Posted on 06/23/2008 10:43:32 AM PDT by newbie2008
* Lifting bans on domestic oil production will not lower energy prices. This liberal argument comes in two forms: 1) developing X oil well will not lower the price of gas and 2) it will take 10 years for the increased supply to lower prices. These arguments are especially pernicious because applied to each oil project today, they are technically true. However, if the test for developing any single oil field was whether it alone would lower the price of gas, then no oil field would ever be developed.Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will not lower gas substantially by itself, but there is so much more oil currently banned from production. Also, as the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein points out: “In energy, as with all commodity markets, prices are set at the margin — based on the last transaction — and short-run demand doesn’t change much in response to price fluctuations. In such markets, even small changes in supply can have a big impact on price.”Finally, liberal complaints that lifting domestic drilling bans today would take years to increase supply are completely unpersuasive since liberals have been making the same argument in support of oil production bans for decades now.
* Oil companies leave billions of acres of already leased land idle. This incredibly deceptive argument is new to the left’s anti-energy arsenal. It is true that, as the left claims, oil companies already have 33 billion acres of offshore leases they are not currently drilling on. But these lands are far from idle. Oil production takes time and requires years of exploration and permitting. Oil companies are already paying billions of dollars every year for land they are exploring, and under current law, if they do not begin drilling by the time their lease is up, they lose their right to drill. This does not mean there are not billions of barrels of more profitable oil in banned areas. The Department of the Interior estimates that their are 19.1 billion barrels of oil and 83.9 trillion cubic feet of gas in the banned areas Outer Continental Shelf alone.
* Speculators are to blame for the high price of gas. When all else fails, blame the moneychangers. This argument predates not only the environmental movement, but the country itself. As American Enterprise Institute scholar Kevin Hassett points out, Milton Friedman dealt with this specious claim in 1953: “If speculators know that the price of something is going to go up a month from now, they buy today. If they are correct, they make money, and the price change is smoothed by the higher demand today. … If speculators are, as is popularly believed, brilliant tacticians who are making a killing, then their activities are stabilizing. Speculation is good.”
Already there are cracks in left’s unity on the drilling issue. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has co-sponsored a bill with Sen. John Warner (R-Va.)
“Drill Here! Drill Now!” is our new call to arms. For the first time in my adult life I am proud to have been born in Taft, CA.
Alternative fuels won’t have an impact for a generation. Even if some miracle fuel were to suddenly replace gasoline in 5 years, it would take 20 years to replace the entire fleet of autos and trucks now operating in the US. It makes no good sense to forego retrieving our own supplies.
What cracks on the left? Webb is isn't much of a lefty. He's loony though.
“68 MILLION ACRES!!!” ping!
Here’s a guarantee, based on historical observation:
#1: There isn’t a problem we face today that isn’t caused or exacerbated by a liberal policy.
#2: There isn’t a liberal caused problem that we face today that libs will ever take responsibility for.
But, but........
Liberals declared war on poverty. Liberals have compassion about the millions who are grappling with poverty. They are especially compassionate towards some such as single mothers, whom conservatives sometimes say brought problems on themselves by having children out of wedlock. Liberals have compassion for them by saying we shouldn’t be judgemental about whatever behaviors got them to that point.
Liberals make excuses for problems such as crime and gangs in our cities, because the perpetrators are grappling with poverty.
Liberals make excuses for the problems of schools, saying that a key problem is lack of enough funding, or after school programs. More money is needed according to them.
Whatever the problem, liberals have a one track solution. The gov’t should spend more money to : fight homelessness, fight AIDS, fight poverty, improve education, upgrade infrastructure, fight global warming, fight pollution.
It’s an easy lazy way to think. Just repeat over and over : Government should do more to solve (fill in the blank). Goverment should spend more to solve the problems of (fill in the blank). Government spends too much making Halliburton rich. They should spend that money instead on (fill in the blank.)
Is it just me or is there anyone else wondering why the oil companies are not answering this spurious charge--at least I believe it to be.
Why is not a spokesperson from one or more of the "big oil" companies not holding a news conference and putting to bed this canard?
Can it be that they are all so intimidated by the far-left Congress-critters (it sure appeared that to be the case when they refused to unload on those who were openly attacking them in recent hearings) and (like most Republicans) have their gonads in lock boxes???
#3 And there isn’t a problem we face today that liberals don’t believe can’t be solved by yet more federal intervention.
That might be #2, with my #2 bumped to #3.
The American Petroleum Institute was all over this issue. The charge made headlines as numerous hard lefties repeated it. The API reply made page 33 in the NYT on Saturday.
Great post Newbie.
Drilling won’t lower the price of gas...
What if the democrats are right? What if drilling WON’T lower the price of gas?
I *love* this argument because my reply is VERY simple. If it won’t lower the price then we should DRILL NOW! This argument is akin to saying “Digging for diamonds won’t lower the price of diamonds so - even though we know we have diamonds in our country - we shouldn’t dig for them.”
Do you see how idiotic this is? Oil is a resource that represents WEALTH for Americans. If drilling won’t lower the price, that’s even MORE wealth for the Americans that extract the oil!
The democratic plan? Don’t drill here. Instead, give boatloads of money to the Arabs without making any ourselves on the same resource we have in our own soil. Moreover, they want to make oil obsolete with new technology (we ALL do) but they refuse to extract and sell the stuff for TRILLIONS of dollars BEFORE they make it obsolete!
If the price of oil is destined to go up until we make oil obsolete with some miracle technology then we should extract it NOW, while oil is at an all-time high, before it becomes economically unfeasible to extract. Extracting means jobs and wealth for Americans instead of OPEC. It means we export LESS wealth... maybe even less enough to STOP the Arabs from buying up America bit-by-bit (ex. The Chrysler building or Citigroup... who may hold your mortgage which means Arabs own YOUR house.)
If the democrats want to use the canard that “oil companies aren’t drilling on the land they have leases for already,” I say: Fine. Give me the leases to start drilling. I’m 100% certain I could raise the capital necessary to drill the HELL out of ANWR. My drilling activity would enrich a lot of people and create a lot of jobs. Not to mention the fact that ANWR and some of the other coastal regions are “low-hanging fruit” in the world of oil exploration.
So I’m sick of this sh!t. Tell Harry Reid he’s right. And then tell him if he is right, he’s an IDIOT for not drilling.
When the Heritage Foundation speaks, I listen.
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