one side pork the other graft

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/10/11530/1857

A couple bills that would help us in the long run, were just shot down.

While I don't think that taxing the oil companies is a great idea, maybe we should just remove the money we currently give them... I think that anything based around increasing the current supply of oil to be extremely short sighted. Tapping ANWR might drop prices slightly, but does nothing for us in the long run...

So I see it this way... One side has bills full of pork that contain some good stuff that may help us in the long run.. The other side is offering up a freebie to their buddies the oil companies...

Ugh.. politics..

The worst part is it is total partisan politics ... neither side will ever see anything good on the other side of the isle.

Lewis Black said "The Republican Party is full of bad ideas ... the demcratic party has no ideas"

(I also agree that tapping anwr is bad)

Yeah.. I believe the Dems are looking more long term, but ignoring the short term and the Repubs are the opposite..

silly.

...and the Chinese are drilling off the coast of Cuba.

Why is drilling in a small part of ANWR that was specifically designated as a site for oil exploration a bad idea? Why is extracting oil from shale in the rocky mountains a bad idea?

stumpmj wrote: Why is drilling in a small part of ANWR that was specifically designated as a site for oil exploration a bad idea? Why is extracting oil from shale in the rocky mountains a bad idea?

It's a short term quick fix that won't really help us in the long run. All it does is prolong our wasting ways.

There's enough oil in the Rocky Mountains to displace most of the known reserves in the Middle East. You'd call a 50% increase in the world's oil reserves a short term quick fix? We're talking 50 years worth of oil consumption. Tax imported energy to promote efficiency and use the proceeds to fund alternate energy research. Wean us off of oil slowly over time and establish a strategic domestic supply to prevent us funding athoritarian regimes overseas (Russia, Venezuala, Saudi Arabia, Iran). It costs about $30 a barrel to extract oil from oil shale. We can maintain reasonable energy prices while helping to promote change overseas.

Is all that a bit hopeful and unrealistic? Sure. But it isn't anymore naive than assuming that there's some magic quick-fix out there that we just need to make a couple of new laws and have everything be fine. I'd also rather have my evergy supply in the hands of Exon/Chevron/Oxadental/etc than a foreign government.

I'm for drilling anywhere they can find oil...as long as the govt forces the oil companies to start doing meaningful research (or at least funding) into alternative fuels. ie hydrogen, alcohol from switchgrass, biodiesel. They should be already, since there is only a finite amount on the plantet.

There is no one correct answer to the petroelum issue, but several that will all need to be done. Get off the freaking imported petro from people that want to destroy us. Remove the $.50 per gallon tariff on Brazillian alcohol and put our corn back into the food chain. Yea I'm sure some politicians have their fingers in the alcohol pork pie.

And how about making it possible to actually build new nuclear plants, fercryinoutloud? Why not go with the most efficient of what we've currently got UNTIL we can develop solar power more fully?

I don't think we should drill the ANWR, but not for the environmental reasons typically tossed around. Maintaining an untapped domestic oil reserve is a good hedge for when the E36 M3 hits the fan in the future (pick your favorite WW3 senario).

Besides, I am looking forward to powering my car with ethanol, its what? ~102 octane? My turbo will love that If we could just get the environuts to let us have even E85 here in Cali, I would be ecstatic.

Because of the damage that would potentially be caused to the surrounding environment.

Because mountains are cool and I for one don't want them to go away like whats currently happening in WVA. Where would we put the roads if there were no mountains to put them on?

My packrat mentality tells me that we should buy up every other drop of oil in the world before we break into our stash. At that point, WE will be the shieks charging whatever the market will bear, and the "problem" areas in the middle east will fade into irelevance (from a petro standpoint, at least).

Now we have to figure out how to keep them from nuking the planet when they realize they have "sold the farm", and nobody has use for them anymore.

Capt Slow wrote: I don't think we should drill the ANWR, but not for the environmental reasons typically tossed around. Maintaining an untapped domestic oil reserve is a good hedge for when the E36 M3 hits the fan in the future (pick your favorite WW3 senario).

That's the one reason I can see for not doing it.

I'd have to go looking for the link. But I heard that in a recent report to congress, all of the environmental, scientific, and oil company representatives testified to say that drilling in ANWAR would have no effect on gas prices for several years to come.

Of course it wouldn't. How long do you think it takes to move equipment, drill a well, install a pump, and install a pipeline?

Sure, Salanis, by your logic, we shouldn't do anything that won't effect the price of gas this afternoon. Why bother with something that might provide energy to our country that we control and currently own in the future if it takes planning, investment and time? May as well just stay home and buy Saudi crude.

I really think that nationalizing the energy industry would be beneficial to us as a country. As much as I think that if you really want to berkeley something up, get the government to do it. However, the current energy industry has captured our government and screwed us people. Nationalizing healthcare will be a disaster. Nationalizing the energy industry would be painfull in the short term but better off in the long term. It will never happen, though because the large international corporations own our government and would stop it.

Until Hess' Law is passed, we'll never get our government back.

Dr. Hess wrote: I really think that nationalizing the energy industry would be beneficial to us as a country. As much as I think that if you really want to berkeley something up, get the government to do it. However, the current energy industry has captured our government and screwed us people. Nationalizing healthcare will be a disaster. Nationalizing the energy industry would be painfull in the short term but better off in the long term. It will never happen, though because the large international corporations own our government and would stop it.

ZOMG... Welcome to my way to thinking Dr. Hess...

Knew you'd see it my way eventually..

The reason why I don't like Drilling in alaska or off the coast is simply this.. Burning oil like using coal is old wasteful technology. PERIOD! We simply need new tech to make up the gap. I'm not advocating going back to caveman times, but we need different energy sources that are more efficent and can be sustained. Oil will run out...

Umm... Hess, why don't you look at my post again. All it was, was a statement of fact, with a qualifier that I'd need to confirm my source but am too lazy to do so right now. I never said anything about whether we should or should not drill in ANWAR.

If anything, I was stating that to refute the argument I hear all the time about how ANWAR will provide immediate relief to gas prices.

Salanis wrote: I'd have to go looking for the link. But I heard that in a recent report to congress, all of the environmental, scientific, and oil company representatives testified to say that drilling in ANWAR would have no effect on gas prices for several years to come.

Entirely possible am sure. I believe they also just approve a large refinery in Wyoming(?), but it won't be online for at least 5 years. Of course an important point here is that since futures trading has at least something to do with the current prices, the announcement that the US will be more aggressive in our domestic exploration might be enough to cause a pretty good dip in the short term.

I also find it kind of funny that Dr. Hess would want to socialize anything! Hey look! Some monkeys just flew out of my butt!!!

SuprWes wrote: Because mountains are cool and I for one don't want them to go away like whats currently happening in WVA.

Yes mountains are nice, but the WVA destruction is the result of surface COAL mining, which has almost nothing in common with oil drilling.

OK, Salanis, a misunderstanding there. Of course drilling anywhere today will not provide any immediate energy price relief. If you start drilling today in a church parking lot in East Texas (I've seen it), you might start getting oil in a month or so. Maybe less. If you start planning on drilling in ANWAR today, you might get oil in a year or two. However, we're going to need oil in a year or two also. We also need refineries to process this oil, transportation of said oil, etc. Infrastructure. And having laws banning the creating of new infrastructure for this is not a good thing. What's more important: Snail darters or your child? You pick.

ignorant: I've not changed my position on the energy industry. I've thought that for years. I've worked in the energy industry in transportation. You've come around to my way of thinking on it. Energy is the true currency of our world, and our economy. Without energy, the whole thing stops.

I lost touch with a good friend of mine. His grandfather discovered/developed a huge oilfield in North Texas that bears his name. My friend told me that his grandfather told him that in the early days, he would go "kick in a well." They would bend a tree (if one was available) or otherwise rig up something to pull up, put a pipe on a rope and kick down on the pipe with their feet, driving the pipe into the ground until oil came out. OK, so it's harder to get a well today. That doesn't mean there's not more oil for the next 1000 years if we wanted it. It's just harder to get to and further to carry.

What energy we use has changed over the centuries. We used to use whale oil for energy. That ran out. We have used up the really, really easy to get to oil that's right next to where we need it. Sure, I think that nukes are a viable way to go. Also, solar collectors on every roof and an organic Rankine cycle (look it up) turbo-generator at every house with ultra capacitors to store it would really not cost very much and would solve all of our energy problems as fast as we could implement it. But that's not going to happen because too many people won't make money on it.

We need national leadership in energy. Our government has been captured by money from rich people, many of which are in foreign lands. I don't blame Chavez for nationalizing his energy industry. It is probably in the best interests of his country, regardless of his true motives. Nationalizing our energy industry, perhaps similar to how the defense industry is controlled, might be a solution in addition to Hess' Law. Opening up the market to remove barriers to entry would certainly help. Those barriers to entry do nothing but help Exxon.

Dr. Hess wrote: We need national leadership in energy. Our government has been captured by money from rich people, many of which are in foreign lands. I don't blame Chavez for nationalizing his energy industry. It is probably in the best interests of his country, regardless of his true motives. Nationalizing our energy industry, perhaps similar to how the defense industry is controlled, might be a solution in addition to Hess' Law. Opening up the market to remove barriers to entry would certainly help. Those barriers to entry do nothing but help Exxon.

Strangely enough..I agree.

Let's have an energy policy that benefits the nation and not oil companies.

The energy policy should benefit the Nation first and at the same time allow the energy companies to profit as well, but not at the expense of the Nation. The recent Democratic bill to punish oil companies was a joke. No one wanted it, they were just playing to the masses. Exxon getting tax breaks while having massive profits in a monopolistic or at least oligarchy system is stealing from all of us, twice. A "windfalls" tax is BS also if one were to ignore the barrier to entry laws, but at least remove the special tax breaks. Oh, and while we're at it, why are we subsidizing ADM while they berkeley us too?