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Ok, first off, perhaps the ROI wasn't there, but now that demand has increased, you don't see it as being there? Just look at oil sand and shale. Its expensive to extract oil from this, yet the demand has driven the oil companies to begin extraction. Secondly, from a political standpoint, whether the oil companies wanted more refineries or not, you KNOW the environmentalists didn't and ACTIVELY work against more being built. In short, they are the vocal one's while the oil companies just silently smirk. Thus, it doesn't matter if the oil companies worked against them. All Bush has to do is call for more to be built. The enviros will instinctively and loudly oppose this and Bush can say, "See, the enviros are at it again, the close allies of the democrats." Finally, there is more to the high price of oil than just oil. A great deal of oil used in this country goes to generating electricity. I wonder who has kept us from building more nuclear power plants or from burning coal?

There's so many things wrong here I just don't know where to begin, and before you ask, I worked in the energy industry (specifically petroleum) for a while so I do know of what I speak.

It's not liability that makes a new refinery so expensive. It's *infrastructure*. You need pipelines, holding tanks, monitoring systems, processing tanks, and so on... it's *not* cheap at all. And if you increase output, price drops. If price drops you don't recoup your cost quickly.

Second, the oil industry knows that supply is going to be tighter and tighter. The main suppliers of oil aren't exactly stable companies. China and India have increasing demands for oil. Even when (notice I didn't say if) we start extracting oil from sand and shale, it's not going to be available in the quantities that it is today. Why build it when you're not convinced you'll need it in the future?

The majority of electricity in the US comes from coal, not oil. And it's time for that to change to nuclear, in my opinion. China is rapidly taking the lead with nuclear power, and we need to stay competitive here.

And as to who wants the refineries not built... sure it's environmentalists. And most republicans and democrats also suffer from some sort of NIMBY-syndrome where they don't mind new refineries, but just not where they can see them. But, trust me on this, the oil companies like that just fine.