Bush's parting gift?Follow

And, it's only 4 bucks a gallon. Quit sensationalizing!

DOE says so.

As for profit, the amount required to make a profit is in no way related to its impact on oil prices globally.

Edit: Samira and I share a cosmic link or something.

Edited, Jun 10th 2008 12:53pm by Jophiel

Based on what? Your dreams?

The DOE report doesn't say "We predict this much... but chances are there's much, much more".Of course, oil isn't at $27 a barrel any longer. Scaling up, right now peak production in ANWR would have a potential impact of perhaps $2.70 a barrel.

Yippee.

Most money goes for purchasing the oil to be refined, not linining the pockets of CEOs and board of directors. Domestic oil companies only get about 4 or 5% of a dollar.

Bad logic mayhaps?

Gasoline was about $2.60/gallon when the Dems took office in Congress in 2007. Since then (a year and a half), it's gone up by a buck fourty. Let's do some math, shall we?

In the 6 year period between when Bush took office in 2001 and when the Dems took control of Congress in 2007, gas went up from $1.40 to $2.60, about an 80% increase in total price.

In the 1.5 year period between when the Dems took Congress and today, that price has risen from $2.60 to $4.00, about a 50% increase.

Here's the thing though. That 50% increase occurred over a whopping 18 months, compared to the 72 months previously. Without even adjusting for inflation, that means that gas prices went up by just over 1% per month average during the 6 years that Bush and Republicans were fully in charge, and then skyrocketed up to nearly 3% per month once the Dems took Congress.


If that's what happens when they control just Congress, can you imagine what will happen if they control Congress *and* the presidency?


Lol... ;)


When adjusted for inflation things are even worse for the Dems. Gasoline prices didn't actually exceed the previous adjusted high (back in 1981) until I believe just a couple months ago. Kinda hard to pin that all on Bush in any case...


When you add in the fact that Republicans have been saying for 15+ years that we need to increase supply and infrastructure to help prevent exactly the sort of price increase we're seeing today, while the Dems have blocked all attempts to drill domestically, or increase total domestic refining capability, who's lap do you think the problem should rest on?


There's one of two possibilities going on here:

1. The cost of oil is just a factor of global supply versus global demand and there's nothing we can do about it. If this is the case, then you can't blame Bush for the high price of gas, and certainly shouldn't base your decision regarding the next president on gas prices.


2. We can do things with our government to reduce the cost of gasoline, but we failed to do so. In which case, you have to look at which party has pushed for things that would have done this, and which has blocked them.


Either way you go, there's certainly nothing about today's gas prices that should make someone think that voting for a Dem is a good idea. You might wish to vote for them despite high prices on gasoline, but certainly it would be stupid to vote for them because of high gas prices.



Today was the dawn of a new day as well. Care to be more specific? ;)

I don't think you understand causation and correlation.

If you want a more immediate culprit to high oil prices, look at the terribly weak dollar. And, before you wet yourself, the foundation of those problems predate Jan 2007.

At the risk of agreeing here, I kinda have to.

One of the most amusing bits I've seen on TV recently was Durbin speaking in front of Congress saying something like: "And even if we did start exploring and drilling in ANWR, it would take 10 years before we'd see a drop of oil".


Um... And if we'd started say 10 years ago when the "evil" Conservatives started really pushing the issue? What then? Oh yeah! We'd have a domestic source for about 5% of our total oil needs. That's far from irrelevant.


It's also amusing when this type of argument is used against exploring for oil, and followed with a "lets pursue alternative energy sources!" argument. Um... And how many years do you think it'll take before those alternatives allow us to reduce our foreign oil dependency by even 5%? I'm betting a lot more then 10 years...

Edited, Jun 12th 2008 2:21pm by gbaji

Well, no. It was estimated that it'd take a decade just to set up and begin to see any production. It's another 12 or so years estimated after that before we see any sort of peak production.

So you might argue that we'd just be starting to get oil now but to say we'd have a 5% reduction now is plain wrong.

And, as the DOE points out, it'd be trivial for OPEC to reduce production an equal amount and keep the price of oil high. ANWR isn't going to do anything significant for the price of oil, ever. The Republican obsession with ANWR is really just political. Unless they're illiterate, they already know that it won't have a meaningful effect on oil prices or use no matter how "relevant" 5% sounds. Until we're cruising around the desert like Mad Max, looking for the last remaining barrels of oil, it's just not enough oil and not extractable quickly enough to have an impact.

Edited, Jun 12th 2008 4:54pm by Jophiel

Still missing the point Joph. If we wait 10 more years to start drilling in ANWR, will it reduce the total amount of time before we get a peak oil return?

No? Then why are we waiting?



Any reduction would be nice Joph.



Um? So what? The purpose isn't to magically reduce global prices Joph. The point is to give the US some clout in that market. So we're not paying at the whim of the rest of the world. If OPEC reduces oil production to keep the prices high, at least we're not paying *them* for X% of that higher price.

It gives the US options in this arena. Options we don't have currently.



Every bit has an impact Joph. The difference in trade deficit alone is worth doing it. ANWR is enough oil to change that dynamic. And the political effect, which you seem to want to ignore, is pretty significant. Nations that don't like us are a lot less likely to ***** around with oil to try to hurt us if they know that by choosing which 5% of the market not to buy from, we can ***** them more.

That's a huge foreign policy stick to wield.


It makes economic sense. If you've once complained about the price of gas, or the trade deficit, or the relative value of the dollar over the last few years, you should be supporting drilling in ANWR. Because doing so would have moderated and perhaps prevented all of those things, and doing so in the future may yet moderate or prevent future problems of a similar nature. Sure. It's not enough for all the US needs, but even a small amount of the US need is a pretty sizable chunk of the total global market and should not be ignored.