Oil
Congress Can Bring Prices Way Down

August 13, 2008

The Great Energy Confusion

By Robert Samuelson

Full article Robert Samuelson

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- Forget about a candid national conversation on energy. As John McCain and Barack Obama campaigned last week, that much seemed clear. To lower oil prices (which were already dropping), Obama proposed releasing 10 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is an atrocious idea. The SPR was intended as insurance against a catastrophic loss of oil from wars, embargoes, terrorism or natural disasters. It should not be manipulated cynically for political advantage. Earlier, McCain suggested suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax; that was another bad and expedient idea.

No doubt Obama and McCain want to relieve Americans' discomfort at the pump. The trouble is that Americans should feel discomforted. We want a return to cheap, secure oil; we want painless pathways to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. These are fantasies; they should not be indulged.

In 2006, coal, oil and natural gas provided 85 percent of U.S. energy. In 2025, regardless of what we do, they will almost certainly remain the leading energy sources. We will still import huge volumes of oil and face global disruptions. And any serious effort to curb oil use and greenhouse gases will require high energy prices -- whether imposed by the market or taxes -- to induce conservation and conversion to nonfossil fuels.

August 01, 2008

Townhall.com Columnist

Drilling and Blissful Ignorance

Charles Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer Townhall.com

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won't even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because as she explained to Politico: "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet."

A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium's actual effects on the planet?

Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it's 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S.

Investor's Business Daily

By M. DAVID STIRLING

Monday, July 28, 2008

Full article M. David Stirling IBD

Excerpts:

Consider that in the 1980s the U.S. Geological Survey estimated some 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil lie under the 1.5-million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. One million barrels of oil produces 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel; here there are potentially 17 billion barrels.

Many urged drilling in ANWR to capture this oil and natural gas. With modern drilling technology, only about 2,000 surface acres would be required to recover the oil and natural gas under the Coastal Plain. But the environmentalist organizations began a "no drilling in ANWR" PR campaign, claiming that wildlife species such as the porcupine, caribou, arctic wolf, polar bear and others were on the brink of oblivion, and would be lost forever if drilling occurred.

Several bills to allow extraction of this oil and natural gas were presented in Congress over the past 20 years, but each was either killed or vetoed. Nor was there scientific evidence supporting the claim that any of the wildlife species were even close to the brink of extinction.

Washington Post

This Time, It's Different

Steven Mufson

Global Pressures Have Converged to Forge a New Oil Reality

July 29, 2008

Excerpts:

"...Last month, 51 percent of the respondents in a Washington Post poll said rising gas prices were causing a serious financial hardship for them or others in their household. It was the first time a majority had said that since the poll began posing that question eight years ago.

The rising prices are also adding to inflation, aggravating the U.S. trade deficit -- oil now accounts for about half of it -- and taking a toll on businesses already struggling with the economic slowdown caused by the housing and financial crises.

The tightening of the oil market reflects decisions made a decade ago, when conditions looked radically different. Regular unleaded gas was less than a dollar a gallon. Oil was little more than $10 a barrel. And the Economist magazine, predicting prices could soon be half that, ran a cover story with the headline: "Drowning in Oil..."

Full article

Steven Mufson Washington Post

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

July 26, 2008

A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy

By Michael Barone

Full article Michael Barone RCP

Excerpts:

Sometimes public opinion doesn't flow smoothly; it shifts sharply when a tipping point is reached. Case in point: gas prices. $3 a gallon gas didn't change anybody's mind about energy issues. $4 a gallon gas did. Evidently, the experience of paying more than $50 for a tankful gets people thinking we should stop worrying so much about global warming and the environmental dangers of oil wells on the outer continental shelf and in Alaska. Drill now! Nuke the caribou!

Our system of divided government and litigation-friendly regulation makes it hard for our society to do things and easy for adroit lobbyists and lawyers to stop them. Nations with more centralized power and less democratic accountability find it easier: France and Japan generate most of their electricity by nuclear power and Chicago, where authority is more centralized and accountability less robust than in most of the country, depends more on nuclear power than almost all the rest of the nation.

In contrast, lobbyists and litigators for environmental restriction groups have produced energy policies that I suspect future generations will regard as lunatic. We haven't built a new nuclear plant for some 30 years, since a Jane Fonda movie exaggerated their dangers. We have allowed states to ban oil drilling on the outer continental shelf, prompted by the failure of 40- or 50-year-old technology in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969, though current technology is much better, as shown by the lack of oil spills in the waters off Louisiana and Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Arctic Abundance

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Full article INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Energy: It has become something of an article of faith among those who oppose drilling in the Arctic that it's too much trouble for too little oil. Well, how about 90 billion barrels of oil? Too little for you?

That's how much oil is estimated to be in the Arctic region, with at least a third of it under sovereign U.S. territory, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Let's put this in perspective. That 90 billion barrels of Arctic crude is enough to run the entire world economy for three years. And it could fuel the U.S. alone for 12 years.

WEEKLY STANDARD

Over to You, Speaker Pelosi Let's drill.

by Matthew Continetti

Full article Matthew Continetti WEEKLY STANDARD

Excerpts:

Gas is still at $4 a gallon, but the good news is there's an emerging consensus on a measure that would help: Drill for more oil here at home. President Bush dropped the executive ban on offshore oil and natural gas exploration last week, and House GOP leader John Boehner plans to lead a congressional delegation to Colorado and Alaska to highlight America's abundant energy resources this week. Polls show more than two-thirds of the public support increased domestic energy exploration and production. Guess who stands in the way.

Congress has its own ban on offshore energy exploration, and the Democrats who run Congress have shown no sign that they are willing to follow Bush's example. They have preferred to make excuses--about why the price of oil is rising, who is to blame for its rise, and why increasing domestic supply won't do anything to ameliorate the problem.

It isn't working. Democrats are losing the fight over gas prices, and they know it, too.

07/28/2008

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

July 18, 2008

What Dems Can't Say About Drilling

By David Harsanyi

Full article David Harsanyi REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Excerpts:

One day Americans are moaning about the harmful impact of cheap oil and the next they're grousing about the harmful impact of expensive oil.

Which one is it?

As a disreputable sort, I freely confess to having a fondness for oil. Actually, I have a mild crush on all carbon-emitting fuels that feed our prosperity. But I'm especially fond of cheap oil. For many years, those who spread apocalyptic global-warming scenarios have warned me that a collective national sacrifice was needed to save the world.

UNION LEADER.COM

Drill now! Congress blocks the bit

July 16, 2008

13 hours, 2 minutes ago

ON MONDAY, President Bush lifted the 18-year-old executive order banning oil drilling off of America's coastline. Now all that blocks the drill bits are Democratic congressional leaders and their knee-jerk anti-drilling lapdogs like Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes.

Let's be perfectly clear about this. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for Congress to ban offshore drilling. Energy Information Administration data show that offshore drilling has a truly impressive safety record. Since 1975, only .001 percent of oil drilled from U.S. coastal waters has been spilled during extraction.

NASA research shows that spills from offshore drilling operations are the smallest source of oil leaks into the ocean. Transportation accidents spill 2.5 times as much oil into the ocean as offshore drilling does. Shortening tanker trips by drilling a few miles offshore instead of thousands of miles away will not only keep more of our money from going to the sheiks, but will actually reduce the risk of large oil spills.

All of this information comes from the federal government. Yet the Democrats in Congress bury their heads in their environmentalist donors' pocketbooks every time it comes up.

"Lifting the ban on offshore drilling is incredibly shortsighted and will do nothing to solve our nation's long term energy crisis," Shea-Porter said yesterday. " . . . I believe we must rein in speculators who are just looking to make a buck and must also pursue clean, renewable energy."

But economists from Harvard to Houston say that the problem is a shortage of supply and that drilling for more oil will lower oil prices not only in the future, but now. And experts on the futures markets, including the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, say speculators have had little to no impact on oil prices.

The fact is, drilling offshore is a safe, effective way to reduce our imports and lower prices for consumers. Democrats who continue to block offshore drilling are keeping oil prices high and the oil sheiks flush with cash for one reason only: partisan politics. If they allow drilling, they can no longer paint Republicans as patsies of "Big Oil."

If you aren't willing to continue paying $4 a gallon so Democrats can keep bashing Republicans and Big Oil, call Rep. Paul Hodes at 223-9814 or Carol Shea-Porter at 743-4813 and tell them to lift the ban now. We cannot afford to pay the price for their partisan games any longer.

07/15 01:06 PM

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Bush Says Drill, Drill, Drill — and Oil Drops $9!

>

Larry Kudlow

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.