Gas at $3.50 a gallon: Whose fault?

From the demand side of the equation - look at the economies of China and India.

From the supply side of the equation - look at all the non-drilling we are doing in our country from ANWAR, Utah, and off our coast lines. The lack of refining capacity. The lack of a new nuclear plant buiilt in this country in over 20 years. All of these tems can be placed squarely on the radical left.

Oil was $20 a barrel when Bush took office. With the war in Iraq driving up oil prices and no significant investment in alternative energy, we all know exactly where the blame belongs.

Part of the reason gas prices are rising is our continuous gluttony of gas. I believe it would be safe to bet that a majority of Americans have not altered their consumption of gasoline as the prices continue to rise. Everyone cries about the absurdity of the prices, but everyone for the most part continues to drive the way they did when gas was cheaper. If we are truly serious about the price of gas being reduced then we need to take measures to cause that affect. We operate in a supply and demand economy so if we want a lower price, we need to lessen our demand. We can accomplish this by driving the speed limit and limiting our trips to more necessary purposes. In addition, combining errands into one trip instead of many mini trips would help too. Furthermore, how many of us have contacted our legislators to insist that they do more to enable this country to use alternative fuels?

Well, I would like to know who these "speculators" are that keep driving up the price of oil. OPEC says supply is not the problem, though they aren't showing any signs of increasing it.

Anyway, in the political sense, neither party is clean on this issue, though the Democrats are more to blame. Why? Because from 2001 until recently the Democrats kept filibustering an Energy Bill. In 1998, 66 senators, including many Democrats, voted to open drilling in ANWR. Bill Clinton vetoed the bill, there wasn't enough to override his veto. We'd be getting millions of barrels of oil out of that region today, if drilling began 10 years ago.
Democrats have largely stifled any building of new oil refineries. Also, recently John Dingell or Conyers, I forget which, is said to be crafting legislation that will be introduced AFTER the election to increase the federal gas tax by 50 cents a gallon. Yeah, that'll help the economy and Regular Joe and Jane, huh?
Democrats, and some Republicans, have stifled any new development of oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuba and China currently are, especially off Cuba's northwest coast in the Gulf.
Clean, alternative energies are fine, but as of yet are not the solution, More oil is the solution. It is time ANWR became open to oil drilling and time oil drilling got going in the Bakken field in North Dakota.
Then let's find out who these "speculators" are and do something about the incessant and ridiculous daily driving up of oil prices.

And, it would behoove ALL of us to realize energy is a national problem. It's not a Democrat or Republican or Liberal or Conservative problem, it's a problem for EVERYONE and many corporations. Shoot, UAL just announced a $500 million loss last quarter because of fuel prices. Rather than make energy a partisan issue, it's time ALL put politics aside and ALL their selfish interests aside and for ALL parties to come together so we can get this problem solved and lower prices to consumers and businesses alike.

Big oil has Bush & Cheney in their back pocket. The price of oil kept going up when all three branches of government were controlled by republicans. They were nothing but thrilled when all the oil companies hard planned loddying gave them nothing but record corporate profits.

It was win-win for big oil & conservatives at the cost of screwing Americans.

If American's are looking for someone to blame, then all we have to do is hold up a mirror. America's per capita consumption of oil is double (or more) than other developed nations.

I understand we have long commutes to the sprawling suburbs in order to find affordable housing, but what I don't understand is why we have to drive suburbans in our commute to work. Furthermore, why do we, for the most part, drive alone in our daily commutes.....12 gal of gasoline/week is equal to 1 barrel of gasoline/month (which takes a little over 2.5 barrels of oil to produce).

Heck, we can reduce gasoline demand by 5% from just making sure our tires are inflated from getting better gas mileage.

....I feel it's premature for Americans to complain about price of gasoline or oil at this point in time. Americans have taken oil for granted.

A few questions that the media does not really push is what happen to the royalties that the USA was supposed to get for the drilling in the gulf?

Why do we continue to give tax breaks to the oil industry who are screwing us in the name of profit for the stock holders?

It seems like the media is also partnered with the industry for the ones pulling the strings?

VERY EYE OPENING AND DISTURBING!
There are 8 segments to this video. It takes about 45 minutes to watch.
THIS IS A MUST TO WATCH - WHY WE ARE PAYING SO MUCH AT THE GAS PUMPS WHICH
WILL SOON DOUBLE. WHO IS REALLY PULLING THE STRINGS AND CONTROLLING NOT
ONLY THIS COUNTRY, BUT THE WORLD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbakN7SLdbk&feature=related

Hey, America, what's wrong with a little greed!! Isn't that what capitalism is all about? You like greed, you haven't seen anything, yet Wait until, Senator McCain gets in there!!! That will be our biggest growth industry, War. Hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, you ain't seen nothing, yet!!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

I'd like to announce that we will be buidling new refineries to address the issue of shortage of supply. They will be located in Streamwood Illinois, next to the house of one John D. He's volunteered to let us build a huge refinery there without any of those pesky environmental restrictions that the Democrats support. He says he doesn't mind breathing polluted air and having oil spilled in his front lawn if it means he can save a few pennies at the pump. (Of course we haven't told him that we're taking the savings as profit, and he'll keep paying the same amount. He really believes we're looking out for his interest more than ours. Fool!)

Speculators are a large problem.

Terry,
How many applications for new refineries have been submitted to the Dept of Interior in the last 15 years? The answer to that question will tell you if Big Oil has been aggressively been pursuing a way to increase supplies and drive down the price of oil.

Julia,

Before an application for a rifinery is done by an oil company, a cost/benefit analysis is done. Oil companies have determined that the costs, primarily regulatory and environmental, are too steep in order for a a proper ROI to be obtained.

I used to work downtown and took cheap, electric public transportation everyday (the L train). Then I took a job in Oak Brook and was shocked to figure out that Metra has no line out to Oak Brook. When it was built the Oak Brook council decided not to ask for one because they were afraid of the "element" it would bring. So now I drive 40 miles a day and fill my tank up at least once a week along with thousands of other drivers on 290 morning and night because of their lack of foresight.So I blame you, Oak Brook city council, for my personal consumption.

RomanB @ 9:13,
When you say all three branches of government, I think that you meant both legislative bodies and the executive branch. Think that we do need to exclude the Judicial from this torture. My point here is, - what about now? The democrats have had the Senate and the House vs the evil Tag Team of Bush-Cheney for the last two years, and they have been extremely painful with respect to this unresolvable issue.

Alas, not looking to defend the Republicans here. Am surprised that they are not more ripped apart. John D @ 9:11 a.m. is right-on. If we don't make some sort of serious effort to develop energy, from all available sources, then we are ALL screwed, including the Republicans in the Tx outback.

democrats don't ever seem to be on board with this energy development concept though. Their response is investigative hearings, deplete the Petroleum Strategic Reserve, higher energy producer taxes, and consumers just need to learn to conserve better. Herein lies not a practical solution.

If democrats / socialists were totally in charge of govenment, I'm sure that the landscape would be covered with little windmills, but what else would we have. Oil - NO! Gas - NO!, Coal - NO! Nuclear - NO! What would we have other than windmills and something not yet practical or developed? Di-Lithium crystals?

No point in trying to make sense out of supply and demand to the degree that it would ever apply here. democrats' eyes glaze over when u come at them with supply curves, demand curves, price equilibrium point, all of that wingnut technical stuff. Back to John D's point, here is something that should be scary to all of us though, that have some kind of energy need. That would be something in that troublesome Economics 101 book called "Perfectly Inelastic Demand". Translates into: NO CEILING on the price of energy, at least in theory. Please say it ain't so.

Blame Bush and Cheney, poor conservation practices, be sure to curse the cold, the dark, and a lack of a viable means of transportation too, until you turn purple, but the only out-card, if that is the card game that we find ourselves in, is making / allowing more energy to become available. I personally would not care what form it comes in. Sure would be good if the super-smart folks on the Left could find a way to get on board. Somehow.

Your Energy Friend Way Down in Tx,

Probably the only correct comment in Bush' entire presidency was when he spoke of the nations "addiction" to oil. But he has done nothing but added fuel to the fire. The instability he created in the Middle East with his failed war is what is mostly driving up prices. While he has not done one thing to help create alternative fuel sources. (As he promised in his 2006 state of the union)

But as long as his "fat cat" friends in the oil industry are getting richer and richer, why should he care?

We have had electric cars for over a decade. Why are they not mass produced? Because the oil industries incredible lobbying cash helps supress technology. And republicans and democrats are both to blame.

Just want to make a couple of general comments on previous comments.

lack of new refineries in U.S: although there hasn't been a new refinery built in the U.S. for 30 years, existing refineries are consistently expanding to meet U.S. gasoline requirements. Right now, U.S. refineries are running at the lowest utilization rates (for this time of the year) since the 91 recession. A big part of the pricing problem of retail gasoline has to do with too many localized gaoline specifications. This, in effect, allows for regional monopolies.

OPEC not producing more oil: Why would Saudi Arabia act in our interest when U.S. sentiment is to pull out of Iraq, which will allow Shia Iran to threatened predominantely Sunni oil rich nations...... and for those of you who thinks Iraq is about freedom or terrorist...think again. Ask yourselves, why aren't we in Afghanistan or Zimbabwe. We shouldn't have diposed Iraq to begin with, but we can't pull out now for all the wrong reasons......we broke it now we own it, thanks to Dubya.

Terry,
Wrong, the oil companies have seen demand in Asia and India increase dramatically and would rather spend captital to build refineries over there. The reason? They see demand increasing over there and demand decreasing in the US because of technology advances. All oil companies have gone on record to explain why they are building refining capacity over there and not here. After all, why would you build additional refineries if you thought that they would go unused in the short term future when technology advances past fossil fuels?

There you go again, " Scott- Houston, Tex ", passing out more misinformation. A Democratic President, President James Carter tried hard to ween America off of this glutinous consumption of oil, even going so far as to create a Department of Energy. He did other tangible and symbolic acts to prompt America to ease up on this glutinous consumption, but we didn't want any part of it. As a matter of fact, when President Reagan got into Office, he removed the solar panels, that President Carter had installed on the roof of our White House! Check out, President Carter's response to this continuous problem in America and around the world. It is very informative!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

Here is a link that explains why exploration and refinery capacity have contracted.
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/31/the-wall-street-journal-big-oils-not-so-big-growth-plans/
Stock repurchase plans and declining demand from U.S consumers are the primary reasons why capital expenditures among major oil companies are contracting. Marathon is a notable exception to this trend, however. As it should be in a free economy, earnings per share results will/should always determine the economic decisions made by business.

Don @ 12:10 p.m.

Ah yes, the Great Jimmy Carter. Greatest Baseball Team - ' 62 New York Mets. Greatest Football Team - ' 07 Miami Dolphins, One of the Greatest Basketball Teams - ' 07-' 08 New York Knicks. There, A little more mis-information for you democrats.

Everytime the Mets showed up on the schedule, Sandy Koufax knew that he probably would be working on a no-hitter into the 7th inning. Greatest ex-President, - The Ignominious Jimmy Carter. Hard to imagine any person, place, or thing, more gloriously inept than the ignominious Jimmy Carter.

Sorry, but the appeal of: rationing gasoline, waiting in lines that extended for blocks, finding some gasoline in the small hamlets - finding NO gasoline in the large cities, getting up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning in hopes that you may get lucky and secure 2 or 3 gallons of gasoline, just does not appeal to me all that much. I have just given you the Jimmy Carter Energy Plan as it was in 1974.

The ' 62 Mets knew they were awful. Marv Thronberry was an All Star 1st baseman compared to the ineptness of Jimmy Carter. This little Jimmy Carter creep, STILL to this day, does not realize what a miserable, incompetent creature he truly was. And still is.

Your Baseball and Energy Friend, in Tx.

Thanks," Scott- Houston, Tex ", for all that misinformation. I really needed it!!!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

A Public Swamp Land Apology is owed to anyone that I may have offended by putting SANDY KOUFAX and Jimmy Ca#te# in the same paragraph. That is truly an abomination to everything just and good, that I am very sorry for. Do Need to be more careful.

There will certainly be penance to be paid for that most foul mis-deed. I know Cardinal Dinardo personally. Well, sort of.

Just want to make a couple of general comments on previous comments.

lack of new refineries in U.S: although there hasn't been a new refinery built in the U.S. for 30 years, existing refineries are consistently expanding to meet U.S. gasoline requirements. Right now, U.S. refineries are running at the lowest utilization rates (for this time of the year) since the 91 recession. A big part of the pricing problem of retail gasoline has to do with too many localized gaoline specifications. This, in effect, allows for regional monopolies.

OPEC not producing more oil: Why would Saudi Arabia act in our interest when U.S. sentiment is to pull out of Iraq, which will allow Shia Iran to threatened predominantely Sunni oil rich nations...... and for those of you who thinks Iraq is about freedom or terrorist...think again. Ask yourselves, why aren't we in Afghanistan or Zimbabwe. We shouldn't have diposed Iraq to begin with, but we can't pull out now for all the wrong reasons......we broke it now we own it, thanks to Dubya.

$3.50 a gallon? HA! It's now $3.64 where I am and we're sinking fast!!! OBAMAAAAAAA we need you right now!!!!!!

"Sorry, but the appeal of: rationing gasoline, waiting in lines that extended for blocks, finding some gasoline in the small hamlets - finding NO gasoline in the large cities, getting up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning in hopes that you may get lucky and secure 2 or 3 gallons of gasoline, just does not appeal to me all that much. I have just given you the Jimmy Carter Energy Plan as it was in 1974. "

Yet another history lesson for ignorant Scott.

First off, Jimmy Carter wasn't President in 1974. He served from 1976-1980.

Second, the gas lines you refer to were a result of lack of oil production from the Mid-east due to the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. There was no actual gas rationing during the crisis, although some states (not Carter) did introduce even-odd day sales limits.

Go to your local library and read.

The main federal reactions to the crisis was to remove gas price controls that had been imposed by Nixon in 1973.

And once again the Loons from the Left whine and whine and whine, but never offer a solution. They do offer misinformation.
In regard to refineries. it seems to me just last year BP wanted to expand its refinery in Whiting, Ind. But doing so would increase some pollution into Lake Michigan (which I am not in favor of either). Folks here in Illinois didn't want more pollution in Lake Michigan. Now, it can be said that even with additional pollution from that expansion, pollution from that refinery still would have been below federal guidelines.
There are a host of reasons why there have been no new refineries and little to none refinery expansion.
We have Tom O blame the Republicans for oil's increase. Tom, since the Democrats have won Congress, the price of oil has gone up more than at any time before they controlled Congress.
Oil also was selling for $30 to $35 a barrle when Bush became president, but in 2000 (before Bush became president) we had our first energy hit when gas prices hit the $2 mark that summer. Then Energy Sec Bill Richardson said we "got caught with our pants down."
Well, our pants are still down
Then we have "Big Oil" announce it's going to drill in my neck of the woods, bringing pollution and other dirty elements. Hmmm, so the Left whines about high prices but again show they do not want more supply to bring down those prices.
Throughout the 1990s, the Left whined gas prices were too low. They noted how Europeans were paying the equivalent of $3 to $4 for a gallon of gas and why can't us Americans pay that much? Now, they whine gas prices are too high. They don't whine about the 50 to 80 cents a gallon taxes on that gallon of gasoline. They don't whine that Crooked County, Chicago, Illinois and the U.S. make more per gallon than does the evil oil company. We have John Dingell ready to propose a 50 cent a gallon federal gas tax.
Anyway, as I stated before, energy is a problem for everyone: poor schlubs to rich snobs; independent small business folk to large corporations. Everyone and everything has to work together to tackle the energy problem.

Oil companies are doing their version of Enron pretty well.

How?

Even though demand for gas has gone down in the US over the past few months, reserves have continued to drop, thus increasing prices. Why is that? Oil companies are exporting more oil from the US to take advantage of a stronger foreign dollar, while increasing the cost of gas in the US.

At what does Bush do about it? Even though the national reserves the US holds in case of emergency is in the upper- nineties percent wise, Bush has ordered even more gas to be stored in reserves.

Those secret meetings Cheney had with oil executives a couple years ago just keep their record profits going.

Still waiting for those Iraqi oil revenues to payoff the war as Bush promised would happen.

Luke @ 2:47 p.m.

There were two embargos during the 70s. The year that I was referring to was 1979, not 1974, (actually 1973), as I very wrongly stated. Accuracy, though, is always important. I do thank you for the correction.

On the local level, in Houston anyway, there was rationing, not government mandated, but by the retailers, to stretch out what little that they had on hand. On the Federal level, the Carter-ites did have rationing on the table.

Thanks too for the local library tip. However, I did live through this. In the local library, I think that you will very likely find some less than favorable analysis of Jimmy Carter's culpable role in the 1979 oil embargo-energy crisis.

I know that these things do not just happen over night. In that sense, I am not particularly blaming the Great Jimmy Carter although I have seen some seemingly creditable sources do just that. You, or anyone, would have a hard time convincing me that he has or had any special insight or the right stuff to solve anything. Not energy and certainly Not World Peace.

Thanks again, in Ignorance, yours truly,

You, or anyone, would have a hard time convincing me that he has or had any special insight or the right stuff to solve anything. Not energy and certainly Not World Peace.

Thanks again, in Ignorance, yours truly,

Posted by: Scott - Houston, Tx | April 22, 2008 4:40 PM
Scott-
Perhaps then you can argue with the Nobel folks about a certain Peace Prize with his name on it.

Julia,

Thanks for making my point - there is no benefit to making more refiniries here since the environmental regulations are stacked against oil and in favor of ethanol. Hope you like expensive corn flakes and hope you enjoyed places like the Amazon rain forest while it lasted.

Don - you seem to have a handle on democratic economic policy - do you work for either the Daley, Stroger, or Blago administartions? They would like you kind of thinking.

Rather than make energy a partisan issue, it's time ALL put politics aside and ALL their selfish interests aside and for ALL parties to come together so we can get this problem solved and lower prices to consumers and businesses alike.

Posted by: John D | April 22, 2008 9:11 AM

Well said, John D. I find my self in agreement with you. (Ok, except the "Loons from the Left")

Terry, your our kind of guy! We need to get rid of those environmental regulations. Got any land available near your house for a refinery? We'll build it without any environmental concerns. We'll rake in the cash and you can breathe in all that sweet polution. I'm sure you won't mind getting a bit of cancer so that we can keep our profits high!

Jolly Rodger,

And Al Gore has one of these too. Do not leave out the inventor of the Internet. Get a fan base, wage a propaganda campaign against the USA AND Israel condemning them for everything that is wrong in the World, heap praise on the real dictators and despots, and U 2 could win one of these things.

He can post it on the refrigerator and tell the tale to the grand kids. Matters not to me. NO, I am not impressed because of the political angle that now gets factored into the witches brew for these things.

Very sorry again, that I tarred Carter with the wrong year. I do have some work things going on here. A president and a year, ANY of them, is a mistake that I should never make. I do not tend to Google a lot of stuff of this nature, but after some modest checking, Carter's ineptitude was even WORSE than I recalled. Sell it to someone who has a need to believe in this guy. I absolutely do not and I never will.

JR,

How could I leave out the greatest of all "Nobel Peace Prize" recipients. That would, of course, be Carter's good buddy, Arafat. Damn, what an oversight that is.

Enough of this crap. Pretty Latinas, - waiting for me. I love this despised country.

Big Oil,

If someone from Big Oil wants to build a refinery in my backyard, that's fine. The point is, envirnomental regulations, whether you like them or not, extract a costs on a business and that cost is part of any ROI calculation that a business would perform constructing a large long-term asset such as a refinery.