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 These outdated restrictions should never have stayed on the books for so long - the risk of oil spills has been dramatically minimized with the latest technologies.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.
Saudi's have no say in what taxes a country slaps on it's oil imports or domestic.
By drilling more of our own oil, it keeps demand for imports low, \thus world prices stay low.
Low world prices means Obama can tax gas higher.
Saudi's can't do squat about it. because it's got nothing to do with making a profit on oil. Saudi's would be making the same profit on their oil, because all oil is sold at the world price.
All Obama would be doing is lessening demand for oil imports, much the same as we were going to when Bush removed the order banning drilling.
The only difference is now that Obama is in power, he will realize that it's in his best interest to continue with the plan, because gas taxes are one of the few ways he can raise a lot of revenue.
As he continues to push American away from capitalism and into communism, more and more revenues have to come from commodities, tariffs, manufacturing taxes, consumer taxes because fewer and fewer people will have decent jobs, or jobs at all, making income taxes insufficient to operate the nanny state on.
We Americans won’t even have ANY CHANGE by the time King Hussein gets through with us. We will be like any other third world nation.
Shouldn’t Obama be happy that we are using less gas? Libs don’t really care about progress or the environment. They just use issues to gain power and influence.
Exactly. That's what those Marxist envirowienies envision. We will all live in little grass huts on a tiny 1/2 acres of yard, growing our own veggies, and reading froma single led light at night powered by a car battery, which is charged by a solar panel during the day.
That's what they are forcing all those Africans to do now, rather than allow them to develop the infrastructure in Africa so they could have electricity and running water, develop industry and create employment.
Haven't you seen a UN comercial asking you to buy a African a chicken, a goat, a hoe and shovel? That will be us in 10 years or sooner. The Chinese will be sending us chickens and goats, and cheap chinese hoes and shovels.
Oh, and mosquito nets.
and a package of seeds.
True but would you sell your oil cheap knowing that the country that you were selling it to was going to add a 4 dollar tax?
I would figure that if the economy in that country could absorb that then they could be paying me more a barrel.
There is a wicked voice in my head that says, “I wish the Americans who voted for Hussein, and those who did not vote, get exactly what they voted for”.
The train wreck is just beginning.
The reasons behind this crap must be presented, for and against. Polar bears hunting seals and Caribou looking at a warm line isn't going to cut it. I will ask my Senators point blank what the issue is. This is stupid.
I think some of you people just dont get it. They are trying to BANKRUPT America. It’s over, just a matter of when, not if.
Well we've already got elections that resemble it. 
Then we will see $10- $15 gas prices.
The wrath? A majority voted FOR this. There won’t be anger. Dems were open about wanting higher gas prices and dominated in the elections. This is what the Idiocracy wanted.
I want to hear all the comments from the Obama puppets at work who firmly believe Bush raised and lowered the prices at whim to get him and his oil buddies rich. When the Great Spreader makes the prices go higher, what will they say? Probably still blame Bush.
LOL, That is the issue they used to get the votes...High Gas Prices. Hey all of you who voted for The One, get your Vaseline ready and bend over because you’re about to get it.
Pay backs a bitch
They are not that stupid ,they will have a Plan to blame it on the evil Oil Companies, they will not take the Blame, the Media will to that.
“Odumbo cannot be that dumb.”
The African communist doesn’t have to be smart to govern by rote!
Some of them have got what they voted for, and already lost their jobs.
Wonder how many who were so in love with him, idiots and academics, have already changed their mind when it affected them directly. In an un-thought-of way.
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