Posted on 07/24/2008 5:56:29 PM PDT by decimon
The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would require 70 million barrels of crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to be released to the open market in an effort to drive down gas prices.
That would mean pumping oil out from man-made caverns where it is stored. Only twice in the reserve's 31-year history has oil been extracted for emergencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
pelosi said 700,000,000 barrels this morning... that’s a bit more than available? Besides won’t it drive prices back up when we fill it back up?
IIRC, Bush complied with a temporary halt.
According to the article, we have 706,000,000 barrels stored.
so she wants us to completely empty it? it’d almost be worth it to see her cry and moan about not having fuel for her air machine
Bad link.
I don't think that's what she called for. If she did then she really pooched it.
According to the article, the president can do a full withdrawal only for a "severe energy supply interruption."
PELOSI: The president is sitting on 700 million barrels of oil! We're saying, "Mr. President, free our oil! It's our oil! It belongs to the, uh, American taxpayer because this is oil that we have purchased!"
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072408/content/01125111.member.html
Wouldn’t be the first time the Democrats used the SPR as a political tool.
Clinton May Tap Into Oil Reserve Again, Energy Chief Says
By Brian Knowlton
Published: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2000
WASHINGTON: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Sunday that President Bill Clinton might order a further release of stockpiled oil in a bid to push down oil prices and improve supply levels ahead of winter.
Amid Republican complaints that Mr. Clinton’s decision Friday to release an initial 30 million barrels of crude oil was a political gesture to aid the candidacy of Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Richardson defended the move as necessary to avert a “potential national emergency” in fuel supplies.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/09/25/camp.2.t_5.php
Sorry, don’t know how that happened. Here, try this one...http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/index.html
Also, regarding worldwide supply, I recall the Saudis stating that they would just lower their exports to keep their price/barrel from going down.
Should we ever seriously begin to get off the tap, the Saudis will just flood the market until the price/barrel is less than the alternative energy sources.
Plus we send the message that we have that much less to fall back on. But something this article doesn't mention. The bill in question calls for replacing the 70 million bbls of sweet crude with 70 million bbls of some lesser grade. So in essence we won't be ahead a single barrel of oil. Democrats are evil.
Has anyone really thought that maybe their true agenda to release oil from the SPR is not to bring down prices, but, to deter president Bush from starting a war with Iran since we won’t have any oil to fight it with, or to put our national security more at risk ?
Regardless of the fact that 10% of the SPR is contemplated being tapped for the ostensible purpose of driving down fuel costs, opening up heretofor inaccessible known reserves that would in aggregate double the daily domestic crude production is NOT something to consider.
The single foremost reason why this is so, the environmental protectionist organizations aren't in on the take. If we'd let the environmentalists decide, we'd have drilled a decade ago.
The Audobon Society has leased areas in the 26,000 acre Rainey Sanctuary of Louisiana for petroleum extraction. The society's position has always been: "no offshore drilling". None. And yet...
The annual royalties the Audobon Society recieves look mighty fine on their books. Furthermore, their constituency enjoys the liberty of leveraging those royalties to obtain additional wildlife habitat and promote bird-watching for their constituents. Royalties have amounted to $25 million (Bader & Stroup 1981; Snyder & Shaw 1995).
Nor is the Audobon Society the ONLY environmental organization that condones such activities by its controlling officers. The Nature Conservancy accepts land & monetary donations for the sole purpose for wildlife habitability and conservation.
The Wisconsin chapter recieved title for 40 acres of beach front on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. Shortly thereafter, the chapter receieved a much larger tract of land in northern Wisconsin in exchange for the beach land on St. Croix. Although insisting on some convenants pertainting to development of the St. Croix beach front property, they were happy to make the exchange. Now the chapter owns thousands of acres of an entire watershed containing endangered species of plants considered of greater environmental value than what was sacrificed by allowing development of the St. Croix beach front property.
Furthermore, the Nature Conservancy received from Mobil Oil Company 2263 acre parcel that is the home to Attwater's Prairie Chicken. By the early 1990's the populations of this bird was fewer than 10. They subsequently entered into an agreement with Galveston Bay Resources Houston and Aspects Resources, LLC of Denver to drill for oil & natural gas on their reserve.
Why in the hell did they do that? According to Jay Johnson, East County program manager for Nature Conservancy of Tx, "We believe this could provide a tremendous opportunity to raise funds to acquire additional habitat for the Attwater's prarie chicken..."
I believe there's a similar deal in Michigan. They're happy. As long as they get their money.
This problem is really coming to a head out west w/bear & wolves, etc.. You want to get an evironmentalist to make deer-in-the-headlights look? Ask them just how many bald eagle, bear, wolves, or [fill-in-the-blank] are necessary?
SOURCE: The Independent Review vVII, n.2, Fall 2001, ISSN 1086-1653 (copyright 2001, pp. 217-226)
Thanks. Good info there.
Exactly.
The democrats true agenda is to stall drilling until right before the 2008 election and then take credit for finally getting those evil "oil man" republicans to agree to their plan.
"Vote Democratic and save American" and other stupid nonsense
Clever solution. Remind me not to play any strategy games against you, LOL.
You’re kidding... right?
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