Posted on 05/19/2008 8:08:02 PM PDT by Fred
The president of the United States, supposedly the most powerful man on Earth, goes, hat in hand, to our “friends” in Saudi Arabia asking them to increase oil production in order to bring a measure of relief to rising energy prices.
Our “friends” tell him no.
The president is in no position to bargain, or even threaten. What’s he going to do? Cut off financial aid? The Saudis have more money than Allah.
End any military or intelligence support that keeps Islamic radicals from making the House of Saud their next target? As hard as it might be to deal with the princes, it would be even harder to deal with whatever regime might rise in their place.
If this exercise in humiliation isn’t enough to drive America toward energy independence, what is?
We need the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
We need the oil in Bakken Formation of Montana and North Dakota. In April, the U.S. Geological Survey released new findings indicating that formation holds 25 times as much oil — as much as 4 billion barrels — as previously thought. It is the largest continuous oil accumulation the USGS has ever assessed.
Closer to home, we need the oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. In 2006 Congress passed legislation allowing oil exploration about 100 miles off the Florida coast but banning it closer in. That’s a start. If the efforts outside the 100-mile barrier prove successful, Congress should consider moving it even closer to shore.
The Florida delegation in the U.S. House and Senate need to rethink their persistent objections to efforts to produce energy off the state’s coasts. An oil rig 50 miles out wouldn’t spoil a tourist’s view of sunset.
We can wring our hands about global warming or cluck our tongues about the need for alternative sources of energy.
Yes, there are myriad benefits to burning less in the way of fossil fuel and technology certainly will lead us to a better way one day.
But in the near- and mid-term, ours is an economy based on oil, coal and natural gas.
We use more than we currently can produce domestically and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
So we can increase production or we can continue to rely on our “friends,” like Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela, to sell it to us on their terms.
In rebuffing President Bush, the Saudi oil minister said the market is in balance. Indeed it is in perfect balance for the seller, with prices setting new record highs seemingly every week.
For the buyers, the balance is decidedly imperfect.
When one of your best customers keeps you supplied in state-of-the-art weaponry and supports your regime in spite of its less-than-stellar record on human rights you might consider cutting that customer a break.
Failing to do so might cause you concern that said customer might tell you to keep your product and to get your weapons and support elsewhere, especially if that customer has billions of barrels of the same goop under his feet and off his coast.
But the Saudis apparently have no such concern.
It is high time they acquired it.
Unfortunately our nation is run by people that would rather see the economy in a shambles than to EVER allow us to provide for our own energy needs.
I personally cannot think of a better way to keep us involved in war after war in the ME for decades to come.
“Which will end in a glorious smash as big as the dot-com bubble.”
Hmmm any chance of it raining speculators on Wall and Broad?
;o)
Better to ask Smokin’ Joe. He is a well site geologist that has worked extensively in the Bakken.
Unfortunately, it's worse than that. I remember when I was in grade school and the first year of junior high school that we studied "History". At that point, they changed the name to "Social Studies" and all sense of what came before us was viewed through a lens of political correctness to one degree or another. That was the tipping point. After that, it was all down hill.
Saudi Arabia would gladly purchase russian or chinese weapons if we refused to sell any more. And if we pulled out of the gulf, they would gladly accept russian or chinese warships on patrol.
the only way they will ever change their minds is if we FORCE THEM TO DRINK THEIR STINKING OIL!
we have plenty of oil right here in the good ol US of A.
What are we waiting or saving it for?
Ok, here is my feable attempt at energy policy, lets discuss it and shoot it down or whatever...
1. Go nuclear for electric power generation
2. Coal liquification for cars (not sure if that is quite the right term but they can turn coal into gasoline and diesel.
3. End regional boutique fuels
4. explore and exploit every last drop of domestic oil.
5. build cars with small diesel engines, and relax the particulate standards so they can be built, they are way more efficient than gasoline cars and reduce the tax on diesel.
6. Use natural gas for mass trans only, convert cooking to nuclear electricity.
7. Long term explore new energy forms.
Lets comment
Sell oil from the SPR at a discount.
Thanks for the heads up. Can you ping our bro in arms?
It along with an offshore field with very high vanadium levels are the two big Saudi mega project scheduled to some on line in the next year or so.
In the immoral words of Jack Nicholson playing the Joker in the original Batman movie, "We've been rated out here boys."
DRILL HERE!
DRILL NOW!
nuthin’ wrong with any of yer points but i’m sure the lobbyists would tear it apart
Immoral should actually read "immortal", but I guess both apply.
Unbelievable: news article after news article notes Saudi Arabia’s increased production agreement. How can this man write blatant lies?
From Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/19/afx5025284.html
” On the fundamental side, Saudi Arabia has boosted oil output by 300,000 barrels per day to meet demand and compensate for other producers’ lower output, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said on Friday.
“However, this has been overlooked in part because demand from China for diesel is expected to rise after last week’s earthquake.”
Right,
I remember that my social studies class in High school had two pages devoted to WWII. I was pretty horrified to see, and half of that was devoted to anecdotal African American contributions to the war effort. Now I have no problem telling the story of how pathetically we treated African Americans (and for that matter the Irish, the Catholics, and anybody else who did not have the “correct” pedigree) in this country, but not in two miserly pages devoted to WWII. High school textbooks are really pathetic, contextually vapid, and oriented to cater to all kinds of special interests. You simply can’t rely on the school to educate yourself or your kids. Rely on source materials, auto biographies, biographies etc. But that takes work and Joe bag O donuts don’t work.
You must not be a tax paying citizen. Otherwise you would have already noticed that we have been sacrificed.
So you think it’s feasible then to phase in all electric? I wonder what 100 years of that would look like. 60% all electric? More? That would be an interesting study.
LOL
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