House Democrats Call for Nationalization of Refineries

foxnews.com ^ | June 18, 2008

[Free ThinkerNY]

Urgent: House Democrats call for nationalization of refineries

Per Pergram-Capitol Hill

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.

At an off-camera briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the same. And a senior Republican House Appropriations Committee aide adds that "there were multiple reasons for the postponement" including discussion on the supplemental. But the aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments.

Here are the highlights from briefing

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling

1115

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

Hinchey on why they postponed the Appropriations markup

1119

I think there aren't enough votes for the Peterson amendment. It wasn't taken up (the Interior spending bill) because of the omnibus Appropriations bill. That's the main focus of the Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)

1116

They (Republicans) have a one-trick pony approach.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the Resources Committee

1106

You cannot drill your way out of this.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming

1111

The White House has become a ventriloquist for the oil and gas energy.

[farlander]

Good lord man. That’s the most RIDICULOUS statement I’ve ever heard. Do you even know what that means and what speculation actually is ?

[farlander]

And she even said she’d love to take over the Media too. Wow.

Treasonous communist scum.

[John123]

Whups! I was being sarcastic but thank you for your input! :)

[Pride in the USA]

Yep . . . the United Socialist States of America.

[John123]

The scary thing is that there are so many blind followers out there, that they might just agree with anything these Dem’s say.

Oh you got that right! Why would we believe that a entity that cannot even balance their own checkbook is the BEST choice for controlling the cost of energy?

[kempo]

I beg your pardon. The USPS does packages too and when I receive packages from USPS it usually 2 to 3 days longer than UPS or FEDEX.

[wolfcreek]

FOX reported what Dick Morris said, not me.

Financial speculation, involves the buying, holding, selling, and short-selling of stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, collectibles, real estate, derivatives, or any valuable financial instrument to profit from fluctuations in its price as opposed to buying it for use or for income via methods such as dividends or interest.

This is how George Soros made most of his money.

[muawiyah]

Glad you receive them. At the same time they don’t focus exclusively on packages ~

[muawiyah]

Glad you receive them. At the same time they don’t focus exclusively on packages ~

[Polyxene]

When the RATs won both the House and the Senate in 2006, both Bela Pelosi and Squint Reid told us they were going to fix up and clean up everything that was wrong in the US, and it would be the Clinton years all over again. Now, two years later, they are large and in charge, everything is worse, they are still blaming Bush (and leaning farther and farther left)!

[farlander]

Uh huh. Ok Dick Morris is a *political* commentator, not an economic one,,and even as such could not get his head out of his rear end with a flashlight and a detailed map.

So that’s a nice wikipedia-like definition, but what does it really mean in terms of reality ? The whole concept of making $X per barrel doesn’t make any sense in terms of futures markets. More likely what he was talking about was that potentially $50-$60 of the PRICE is influenced by speculation, ie, if there wasn’t any speculation it’d be 50% less. Which is an incredible overexaggeration if I ever heard one.

Here’s an example. You’re in a hermetically closed room, and all the air you get is provided in pressurized tanks. The folks that make the tanks can make 100 of them per day. There’s 98 other people in there, and you’re not sure whether there’ll be 101 or 98 or 97 produced for the next day. How much will you pay to make sure you get your tank ? But some guy buys a tank now, holds it until an 10 minutes before tank exchange time, and then sells it. He might have made some money there. But perceptions change and someone figures out they’ll be able to make more tanks that day and that guy could have lost a crapload of money too.

That’s the oil markets today. World output at 86m bpd, world use at about 84-85m bpd. The price is driven exponentially by the marginal number of excess capacity. If we were at 100% capacity oil would be $200. That we’re at 98% capacity means we’re at $130.

[ponygirl]

Imagine that oil becomes a national concern. Its production then becomes a matter of national security. Once the federales realize they’ve put all their qualified personnel into high-pressure jobs like “TSA agent,” they have to keep those of us who already work here.

If no one can do our jobs, the oil won’t get pumped and refined, so we won’t be allowed to leave.

THAT is scary.

THAT is exactly what Ayn Rand predicted in the book "Atlas Shrugged."

[tiredoflaundry]

Hinchley is on Cavuto, trying to “back track” on what he said yesterday

[tiredoflaundry]

s/b Hinchey

[LibertyRocks]

Yep, you’re right about that. I put something on my LibertyRocks blog about this today, and I googled for more articles. There were only TWO that directly addressed this issue - Neil Cavuto’s commentary at FOX News, and WND. Now, I don’t know if this has anything to do with the whole AP mess on google, but I found it rather interesting that there were NO other results in the news search...

[LibertyRocks]

How in the WORLD can one backtrack from using the word NATIONALIZE? How in the world is he trying to say that he DIDN’T advocate for the government to seize control of the refineries... There is only one definition for the word, and only one ideology that supports it - SOCIALISM (or in this case more appropriately COMMUNISM).

[wolfcreek]

So the price is so high due to fear? And who’s profiting from that fear?

[tiredoflaundry]

Cavuto challenged him, but Hinchey kept dodging Cavuto’s questions. Like most libs, Hinchey talked over Cavuto. I wish Neil had cut the damn mic!

[antonia]

Democrats present themselves as the solution to a problem they created. This was their plan all along.

You are absolutely right:

National and state legislation requires refineries to meet stringent air and water cleanliness standards. In fact, obtaining a permit to build even a modern refinery with minimal impact on the environment (other than CO2 emissions) is so difficult and costly that no new refineries have been built (though many have been expanded) in the United States since 1976.

 

[antonia]

Think retaliation against those who don't vote for the Democrat party & Democrats appointing the bookkeepers for this refineries thus enabling themselves to the money that are supposed to go into maintaining the equipment to instead be skimmed off into democrat party coffers.

Just like they have been doing at Fanny Mae, and the results will be the same. Inflation beyond value.