for just a second. It will all fit: alternative, shale oil, what have you. Right now the price of oil is at $56 and some change, $56.10, an all-time record high. So if we announce that we're going to drill in ANWR or go get shale oil, do you know what will happen? You can't get oil out of shale for a profit unless the worldwide price is at least $30 a barrel. Well, right now, you say, "Oh, good we can go get shale now. It's 56 bucks." Do you know what will happen the minute we make the move to shale? The world producers will dump the price to prevent our developing a competing supply. Same thing with alternative fuels. If somebody gets serious someday about an alternative fuel and we get progress on it, the oil producers of the world will lower their prices to make it unprofitable for either the shale oil-types or the alternative fuel producers to do it on their own. It's just a fact of the market.
It's not a conspiracy. It's the way the market works, supply and demand. These are some of the realities out there, but this ANWR business, this is not a guarantee it's going to pass the full Congress, but it is a major step. The Senate is expected to vote on the budget bill later this week. The House, which has approved drilling in the refuge in the past would still have to adopt the Senate's drilling lingo, language, when lawmakers from both chambers negotiate the final budget bill in the so-called prestigious conference committee but still major step forward. John Kerry tried to stop this, and in fact there were fireworks on the floor of the Senate today. John Kerry, from afar -- what did he do? Send Ted Stevens ( news | bio ) a letter? (interruption) Yeah, but how? (interruption) Yeah, but how? What he did, Kerry accused Ted Stevens, the senator from Alaska, of being unethical on this. I don't know if he did it verbally or if he sent a letter to somebody. He didn't do it on the floor of the Senate. He didn't do it even in Washington. He didn't do it to Stevens' face. So Stevens was on the floor of the Senate today offended, righteously so, in demanding that Kerry essentially say to this to his face and prove where he's ever been unethical. So the Democrats are pulling out all stops on this. This is just anti-American progress. The same people, as I say, that are complaining about our dependence on foreign oil and "Bush's policy with the Saudis," which is all oriented towards oil. Here's a chance to bust up whatever monopoly OPEC had. "Oh, no, no, no! We can't do that. Environmentalist wackos, big contributors to us, will be mighty upset about this."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go to Portland, Maine. This is Eric. Welcome, sir, to the Rush Limbaugh program.
CALLER: Hi there, Rush, and mega dittos from lobster land up here.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You're welcome. I wanted to say, what's your feeling on raising -- this is wonderful, I'm a conservative in liberal land -- raising taxes to support the marketplace for alternative fuels? So if we raise the tax on petroleum products, and therefore give the incentive, the market the incentive to develop some alternatives? I don't like raising taxes, but in this case I think it's better than the failed Jimmy Carter tax credits that we had umpteen years ago.
RUSH: The problem with that is I don't think raising taxes will solve anything, particularly the government's not going to come up with alternative fuels. The government doesn't produce anything. The government consent design anything. So if you raise taxes, the money goes to government, then government has to be in charge of granting money to people, going to come up with alternative fuels. That's not how it works. The private sector can do this without the government acting as a middleman. Raising taxes will artificially raise prices. That's not market oriented. That's artificially raising prices. It's not going to motivate anybody to start coming up with alternative fuels. As I said the thing to keep in mind here is that when the oil price gets high enough, that is going to motivate all these alternative fuel guys, either that or the eventual scarcity of the stuff. But before we get to that point, the eventual scarcity of the stuff -- and that's a loooooong time down the road, folks. Do not believe this notion that we've got a very, very few short years. All kinds of oil that we can't yet get to because of the price and profitability. But this OPEC bunch and the cartel, when the alternative producers get in gear they're going to need a certain price level in order for it to be profitable, and that's where the market will come into play again because the OPEC gang will start lowering the price. I think people are out there working on alternatives. We're doing the hybrid. We tried the electric car. It was a big joke. It was a big botch. I mean that's a funny story in and of itself. There's a graveyard for these things. There's a graveyard for these EV1s, these electric cars that nobody wanted. How many were bought, Mr. Snerdley? Eight hundred. So 1.2 million two cars every month in this country, and 800 in its lifespan for the EV1. It got 140 miles to a charge, folks! Wowie zowie, 140 miles to a charge -- driving it 50 miles an hour max. Nobody wanted it. It didn't work out, and it's just not time for this stuff yet. The market I'm convinced will take care of this. Necessity is the mother of invention, and a lot of things can comprise "necessity," but high taxes will not do it. All that's going to do is artificially raise the price, and government is going to benefit from it. It's a bad, bad way to do this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, people say, "We need to conserve more." There's nothing wrong with conservation but that's not a policy because conservation will not allow for our continued economic growth. We need more oil and we need more refineries. We haven't built a refinery in this country in, what, 20 years? There is a movement -- it's in the stack here; I didn't have a chance to get to it, but there is a movement -- to build more refineries. The question is, where? Think they'd let you build one in Malibu? Think they'd let you build one in the northeast where it's going to be next to the swells? So but, yeah, these are the kind of things that need to be done. Conservation is part of policy, too, there's no question but it's not the only element because there's no growth potential with conservation. Sensible use makes all kinds of sense in the world.
END TRANSCRIPT
I wonder if there's enough land left to build a few more refineries in Pasadena, Texas. Or near Amarillo. I can remember driving from Houston to Dumas (50 miles n of Amarillo) as a child and seeing the stacks with the burn off lighting up the night sky. I haven't been through there in years so I don't even know if those refineries are still open.
kerry loses again.
man o man i just cant hear that enough
:-D
Good ol' Rush!
I live next door to a refinery in El Segundo, CA. and I never even notice that the damn thing is there.
I always thought the GOP could have had even more support for this, if they had actually made a video showing the spot where they want to drill, based on the photos, it looks like hell on earth most of the year.
Check out the size of the area where we want to drill.
http://www.anwr.org/docs/CloseupofareaIII.pdf
ANWR
I'm farmiliar with the area, and I've seen pics of that area, what actually boggles my mind, is how anyone can even live anywhere near that tundra, though I am aware that the eskimos there were supportive of the drilling, but it looks like hell on earth, and the conditions there are harsh enough that if you made criminals live there, it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
I can't wait for the day when the Cape Wind project is built and Sens. Kerry and Kennedy have to look at them from the porches of their Nantucket mansions. Personally I think they're cool, but I know the NIMBY Limousine Liberals hate 'em.
Thanks for the very cool map showing the extremely small area proposed for drilling. I think that map and the videos of tundra would be helpful in convincing people to go ahead and drill - there's certainly nothing else going on in that area: no endangered species, no people, no nothin'.
"I wonder if there's enough land left to build a few more refineries in Pasadena, Texas. Or near Amarillo. I can remember driving from Houston to Dumas (50 miles n of Amarillo) as a child and seeing the stacks with the burn off lighting up the night sky. I haven't been through there in years so I don't even know if those refineries are still open."
Boston is a dump, let's build them there.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Kerry and his wife have 4 homes, private aircraft, a yacht that gets around 1 mile to the gallon. Kerry loves to be filmed wind surfing and riding a bike. Kerry votes no on drilling in the USA and expects people to believe in his honest approach to the environment? I hope they put a tunnel
and a bridge to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The ferry is a pain. ;>)
Here's a better map comparing Alaska/ANWR to a map of the US.
http://www.anwr.org/gallery/pages/03-ANWRtoUSmap.htm
Put a pinprick on ANWR and that's the area to be drilled....
Hooray! Kerry's humilation just doesn't stop.
This is fun to watch!
Kerry & Co. can cry us a river. LOL
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