Posted on 01/14/2009 9:39:41 PM PST by JavaJumpy
How does $8-a-gallon gas sound? Few Americans would want to see that happen. Unfortunately, President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for the government’s two highest energy posts have expressed a surprising level of comfort with sky-high gas prices.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the incoming Obama administration and new Congress have suggested that they might reverse the pro-domestic oil drilling measures enacted since last summer. It is starting to look as though the change coming to Washington will bring bad news at the pump in the years ahead. As gas prices topped $4 a gallon last July, President George W. Bush revoked the longstanding executive order that outlawed oil exploration and drilling in 85 percent of America’s territorial waters - nearly everywhere off the "lower 48" except Texas and Louisiana.
Congress followed up by allowing its own 27-year-old offshore moratorium to lapse on Oct. 1. These outdated restrictions should never have stayed on the books for so long - the risk of oil spills has been dramatically minimized with the latest technologies. But at least Washington did the right thing by belatedly getting rid of them. Thus, the leasing process can commence in areas estimated to contain 19 billion barrels of untapped oil - about 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia. And, it should be noted, these initial estimates tend to be on the low side. We might find much more oil.
Earlier in the year, then-candidate Obama and leading Democrats in Congress had opposed this expansion of domestic oil drilling. However, both relented in the face of the summer’s public outrage over $4-a-gallon gas, as well as polls showing 2-to-1 support for more drilling. But, as they say, that was then. Since the election, both the incoming administration and Congress have signaled that they might reverse position and undo this policy. And two key Obama appointments might want to go further.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., Obama’s nominee for secretary of the interior, was on record as opposing lifting the offshore moratorium even if gasoline were to reach $10 a gallon. The Department of the Interior runs the federal energy-leasing programs. As secretary, Salazar would have the power to slow such leasing to a crawl, with or without the help of Congress.
In fairness, Salazar strongly opposed offshore drilling but never said he actually wanted the price of gas to skyrocket. The same cannot be said of secretary of energy nominee Steven Chu.
Last September, he told The Wall Street Journal that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
European gas taxes are much higher than in the United States and are designed to force people to drive less or not at all. At the time of Chu’s comment, the "levels in Europe" were above $8 a gallon.
Beyond restoring the ban on offshore drilling, the Obama transition team is also considering adding to the restrictions facing onshore drilling, something Salazar has pushed for in the Senate. He has also been instrumental in placing regulatory roadblocks in front of oil shale in Colorado and other states where it exists.
Though the process of extracting oil from shale is still being developed, if successful it could produce hundreds of billions of barrels of oil - enough to supply the United States for many decades. Being so stridently anti-energy might not be the political poison it was last summer now that gas prices have plummeted by more than half.
The main reason for the price decline - a slumping economy that has dampened demand - is one that few expect or want to last forever. If we don’t get serious about expanding oil production, pump prices could go back up as soon as the economy starts to turn around. In all likelihood, we have not seen the last of $4-a-gallon gas.
Imagine if we return to that level - and the consumer anger that accompanies it - perhaps as soon as 2010.
How will the public feel about an administration and a Congress that came in and instituted a sweeping crackdown on domestic oil supplies?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ben Lieberman is a senior policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
These lead balloons are not going to play in Peoria.
$8 a gallon would destroy the economy pretty quickly
Plus, keeping demand for imported oil low also protects the US dollar, which he wouldn’t want to see fall with all the spending he wants to do. A weak dollar will kneecap him.
Our election was Foreign Bought and Paid For.
They will expect a payback.
That depends on where that $8 is going, into Saudi banks or into Federal coffers?
They will not have to raise taxes. They will just not allow any more oil drilling in the US and shrug when OPEC threatens tp raise prices. They will also try to shut off the spigot to projects already underway.
Saudi’s most likely, but if it goes to the fed it will just allow them to destroy the economy faster. Its going to the US government will not help the economy.
For Obama to be the true nanny state communist he dreams of being, he’s going to need royalties from domestic oil, and keep demand for imported oil low as possible. The lower the world market price for oil is, the more tax he can slap on gas.
Ahhhh, too bad Basic Health Care won’t pay for arthritic joint replacements...that will cut into the bicycle profits.
They don’t want ANY domestic production
I doubt the Saudi’s are going to let him make a profit like that if they are selling low. Heads are probably together right now discussing “sharing”
I agree. There is a huge undercurrent of mad as hell people. They are mostly quiet right now but it’s going to become a loud roar.
>>These people are so sick.<<
No, they are EVIL.
“Not time to lock & load yet.”
Closer by the day.
Wanna bet?
Well, no kidding. Their whole plan is to tank the country and take us out as the lone superpower. We’re an economic powerhouse, so you have to destroy that. The huge inflationary process they support will take care of that. It will allow for socialism to flourish, and rationing to occur, and higher prices for everything to occur, and for more control over all aspects of your existence by the state, to occur. And for your civil liberties and rights to be taken away.
Yup, everything is going according to plan.
He can't destroy capitalism if he's a broke Marxist dictator. High foriegn oil prices and a sustained outflow of American dollars for mid east oil would only water the seeds of capitalism by creating demand for alternative domestic solutions for transportation, manufacturing, and energy. Ingenuity's by-product is capitalism, something Obama and his moneymen would NOT want to see. They want dependent sheeple, much like how Islam keeps it's sheeple, in a state of hopeless misery, incapable of independent thought which kills progressive development, which is why the mid east is stuck in the 7th century except for the ingenuity imported from the western world.
The payback to Obama's fund suppliers is destruction of America as a dominant world power.
They want to turn us into a Third World hell hole.
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