The Oil Markets ARE Being Manipulated – The only question is by whom and by how much

Since gasoline prices world wide range from 12$$ in Oslo to .36$$ in Venezuala then obviously the oil markets are being manipulated. For one thing oil sales prices are never ever challenged. Producers get to charge what ever they want to. But so do shippers and refiners. In one of the weirdest markets on the planet, liquid fuel markets in general get to charge more than the market can actually bear or is that bare. Geniuses like Dave Sykuta at the Illinois Petroleum Council try to turn this into a negative.

http://www.sj-r.com  April 17

** The third factor in gas prices is about making the fuel. Price-wise, Springfield is fortunate not to have to sell special low-polluting fuels as Chicago and St. Louis do. They’re the world’s cleanest fuels but much more expensive. We have too many special fuel requirements, a gridlocking 45 or so required nationwide in the summer.
Since the 1990s, the oil industry has increased refinery capacity about 15 percent. Numerous Illinois expansions are planned but move slowly through a rocky political process where the same politicians and others who demand infrastructure expansions on Monday and Tuesday, oppose them on Wednesday and Thursday. NIMBY and lately BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) are factors in higher prices and uncertain supply. They’re self-imposed problems that reasonable people should be able to solve.


:}

And they have been shoveling this hoo haw for the past 20 years when in fact the Oil Companies have constrained capacity by at least 15% to increase profits. This naked price manipulation has never been challenged by regulators. Instead for the same 20 years politicians have consistently dragged Big Rich Oil Executives before a congressional committee as they did today and to DEMAND that prices come down. Heck they don’t even swear them in any more because they know they are lieing. This from 2001:

http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/wyden_oil_report.pdf

The Oil Industry, Gas Supply and Refinery Capacity: More Than Meets the Eye

An investigative report presented

by Senator Ron Wyden

June 14, 2001

“As observed over the last few years and as projected well into the future, the most critical factor facing the refining industry on the West Coast is the surplus refining capacity, and the surplus gasoline production capacity.  The same situation exists for the entire U.S. refining industry. Supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins, and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline. “

Internal Texaco document, March 7, 1996

“A senior energy analyst at the recent API (American Petroleum Institute) convention warned that if the U.S. petroleum industry doesn ‘t reduce its refining capacity, it will never see any substantial increase in refining margins…However, refining utilization has been rising, sustaining high levels of operations, thereby keeping prices low. “

Internal Chevron document, November 30, 1995

America is indeed facing an energy crunch. For much of the year, gas prices have soared and supply has trailed demand.

During the course of my ongoing investigation into potential anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices by the oil industry, I have obtained documents that raise serious questions about the circumstances leading to limited gas supply and high prices.

The oil industry and its allies would have the public believe that insufficient refining capacity, restrictive environmental standards, growing gasoline demand and OPEC production cutbacks are the primary reasons for the current oil and gas supply problem.

However, the record shows – supported by documents I have obtained – that there is more to the story. Specifically, the documents suggest that major oil companies pursued efforts to curtail refinery capacity as a strategy for improving profit margins; that competing oil companies worked together to subvert supply; that refinery closures inhibited supply; and that oil companies are reaping record profits, yet may benefit from a proposed national energy policy that would offer financial incentives to expand refinery capacity.

:}

If you think this is just liberal ideology blowing environmental smoke, read this from the National (frickin) Review:

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/taylor_van_doren200506030857.asp


High Pump-Price Fairy Tales
Blame global supply-and-demand realities — not the enviro-whackos.

By Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren

So what’s driving these high gasoline prices, which now average $2.22 across the country? Conservatives think it’s largely a function of the chickens coming home to roost. In short, bureaucratic red tape, anti-growth environmental extremists, and “not-in-my-back-yard” community activists have long prevented new oil refineries from coming online. This in turn has starved the market of the gasoline and — voila! — record prices are the logical result.

It’s a convenient story line for the Right. Unfortunately, the narrative is wrong.

How can that be, you might ask, when we’re constantly beaten around the head with the fact that no new oil-refining plants have been built in the U.S. since 1976? The reason that no new facilities have been built is partly because it costs far less to expand production capacity at existing plants than it does to expand capacity by building new plants. And because existing refineries are ideally situated near oil terminals and pipelines, it’s more convenient to increase capacity in those locations than to do so elsewhere.

But if that’s so, how do we explain the facility shutdowns that have characterized the industry? After all, there were 325 oil refineries in the U.S. in 1981, but only 149 remain today. The explanation resides in the fact that we had a lot of refineries back in 1981 not because of market forces or the lack of environmental regulations, but because the government subsidized the existence of small, inefficient refineries.

Here’s how it worked. Under the Mandatory Oil Import Quota Program (which was in effect from 1959 to 1973), low-cost crude oil imports were restricted to support the domestic crude price. Refineries got disproportionately more rights to import if they were small. The subsidies to small refineries continued under the price-control programs in place from 1973 through 1980. When the subsidies ended, a large number of inefficient small refineries bit the dust.

That helps explain why domestic refining capacity dropped from 18.6 million barrels of oil a day in 1976 to 16.8 million barrels of oil today. Dramatic improvements in the operational efficiency of oil refineries also contributed to that decline. Refineries now operate much closer to their capacity than 20 years ago. Accordingly, less “nameplate capacity” is necessary to meet demand.

The upshot is that even though domestic refineries have been shutting down and total refining capacity has been declining, domestic gasoline production has actually increased by 20 percent since the last oil refinery was built in 1976.

But even that figure only tells part of the story. Gasoline markets today are increasingly global rather than regional in nature. For example, European governments tax diesel fuels less than gasoline and European motorists have responded by using diesel. Accordingly, European refineries make more gasoline than they can use and it’s cheaper for us to import that gasoline than to produce it here at home.

The increase in gasoline imports since 1976 (from 2 percent of the market then, to 5.8 percent now) is often cited as evidence that “we have a problem.” Nonsense. International trade is a good thing. The more globalized the market, the more diversified our supply and the less vulnerable the U.S. market is to disruption. Moreover, the more global the market, the greater the competition. How much domestic refining capability we have is increasingly less important than the amount of international refining capacity we can access.

It is true that there is a little slack in production capacity at the moment. Why don’t we have more production capacity? Because profit margins in the refining business have traditionally been rather meager. The gasoline refining market is about as close to the model of “perfect competition” as you’re going to find outside of an economics textbook. Rents are competed away and little profit is left for producers, especially when compared to the profits available from investment in oil production.

Conservatives believe that environmental regulations have a lot to do with those low profits. They’re wrong. A large oil refinery costs $4 billion to $6 billion to build. The installation of “best available control technology” is a very small part of that figure.

Accordingly, President Bush’s proposals to provide low-cost real estate in the boonies and to somewhat reduce plant costs through regulatory improvements simply won’t result in any new refining capacity. We’d love to blame big government and enviro-whackos for today’s high gasoline prices (we do, after all, work for the Cato Institute). But telling fairy tales about the market does no one any favors. Prices are high because of global supply-and-demand factors, and Congress can do little about it.

Jerry Taylor is director of natural-resource studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Peter Van Doren is editor of Cato’s Regulation magazine.

:}

So why did the State Journal Register give this guy a Guest OP ED Piece. Lack of investigative reporting maybe?

McCain’s Gas Tax Proposal – So the time for us has just about ran out

John McCain like every other Republican in America wants to avoid what their 30 years of dereliction of duty has wraught. Nixon, Regan and Bush (my version of lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) all increased our dependence on oil and easy Chinese money. Bush in particular ushered us to the brink of a world depression. Grover Norquist, who wants to take us back to the 1930s is about to succeed:

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_norquist.html

BILL MOYERS: If states refuse to raise taxes to fix some of those problems we’ve just seen, that certainly won’t bother my next guest. He’s a sworn opponent of all taxes. He’s also the most powerful man in Washington not to hold a public office.

Officially, Grover Norquist heads an organization called Americans for Tax Reform where for almost 20 years now he has crusaded for lower taxes and less government. Unofficially he’s been the linchpin in Washington for the conservative revolution that now controls the government. His weekly meetings of activists became the politburo of strategy where all stripes of conservatives bear their differences in order to bury their hatchet in Democrats. From the Christian coalition to log cabin Republicans to the National Rifle Association on whose board he sits, this Harvard graduate keeps the troops on mission and on message. His success prompted Senator Hillary Clinton to muse aloud, if only Democrats had a Grover Norquist. Welcome to NOW.

GROVER NORQUIST: Glad to be with you.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you do have it all. You have the White House, the Congress, the regulatory agencies, the courts more or less. The last time Democrats, liberal Democrats, held that kind of power, they made some mistakes like the war in Vietnam that they couldn’t sustain the support of at home, emphasized parochial interests at the expense of the sort of bedrock universal values of American society. What are the errors you think conservatives running everything could make?

GROVER NORQUIST: I think it’s very important to always make sure that you’re talking to the entire coalition and to as many Americans as possible; not to go chasing after one little group or another. The Democrats would bring new groups into their party and not notice that larger groups are going out the back door. And so what I try and do whenever I work on an issue or work with political leaders is make sure that when you’re talking about a new approach, how does that…how does the entire coalition view that new approach? Is there a better or different way to do it that irritates fewer people and that satisfies a larger constituency?

BILL MOYERS: And that’s what you did at your Wednesday morning meetings? Those meetings became famous, for all kinds of conservatives being in there hammering things out.

GROVER NORQUIST: And we now have 27 versions of that at the state capital level, including one in New York City. So we’re taking the model of the “leave us alone” coalition from the national level to the state level as well.

BILL MOYERS: “Leave us alone?”

GROVER NORQUIST: Um-hmm. Look, the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone. Taxpayers, don’t raise my taxes. Property owners, don’t restrict or limit my property. Home schoolers, let me educate my own kids. Gun owners, don’t restrict my Second Amendment rights. All communities of faith, Evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, people want to practice their own religion and be left alone to raise their own kids.

BILL MOYERS: Do you have any sympathy for those states we just saw a few moments ago? Under the president’s plan, those states do not expect any direct aid from Uncle Sam. Do you have any advice for them?

GROVER NORQUIST: Sure, two things. The most important thing for President Bush and the federal government to do is to create a pro-growth economic policy because its economic growth that brings in more revenue for states and local governments. At the state level what they really have to do is take a long run view and limit the growth of spending, put limits on how much you spend. And then California, the state owns a whole bunch of land and other things that it could sell off it doesn’t need, and it needs to figure out which of those government jobs need to be in government, and what can be privatized or contracted out.

BILL MOYERS: You’re on record as saying, my goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bath tub. Is that a true statement?

And the Holy Satanic trilogy of George Mason University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Chicago have supplied all the intellectual fire power. SMU is where George Bush, jr. will try to lock up his presidential papers and avoid jail,

:}

Oh but I digress…One of the finest posters at The Oil Drum JoulesBurn who Blogs at:

http://satelliteoerthedesert.blogspot.com/

Had this little cutey today:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3855#more

McCain’s Gas Pains: Gas “Tax Holidays” A Good Idea?

For immediate release from John McCain’s campaign:

John McCain, who just hours earlier proposed a “tax holiday” in which the 18 cent federal tax on gasoline would be suspended during the summer driving season, has reconsidered and has instead proposed that the U.S. gallon be redefined to be equal in volume to the current U.S. quart. “This will immediately lower the price at the pump by 75%, providing visible relief to millions of Americans”, quipped McCain. “I rejected the idea of setting it equal to the liter, for obvious reasons”.When questioners suggested that this move wouldn’t actually change how much consumers spend to fill their tanks, McCain responded “Well, neither would my previous proposal”.

In unrelated election news, the McCain campaign announced that P.T. Barnum has been posthumously appointed as their policy director. Also, Hillary Clinton has proposed a suspension of the law of gravity, at least during the summer flying season, to help the beleaguered airline industry. Barack Obama reportedly had no comment on these suggestions, other than to say that Americans are definitely “atwitter” about gas prices.

We interrupt this vacation from reality with the following observations…(under the fold…)

  • As gasoline is a commodity for which prices are determined by supply and demand, lowering the price without increasing the supply will likely increase demand (usage). Prices will rise again to compensate.
  • The 18.4 cents per gallon that is now flowing into the US treasury, and which is then spent building roads, bridges, and mass transit, will instead flow to oil companies — particularly those in foreign countries, since the US imports over half of its oil.
  • Targeting the current gasoline tax instead for the development of alternative transportation and ways of using energy more efficiently will provide more lasting solutions to the current energy and economic crises than short-term attempts to fix the problem.

Juche – a simple name for a nasty idea. Kim Il Sungism

Jodie Foster, Pregnant Man, Iran, Prince Philip, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, American Idol, Obama, China, Beyonce, Rolling Stones. (sorry for the deception but please read below)

Normally I wouldn’t bother to cover this but since it’s on the list I felt I needed to “dis” it as much as I could. I even took the time to get Buzzes top searches for the week to punch it up a bit. I even checked every category Energy Tough Love has to publicize this human indignity. The list of “Religions” that I used to start this meditation on the relationship between Religion and the Environment placed Juche well down on the list but with 18 million adherents that still alot of folks. I had never heard of it before and I even asked a couple of people if they had heard of it. Imagine my suprise when I typed it into a search engine and up popped this Prick who claimed he was god:

www.dictatorofthemonth.com

kim.jpg

During his lifetime he forced millions of people in North Korea to worship him. Can you imagine anything more degrading or disgusting then a man who points a loaded gun at your head and demands that you treat him like a god. You must pray to him. Oh most Divine Leader. Makes me want to puke. But then he is followed by this buffoon:

www.beconfused.com

jong.jpg

Now they are “worshiping” something no better than a trained monkey. If they had an ENVIRONMENTAL group in North Korea, I wish them the best of luck but I ain’t gonna publish it. I ain’t even gona type it into a search engine. If anybody ever deserved to get a nuke shoved up his poop shoot. This would be it.

FutureGen Is A Very Bad Idea – At least as formulated now

As I have said many times, collaboration between Environmentalists and Industry is never a good idea because the Environmentalists have to sacrifice some of their integrity to participate. We have no time for that now. Every little bit of the Earth that is unsullied is now sacred.

www.futuregenalliance.org

www.futuregenforillinois.com

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen


How can a project that has 2 of its own web sites and a Wikipedia listing be so wrong? Well let’s see COST?

Officials vow to

 not give up on

FutureGen

Durbin blames politics for decision to scrap plant

By DAVID MERCERTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHAMPAIGN — Officials promised Wednes­day to fight the Department of Energy’s decision to scrap a futuristic, low-pollution power plant planned for central Illinois, but the leader of the state’s congressional delegation seemed resigned to its end.Sen. Dick Durbin said he hopes to fund the $1.8 billion FutureGen power plant through ear­marks in the federal budget, but wasn’t opti­mistic it would work.“If the administration doesn’t support it, we’ve seen that this president is willing to use his veto pen over and over again,” Durbin said. “Without the support of the administration, it’s an uphill struggle.”Durbin spoke not long after Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said publicly what he’d told members of Illinois’ congressional delegation and Illinois economic development officials in a private meeting Tuesday.Rather than spend money on FutureGen, which was to have been built by a consortium of coal and power companies in Mattoon using mainly federal funds, the DOE plans to put its fi­nances into a handful of projects around the country that would demonstrate the capture and burial of carbon dioxide from commercial power plants.“This restructuring … is an all-around better deal for Americans,” Bodman, an Illinois native, said in making the announcement to scuttle the program.The department will now solicit industry ap­plications for participation in the new projects. The idea is for the government to pay for build­ing the carbon capture and storage facilities and industry to build the modern coal-burning power plant. Each project would be designed to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the lead­ing greenhouse gas linked to global warming, of­ficials said.The coal and power companies planning to build the plant, known as the FutureGen Al­liance, issued a statement saying it “remains committed to keeping FutureGen on track” but it was unclear how that would be possible without the federal funding.FutureGen was envisioned as a unique re­search project that would trigger development of a virtually pollution-free coal plant where carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and buried deep beneath the earth.


>
>

For a listing of the last ten AP postings on FutureGen go here.

Click on the Length of Search box and pick Archive, the type in FutureGen in the submit Box and click submit.

The Project escalated in cost from 750,000 million $$$ to 1.8 billion $$$ in a little less than 5 years. That is more than enough to build a “new generation” nuke on the same site. But think about this. What would it actually cost. We all know that typical Utility Construction Projects come in with at least 20% cost over runs and sometime as high as 40% is acceptable. Which means that the real cost would likely hover at just under 3 billion $$$. Can anyone say Too Cheap To Meter???

Clinton and Obama Tie – First ever Co-Presidency declared

As has been pointed out many other places and many other times, THERE ARE NO differences between these candidates. At least on Energy Policy you can clearly see this. I mean if you are a policy wonk like me I could go through and say there are minor differences. If you are a policy wonk in the automobile industry I am sure you think that Hillary is tougher on cars than Barack is. If you are a policy wonk in the Oil and Gas game I am sure that you think Barack is tougher on oil than Hillary is. If you are a policy wonk on the Research and Development side of things you are looking forward to a very good 4 years NO Matter What. But for the average Joe on the street, they both have comprehensive energy policies that will change America forever.

What would have been nice, given that there are so few differences anyway, is if they would have run a positive Campaign instead of all the snarling and yelling. They are behaving like small children. Since they then have to run on IMAGE anyway, how much nicer it would have been if we would have gotten this:

clinton.jpg

obama.jpg

Instead of this:

dogs.jpg

John Edwards WINS…oh sorry he dropped out

Why would he have won this blog if he had stayed in the race. Because his policy was the same as Hillary’s and Obama’s but he made the Energy Companies pay for it. That scared the beejeezus out of Wall Street so they starved his campaign for cash and media coverage. Now he is gone. Like Richardson before him that is just wrong and sad.

edwards.jpg

They would have looked great in the White House too.

Mike Huckabee Wins – But its just here at this little blog

That’s right when comparing energy policies Mike Huckabee’s are the more aggressive. While John McCain has a detailed policy outlined in a speech in April of 2007, they are policies from the 80’s that haven’t worked.

huckabee.jpg

While our man Mike, that swinging dude, wants the old US of A to be Energy Independent by 2016. That is really aggressive, but could he do it? Probably not but it would be fun to see him try.

 huckabee1.jpg

I doubt that he is just saying it because neither his position nor McCain’s is going to make the Republican money men happy because they both believe in that “can’t be happening, and if it is we didn’t do it” (Bart Simpson) phenomonon called Global Warming.

 My guess is that because McCain is more moderate the Republicans will send Mike

huckabee2.jpg

fishing. We shall see. Tomorrow the Democrats.

John McCain For President – He has an energy policy but you really have to look for it

Maybe I was a little unfair to John McCain last time CES reviewed the 17 Presidential candidates. My problem was that you have to look for the dog gone thing. That in itself speaks loads about the candidate himself. EVERY Democrat but one had an easy access one click page to see their ENERGY Policy. Many of the Republicans had none. They are all gone now. I originally thought that McCain lumped his Environmental Policies and his Energy Policies together, an approach straight out of the 1970’s. But Noooo he hid it.

 mccain.jpg

If you go to his website:   http://www.johnmccain.com

Click on his Issue page, click on his Taxes and Economics page….scroll all the way done to the bottom of his very long page that includes dozens of tax cuts and other, well frankly crappy empty rhetoric you find this: 

Market-Based Energy Reform

  • National Strategy For Energy Security: John McCain will deliver a national energy strategy that declares independence from the risk bred by our reliance on oil imported from petro-dictators the vulnerability to the troubled politics of their lands. John McCain is a proven conservative, and his strategy will not rely on subsidies, rifle-shot tax breaks, line-items for lobbyists, or big-government debacles. It will promote the diversification and conservation of our energy sources and substantially reduce the impact of our energy consumption on the planet. It will rely on the genius and technological prowess of American industry and science. Government must set achievable goals, but the markets should be free to produce the means. (John McCain’s full energy security plan may be found here.)

 Go ahead click on the here in the parenthesis above and you will find a speech, yes a speech (not specific Policy) that he gave in April of 2007. To Wit:

John McCain’s Speech On Energy Policy

April 23, 2007

Remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to talk with you about a great and urgent challenge – breaking our nation’s critical dependence on foreign sources of oil, and making America safer, stronger and more prosperous by modernizing the way we generate and employ energy.

Oil is often called the lifeblood of our economy-the indispensable commodity that keeps commerce humming and America on the move. But, in today’s world, our dependency on foreign oil and the way we use hydrocarbons is a major strategic vulnerability, a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well being of our planet.

Fortunately, there are times in a nation’s history when great challenges coalesce with great moments of opportunity. We are at such a moment today. We have the urgent need and the opportunity to build a safer and thriving future with more diverse, reliable, and cleaner energy. But it will take another indispensable commodity to make it happen -American leadership. I’m running for President to help provide that leadership. And I want to talk a little today about the direction I want to lead us and why.

Oil is a vital resource and we will always need it. But we account for 25% of global demand and possess less than 3% of proven reserves. Most of the world’s known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies. Its availability and price are manipulated by a cartel of countries where our values aren’t typically shared and our interests aren’t their first priority.

By mid-century there will be three-and-a-half billion cars worldwide-over four times the number today. Most of the growth will take place in the developing world, in India and China, but the increase in fuel prices, pollution, and climate impacts will be felt worldwide. As world demand for oil soars, higher prices, severe economic volatility, and heightened international tensions follow. These unpredictable forces could seriously circumscribe our future if we let them. Great nations don’t leave the “lifeblood” of their economy in the hands of foreign cartels or bet their future on a commodity located in countries where authoritarians repress their people and terrorists find their main support. Terrorists understand the seriousness of our vulnerability. Al Qaeda plans for attacks on oil facilities in the Middle East to destroy the American economy. A little over a year ago, a suicide attack at a major Saudi Arabian oil refinery came close to disabling its target. Had it succeeded, it would have driven the world price of oil above $150 dollars a barrel -and kept it there for a year.

We’re one successful attack away from an economic crisis. The flow of oil has many chokepoints – pipelines, refineries, transit routes, and terminals; most of them outside our jurisdiction and control. Our enemies understand the effects on America of a significant disruption in supply – a crippled transportation system, gasoline too expensive for many Americans to purchase, businesses closed.

Al Qaeda must revel in the irony that America is effectively helping to fund both sides of the war they caused. As we sacrifice blood and treasure, some of our gas dollars flow to the fanatics who build the bombs, hatch the plots, and carry out attacks on our soldiers and citizens. Iran made over $45 billion from oil sales in 2005, and it is the number one state sponsor of terrorism.

The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey. Some of the most oil-rich nations are the most stagnant societies on earth. As long as petro-dollars flow freely to them those regimes have little incentive to open their politics and economies so that all their people may benefit from their countries’ natural wealth. The Middle East’s example is spreading to our own hemisphere. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is using his country’s oil revenues to establish a dictatorship, bully his neighbors and succeed Castro as Latin America’s leading antagonist of the United States. The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency. There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan’s oil.

The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God’s creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over water, arable land and other natural resources under strain from a warming planet. The problem isn’t a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge.

National security depends on energy security, which we cannot achieve if we remain dependent on imported oil from Middle Eastern governments who support or foment by their own inattention and inequities the rise of terrorists or on swaggering demagogues and would be dictators in our hemisphere.

There’s no doubt it’s an enormous challenge. But is it too big a challenge for America to tackle; this great country that has never before confronted a problem it couldn’t solve? No, it is not. No people have ever been better innovators and problem solvers than Americans. It is in our national DNA to see challenges as opportunities; to conquer problems beyond the expectation of an admiring world. America, relying as always on the industry and imagination of a free people, and the power and innovation of free markets, is capable of overcoming any challenge from within and without our borders. Our enemies believe we’re too weak to overcome our dependence on foreign oil. Even some of our allies think we’re no longer the world’s most visionary, most capable country or committed to the advancement of mankind. I think we know better than that. I think we know who we are and what we can do. Now, let’s remind the world.

George Gershwin wrote that good music reflects its people and times. “My people are Americans,” he said. “My time is today.” That’s what made his music memorable. That’s what made all America’s best accomplishments memorable.

THIS IS ONLY HALF  OF THE SPEECH! And I had to quit copying when he quoted George Gershwin. What generation is this guy trying to appeal to. It is clear that a Market Based Approach – which we have had for 30 years has not and is not working. What it has given us is coal, coal and more coal BECAUSE IT IS CHEAP. That is it..that’s what the market has produced.

Even more frightening is his inclusion of the most expensive and potentially environmentally damaging source, Nuclear Power on his Environment Page:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/65bd0fbe-737b-4851-a7e7-d9a37cb278db.htm

As John McCain said, “Americans solve problems. We don’t run from them.” He believes that ignoring the problem reflects a “liberal live for today” attitude unworthy of our great country, and poses a serious and unacceptable threat to our environment, our economy, and U.S. national security. He has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share.

Emphasis added

Pete Seeger Says It All – We just got one place to live

 We just keep screwing it up. Stop lighting things on fire. Stop burning things up. We don’t need to do that anymore.

http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/

Please see this new publication – as the heat turns up. 

Mike Huckabee for President – The only decent energy policy in the bunch

What is it with older Republicans? Have they lived in the “new technologies are coming” world for so long that they don’t know that those technologies have arrived already. Are they so bought out by the coal and oil industries that they refuse to craft policies that would shut those industries down? Don’t get me wrong. At one level, Huckabee’s policy, in his own mind would probably rely on trying to restart the nuclear industry, and ultimately trying to drill in Alaska, but those things are not going to happen. So in the end, 8 years of trying to make us “Energy Independent” would result in huge implementation of green technology.

I just wish he meant it in a positive way. If he did he just might beat McCain. But more on that later.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=21

Energy Independence

Send to a friend

  • The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term.
  • Achieving energy independence is vital to achieving success both in the war on terror and in globalization. Energy independence will help guarantee both our safety and our prosperity.
  • We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass.

Energy independence has been on our “to do” list for over thirty years, my whole adult life. In 1973, in response to OPEC’s oil embargo against us, President Nixon established Project Independence, which promised independence in 1980. We could have been energy independent a generation ago! The truth is, we are so pathetically behind the curve right now that federal spending for energy research and development is only 40% of what it was in 1979. Our efforts are haphazard and often pointless: today we have six million flex-fuel vehicles built to run on biodiesel or on E85, which is 85% ethanol, but only 1,413 pumps for those fuels in a country with 170,000 gas stations.

When energy shocks and crises come, we take aspirin to deal with the pain, but we don’t address the underlying symptoms. This oil addiction is killing us. We have to stop popping pain pills and get ourselves cured. For all these years, we’ve never lacked the means, just the will. We’ve never harnessed the real energy source that independence requires – the energy of the American people.

The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. I’ll use the bully pulpit to inform you about the plan and ask for your support. I’ll use the bully conference table to meet with members of Congress until I have the votes. The plan will get underway during my first term, and we will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term. The Huckabee Administration will be remembered as the time when we finally, finally achieved energy independence.

We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass. Some will come from our farms and some will come from our laboratories. Dwindling supplies and increasing demand from newly-industrialized countries of fossil fuels are driving up prices. These price increases will facilitate innovation and the opportunity for independence. We will remove red tape that slows innovation. We will set aside a federal research and development budget that will be matched by the private sector to seek the best new products in alternative fuels. Our free market will sort out what makes the most sense economically and will reward consumer preferences.

We think of globalization as primarily an economic issue and the war on terror as primarily a military issue. Yet the same key unlocks the door to success in both, and that key is energy independence.

None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that’s what we’re doing every time we pull into a gas station. We’re paying for both sides in the war on terror – our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists’ side with our gas dollars.

Our dependence on foreign oil has forced us to support repressive regimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind our back. It’s time, it’s past time, to untie that hand and reach out to moderate Muslims with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreign policy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel – literally – for way too long.

Energy independence will ease the effects of globalization because the future energy demands of countries like India and China, as their middle class grows, are going to be tremendous. Even if Middle East supplies remain stable – a huge if – that increased demand will drive prices up dramatically, which will hurt our economy by making everything more expensive here. But if we are energy independent, we will be able not just to take care of our own needs and protect our economy, we will also create jobs and grow our economy by developing technologies that we can sell to the rest of the world to meet their needs.

Achieving energy independence will make us safer and more prosperous, and is yet another way that I intend to lift America up.