Posted on 10/25/2006 7:05:37 PM PDT by thackney
DALLAS, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Small American oil producers are concerned about the prospects of Democrats taking control of Congress in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, fearing the imposition of windfall profit taxes and more regulation.
"Most of the Senators from oil and gas states are Republicans," said Lee Fuller, the main Washington lobbyist for the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA). Some Democrats, he said, "just don't like us; they will never be sympathetic to our issues,"
Less than two weeks before the Congressional election, most polls show the Democrats taking the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate -- an unappealing scenario for the IPAA.
"If the Democrats take over we're going to be seeing leadership and many committee chairs who are not familiar with the oil patch and have no particular reason to become familiar with it," Fuller told Reuters on the sidelines of the IPAA's annual meeting.
IPAA President Michael Linn told Reuters the industry was concerned about windfall taxes.
"In terms of our business it will open the doors for windfall profits and some other types of taxes which will be used to fund alternative energy resources," Linn said.
He said the IPAA was concerned that tax breaks enabling small producers to write off 70 percent of the costs of drilling a well could be in jeopardy if Congress changes.
The IPAA does not explicitly endorse candidates or parties. But its annual meeting in the key oil town of Dallas welcomed Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, who sits on the Senate's energy panel.
Both lawmakers addressed the conference, which ends Wednesday, and stressed that their party is the industry's friend.
"Eighty-five percent of the House Democrat caucus, 85 percent, has voted no on every energy initiative that's come before the House in the last two years," Barton told the delegates.
Craig told Reuters he was concerned a Democratic Congress would become "more hostile to the energy industries of our country."
The politics of oil are not always so cut-and-dry partisan. Democrats from oil-producing states such as Texas and New Mexico tend to be more favorable to the industry.
The IPAA represents thousands of independent oil and natural gas producers and service companies.
It says independent producers develop 90 percent of domestic oil and gas wells in America, account for 68 percent of domestic oil production and produce 82 percent of the country's domestic natural gas.
Domestic production itself only accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. oil needs, with imports making up the rest. But independent producers say they play a key role in reducing America's dependence on foreign supplies.
Of course it is. It is effected by weather, economies of different nations, luck or lack of it in discoveries, whims of policies of many nations and the perception of people who decide what oil is worth to them in those market scenarios, and guessing what the market scenarios will be in the future. But that is all part of supply and demand. If it was a strict science with pure mathematic determining its worth, then the market would not exist. Just like all other commodities, it varies based upon perception of the people buying and selling.
Anti-capitolist? You call a trader anti-capitolist?
You are funny.
That is NOT how the press formulates "supply and demand." It is all "is the world's supply of oil about to run out." Since that statement is absurd, and dealers know it, then it is really a matter of gaining a short-time advantage, a sprint rather than a run. Fear and optimism are the best measures of demand.
Fortunately I took an economics class or two and don't depend on the press to define terms for me. You should not confuse production and consumption with supply and demand when related to pricing of a commodity. Supply and demand are the curves of quantity versus prices that buyers are will to pay and sellers are willing to accept. And they change for market conditions and perceptions of those conditions as well as belief of what those conditions will be in the future.
I appears the the idiot politicians that we voted in aren't that concerned. There is just getting reelected at wherever sellout it takes.
2) I am an arch-capitalist (note the spelling), not in any way a socialist or libertarian.
3) When you actually begin to have a dim idea about what moves the energy mkts, do please consider commenting again about them.
4) I was born in St. Louis, MO, 31 August 1951, US citizen by and AT birth (and thoroughgoing Constitutionalist, btw), but raised in Scotland, and now back in STL.
Yours was a quite remarkable post, all in all. Six distinct errors in fact and/or description in just 25 words, NOT to mention two spelling errors. That's quite an achievement.
Perhaps Mr. Bush will consider you for Secretary of Energy.
It's a grinner or a yawner, take your pick.
;^)
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