On the day that Exxon Mobil reported that they earned $8.4 Billion in just the first 90 days of this year, we find that the Republican majority in the United States has begun talking out of both sides so their mouth. Today Senate Majority leader Bill Frist proposed buying off the American Public with the monetary equivalent of only about two tanks of gas, which we wouldn’t even get until August — if then! Why? Because with repeated attempts being thwarted over the years, he figures that a $100 per voter bribe attached to a congressional bill like a prime piece of pork would keep us from noticing that it’d also let the Big Oil companies drill in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Out of the other side of their mouth, President Bush is pushing us to conserve oil by seeking alternative fuels, even going so far as to propose stopping the pumping of oil into the Strategic Oil Reserves (a tiny drop of oil, compared to our daily use). Why? The oil reserves in Alaska’s fields have dwindled 75 percent. Big Oil needs to renew it from somewhere, and with the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits, that means the Alaska refuge needs to be plundered — fast, and before anyone notices. It’s common knowledge that if the Refuge were to be opened up for drilling, that oil would be shipped to China and India instead of the United States, meaning it wouldn’t help us at all! In other words, what Bush is saying is to conserve oil so that more can be sold in the Far East to help the Big Oil companies bolster their pitifully sagging bottom lines!
In a pathetic attempt to blame President Clinton for their problems, senators are claiming we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are today if it weren’t for him. This is ignoring the fact that both houses of the congress and the White House have been Republican controlled since 2001, and if it were passable up front of everyone, they’d have come up with a usable bill by now.
This looks like a bad “Bait and Switch” con to me. If that money is sent to us, which is doubtful because they’ll probably strike it down later after drilling is authorized in Alaska, it should come out of the pockets of the oil companies, not our treasury.
But of course, that’s only my opinion.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
It's common knowledge that if the Refuge were to be opened up for drilling, that oil would be shipped to China and India instead of the United States, meaning it wouldn't help us at all!
While your 'common knowledge' is correct, your assessment of the results is not. Where do you think China and India are getting their gas from now? It's coming from the same sources we get ours from, so whatever they get comes out of our tanks, essentially, and the more they buy the less there is for us and the higher the price goes. Oil is a fungible resource. Everyone needs it, it doesn't matter where it comes from, and one barrel isn't better or worse than another. If all the ANWR oil goes to China, then that's oil they don't have to buy somewhere else and take away from us. It increases the overall supply and reduces the overall price, and that helps everyone.
However, ANWR is not really a solution in the long term. It's just some more oil, not enough to change the large scale trends. It's worth extracting as a stop-gap since the ecological damage is virtually nil, but don't expect it to save us.
Dave
2 - Jet in Columbus
Dave #1... "It's coming from the same sources we get ours from, so whatever they get comes out of our tanks, essentially,"
I was under the opinion that our natural gas came mainly from wells in the Gulf of Mexico, not Alaska? I'm probably wrong.
Are you suggesting it'd be better for China and India to buy their oil and natural gas from Saudi Arabia instead of us??? Our poor beleagered near bankruptcy Oil Companies in Houston need all the business they can get!
Now that we've disposed of the comedy, here's a serious question. If we can drill thousands and thousands of feet into the ocean floor from the surface, why can't we drill diagonally from the existing sites near the Refuge to tap those "Beleagered, stop-gap" reserves the Bush is so horny for; instead of drilling straight down inside the refuge?
3 - Jet in Columbus
You know what just occurred to me? That $100 proposed rebate. I remember Bush trying to stimulate the economy a few years back by giving us a mid-year tax rebate, only to take it away again by making us reduce our income tax returns the next year by the amount of the checks they so generously sent us.
I wonder if those hundred buck rebates will have to be taken back out of our tax returns next year?
Isn't it great? Gas prices at the pump are supposed to skyrocket starting memorial day and then all through the summer, and Frist wants to send us rebates for a measly two tanks of gas, out of our already beleagered treasury, in august-months after we'd need it to get through the summer.
I still want to know why that money's not coming out of the oil company's pockets, instead of essentially coming out of ours????
Hmmmmmmm
4 - Dave Nalle
I was under the opinion that our natural gas came mainly from wells in the Gulf of Mexico, not Alaska? I'm probably wrong.
We're talking oil here, more than natural gas. Natural gas is also a fungible resource to a large extent, but it's not our main concern. It's produced in far more places and tends to be consumed local to the area of production.
Are you suggesting it'd be better for China and India to buy their oil and natural gas from Saudi Arabia instead of us??? Our poor beleagered near bankruptcy Oil Companies in Houston need all the business they can get!
No, I'm suggesting it doesn't matter where they buy it. Every bit of oil produced anywhere in the world WILL be bought by someone at a market price. And consumers don't buy their gas from a nation, they buy it from a gas station, which has bought it from a distributor who bought it from a refinery which bought the crude oil from an international pool of oil which doesn't have a 'made in XXX' stamp on it. Once you put the oil in a big drum or a tanker you can't tell where it comes from.
Now that we've disposed of the comedy, here's a serious question. If we can drill thousands and thousands of feet into the ocean floor from the surface, why can't we drill diagonally from the existing sites near the Refuge to tap those "Beleagered, stop-gap" reserves the Bush is so horny for; instead of drilling straight down inside the refuge?
Actually, the current plans are to do a great deal of angled drilling from the proposed sites which make up 1/2000th of the land area in ANWR. But we ARE talking about Alaska here and the distances are enormous. We're not talking thousands of feet from the North Shore to ANWR, but hundreds of miles, and no one can drill that far.
Dave
5 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you Dave. We don't always agree, but I like learning from you.
Jet
6 - Jet in Columbus
Do I have to Google it, or don't we get most of our crude from Canada?
7 - Jet in Columbus
Oops, sorry I'm wrong. Looks like it's time to declare war on Mexico again!
Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country Feb-06 Jan-06 YTD 2006 Feb-05 Jan - Feb 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEXICO 1,774 1,701 1,735 1,488 1,452
CANADA 1,700 1,768 1,736 1,513 1,540
SAUDI ARABIA 1,418 1,335 1,375 1,525 1,565
NIGERIA 1,342 1,133 1,232 1,114 1,058
VENEZUELA 1,175 1,228 1,202 1,357 1,353
ANGOLA 464 420 441 369 398
IRAQ 444 532 491 523 499
ECUADOR 222 373 302 356 331
BRAZIL 164 61 110 52 42
ALGERIA 163 235 201 219 181
KUWAIT 152 73 110 177 187
COLOMBIA 108 169 140 99 111
UNITED KINGDOM 82 36 58 190 175
CHAD 77 74 76 106 88
EQUATORIAL GUINEA 73 86 80 58 42
8 - Dave Nalle
Jet, don't forget that we're still getting most of our oil from domestic production. And as I said before, where we get oil from doesn't really matter so long as we get it.
Dave
9 - Jet in Columbus
What I'm trying to figure out is if Mexico is so oil rich-more than Veneuela???? why are its people so poor?
10 - Dave Nalle
You think the PEOPLE of Mexico see a cent of that oil?
Plus, Mexico's population is way larger than Venezuela's.
But don't worry. Give Chavez a couple of years and Venezuela will be as poor or worse.
Dave
11 - Jet in Columbus
Yeah, if Pat Robertson has anything to say about it!
12 - Nancy
When I first heard Frist's proposal, I almost choked on my coffee laughing. I did spray a good deal of it all over my morning paper. $100? That's what, 2- maybe 3 tanks of gas for my little scooter, which means only 2 or even less for most other cars? He MUST be joking. Just goes to prove being a rich & privileged congressmaggot means you're totally out of touch with reality up there on The Hill.
13 - Jet in Columbus
And like I say Nancy, that rebate will probably be deducted right back out of our next tax returns "indian giver" style.
Careful now, I'm about to get outraged... brace youself... Ready?
Gee, I wonder why that wonderful rebate is coming from the U.S. Government's treasury instead of out of the Oil Company's profits?????
COULD IT BE BECAUSE THE OIL COMPANY OWNS BOTH HOUSES AND THE PRESIDENT THROUGH ELECTION CAMPAIGN SUBSIDIES????
14 - Jet in Columbus
p.s to the editors... THANK YOU for fixing the size of my little editorial cartoon, IT LOOKS GREAT!!!
15 - Nancy
Yes-! The new cartoon looks great, and very funny. Good choice.
BTW, there was a hilarious commentary this morning on WTOP called "fill in the blanks", with the commentator saying stuff like, "congress is about to lower the boom on the oil companies by ..." (chorus): "Yet another useless investigation!" Com: "This investigation will discover..." (chorus)"Nothing!" Com: "It will take 3 years and produce 40,000 pages of print and will reveal..." (chorus) "Nothing!" Com: "congress will therefore end up doing..." (chorus) "Nothing!" Com: "and the oil companies will therefore end up paying ..." (chorus) "Nothing!" etc. etc. VERY gallows humor.
16 - Jet in Columbus
Indeed, Nancy... Indeed
17 - Jet in Columbus
Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert again today tried to blame Bill Clinton for the oil mess we're in. He must be smoking a lot of dope in the low mileage SUV he drives back and forth to work!
They're still trying to divert attention away from the FACT that both houses of Congress and the White House have been controled by his own party since 2001, and they still can't get a workable energy bill through, because their owners the oil companies won't let them.
Sorry, but Bill Clinton hasn't had anything to do with energy policy for 5 years now, you have!
Or is Hastert and Bush still convinced that we're too stupid to notice???
18 - Dave Nalle
Gee, I wonder why that wonderful rebate is coming from the U.S. Government's treasury instead of out of the Oil Company's profits?????
It's because oil companies are private corporations and in order to get them to pay the rebate they would have to either be sued or there would need to be a special tax passed to get the money, and both of those things would be transparently rapacious and take quite a bit of time with little guarantee of success.
Of course, the rebate is ridiculous and pointless, and it does actually point out something very significant. If a $100 rebate is enough to make up for our losses from higher gas, maybe the increase in gas prices really isn't hurting us all that much.
But wait, here's an idea. Stop using so damned much gas. Take a bus, carpool, buy a more fuel efficient car - god knows the car makers need our help. And stop whining about it and begrudging the oil companies their tiny profits.
You do realize that at $70 a barrel with 28 gallons of gas coming out of each barrel of oil, we're talking about a base price per gallon of $2.50. Add in an average of around 45 cents a gallon in tax, and tell me exactly how much profit there is left to be made? If my business made only 3 cents profit on the dollar I'd shut it down and do something else for a living.
Dave
19 - Jet in Columbus
Dave, I believe the tiny profit just from Exxon alone was a miniscule figure of 8.4 Billion posted for the first 90 days of this year, and the recent jump in prices isn't even factored into that.
Nice try though!
20 - Jet in Columbus
Dave #18... Am I reading that wrong? Are you actually asserting that the American Taxpayers are really going to feel better about Big Oil because the money for our phony and useless rebates (too little-too late) will be coming out of our debt-ridden treasury instead of the Oil industry's multi-billion dollar profits? Is that really going to endear Houston big business to the hearts of the American people??? You've GOT to be relasted to JR Ewing!
21 - Dave Nalle
Volume, volume, volume. And a profit of $8.4 billion net out of $290 billion gross doesn't impress me. That's like your boss making you carry around $29000 and then taking it all back at the end of the week and giving you a check for $840.
Dave
22 - Jet in Columbus
Or a republican congress giving us a useless check for $100 and then taking it back our of our refunds next year?
23 - Nancy
Give it up, Jet: Dave believes in voodoo economics. You might as well preach to me about starting a welcome wagon for illegals. ;)
24 - Jet in Columbus
Nancy #23. That won't happen, and I'll sincerely tell you why; Both you and Dave and many that don't share my view of the world, have taught me a lot of things just by looking at life from a viewpoint other than my own.
That's why I don't stomp on others unless they're being narrowminded or just annoying for the sake of being annoying...
I enjoy the give and take with Dave, just as I do with you.
Thanks Sweetie...
25 - Nancy
Yeah, sometimes ya gotta just agree to disagree, which is why getting nasty is counterproductive, I keep reminding myself - but I have a bad temper so I don't always succeed. Bear with me if I slip. Thanks.