Posted on 05/16/2008 7:12:16 PM PDT by Kaslin
Energy: With the price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC's No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress.
Underscoring its failure to grasp the nature of our current problems, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday refused to end its moratorium on oil shale development in Colorado.
"If we are really serious about reducing pain at the pump," Colorado's senior senator, Republican Wayne Allard, said, "this is a vote that would make a difference in people's lives." He's right.
But the shale proposal went down to defeat with Allard and 13 other Republican members in favor and 15 Democrats opposed. Once again, Democrats were on the wrong side, opting to keep oil in the ground and punish you with higher prices as a result.
This was no minor thing. Estimates put the amount of oil locked in shale in both Canada and the U.S. at more than 1 trillion barrels. Pulling out even a tenth of that would quadruple our current reserves.
This is the same Congress that refuses to allow drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which holds up to 20 billion barrels of crude, or offshore, where another 30 billion await.
Meanwhile, Brazil — which recently made a major oil discovery almost in sight of Rio's beaches — announced that it has leased 80% of the world's deep-sea offshore oil rigs. In other words, Brazil unlike the U.S., isn't dithering as prices soar. It's drilling.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
It is rather hypocritical of us to ask them to despoil their “pristine” desert and endanger their sand fleas.
How about just getting out of the way?
I despise tax credits as social engineering or economic development tools.
LOL!
WE had a republican president and a republican senate and republican house a few years ago and this problem didn't get solved either. - Tom
You can't use it up.
It is a self-renewing and self-sustaining resource.
Your fellow citizens have just stupidly restricted where people can go to exploit it.
It's kind of like the smoking bans - the end result of decades of propaganda-generated hysteria.
The electorate asked for it, the electorate got it. The chief danger of pure democracy.
We should all be happy that the "system" apparently works.
What congress needs to do is pay for their own gas. I'll bet they have never put any gas in there tanks that is not reimbursed by us taxpayers. (probably use a govmint credit card) That includes their staff and probably the family members as well. Although I admit the latter is just my feeling.
there —> their
Nice conspiracy theory. Just not true. This is a global commodity bubble. Thank Alan Greenspan for keeping rates too low for too long.
And what a pity it is that our sitting president is so inarticulate that he cannot, even with all the facts currently available, and the price of energy and food, he still cannot effectively articulate the part the Democrats and environment extremists have played in causing the current problems.
There is a gold mine of material, but seemingly no one to make use of it to the Republicans and the nation’s advantage.
And the freakishly far left Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling 14 years ago...
for reference — thanks for the post
Here is the event that set the sixties era environmental extremists on their current course, one oil spill from an offshore rig and they’ve been stark raving mad ever since, making their contribution to our energy problems while gaining great influence inside the Democrat party:
Odds are that you are right. They don't even pay for their cars.
Oil prices are not decided by Arabs they are decided by commodities brokers on wall street.
If he hadn't asked them, you'd be the first on to bitch about it
I don’t think it OPEC alone that is pushing the prices up.. It’s those darned speculators who do
Oil shale development moratorium? When did this happen? I knew that the Dems were blocking ANWR and offshore development, but I hadn't heard that they were blocking shale development.
Oil exploration was blocked by almost all rats and a few Rinos. The rats march in lock step against energy development except for the alternatives they prefer. They are leading us into an energy nightmare. In 10 years, we will have shortages of peak power, dramatic movement of industries to other countries, and much higher fuel costs. I cannot understand how the average individual complains about fuel and energy costs but votes for rats.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.