Off to ANWRFollow

A short article: http://townhall.com/blog/g/049469ab-a090-4f74-9c99-636f5359d99d

I really like the following quote:

"Let’s be clear about this. The Coastal Plain of ANWR, also known as the 1002 Area, is neither wilderness nor refuge. It was set aside by Congress and President Carter in 1980 for future oil development. Development would be limited to 2000 acres of the Coastal Plain or 0.01% of the entire 19.6 million-acre refuge. These lands were set aside for America to produce its own energy resources. What are we waiting for?"

Technically, it's under the auspice of the Secretary of the Interior with a directive to maintain its "presently existing wilderness character" until such time as Congress decides to either include it into the National Wilderness Preservation System or decides against it.

You can ***** that Congress has punted the issue for years but, until they decide on a final answer, it's more "wilderness refuge" than not.

Is the GOP really *this* desperate that the only issue they can make hay with is drilling for oil because people don't understand how unimportant it is?

Yes

Only if people are terribly misinformed.

Also, maybe I'm completely wrong on this, but isn' the oil market international? So, all the oil drilling in the US won't actually make any more of a difference than if Brazil starts to extract some of their new-found oil, right? Or if Saudi Arabia decides to up its production by a few hundred thousand barrels?

Are you guys arguing the the US has so much unextracted oil that if it decided to drill prices would go down because supply would catch-up on demand? Is that the rationale?

Yes and no. I am almost 100% sure that IF we were to drill oil in America, on or off shore, there would have to be some deal where it would have to stay in America.I would NOT be in favor of drilling in America if the oil was sold on the open market.

It's *always* sold on the open market you stupid *******. What is it you think happens, oil companies drill at their expense on land they lease from the government then sell the oil to us consumers at loss?

How much fucking stupider can you be?

Glad to hear you're against drilling though. Keep up the good work.



Edited, Jul 24th 2008 6:05am by Smasharoo

What do you mean by "nationalising"? Making sure that the oil drilled in America stays in America can be done a couple ways.

A: The oil company that drills receives market price but the oil goes to America only. This will require we, or the oil companies, build refineries of course. We currently have over a hundred bio fuel refineries, most of which are NOT being used as they are very expensive to operate, but we have a start.

B: We have the government drill, refine and distribute. This I wouldn't recommend as government programs run up the cost into the billions in bureaucracy alone.

I think whether you like it or not we WILL eventually have to drill our own oil. The bulk of oil is not used by people driving back and forth to work but rather by planes, semi-trucks, ships and industry.



Edited, Jul 24th 2008 7:45am by Boomsticker

Well, it's about 50/50. The next largest product is diesel. If you can eliminate the need for most of those two, you've cut your oil consumption by a large degree.

Because there's no need to pollute yet another environment with dirty industry for negligible gains. Duh.

Yes. It is an international market. However, there are two significant differences:

1. We control when and how much (or less) oil is added to that global market. The lower the total percentage of oil we produce ourselves, the less control we have on the market.

2. The profits all the way accross go back into the US. Yes. It's iternational. But from a tax revenue point of view, it doesn't matter if we sell 500k barrels a day to Japan, and then buy 500k from somewhere else or if we produce that 500k and buy it from ourselves. Both conditions are better then simply buying 500k from somewhere else and selling 0, which is what we're doing today.

Also. It's amusing that you metion SA and a "few hundred thousand barrels". They agreed to do exactly that a few weeks ago, and magically the price of oil dropped by $20/barrel. Kinda blows the whole "It wont make a difference in the price of gas" argument out of the water, doesn't it?



It's a combination of factors. Yes. Putting more oil on the market would increase supply and therefore decrease cost, everything else staying the same. Certainly, that doesn't preclude some other nation dropping their production rate a bit to keep prices up, but then it's the US that's gaiing from that process, not the other nation(s). Right now, we're pretty much at the whim of the other oil producing nations on this issue, as shown dramtically by the price increases of the last couple years.

When one of the hotbutton issues is to reduce reliance on foreign fuels, this would seem to be significant, right?


How about a counter argument. Why *not* drill? Aside from an incredibly inflated environmental impact, what reason is there?

Heart the ptarmigans.

Incorrect, try again.

You are wrong.

1. We control when and how much (or less) oil is added to that global market. The lower the total percentage of oil we produce ourselves, the less control we have on the market.


There IS...NO....FUCKING.....WE.....unless you want to nationalize domestic oil production. Is that what you'd like to do?


2. The profits all the way accross go back into the US. Yes. It's iternational. But from a tax revenue point of view, it doesn't matter if we sell 500k barrels a day to Japan, and then buy 500k from somewhere else or if we produce that 500k and buy it from ourselves. Both conditions are better then simply buying 500k from somewhere else and selling 0, which is what we're doing today.


It would have zero impact on tax revenue. Do you see why?


Also. It's amusing that you metion SA and a "few hundred thousand barrels". They agreed to do exactly that a few weeks ago, and magically the price of oil dropped by $20/barrel. Kinda blows the whole "It wont make a difference in the price of gas" argument out of the water, doesn't it?

Demand destruction drove the price down.

Oh wait, I forgot I was talking to someone who believes in magical fairies. Let me amend that. "Speculators" decided they were tired of making all that money and manipulated the price lower, closer to the imaginary "real price" of oil. Trust me on this one, the supply increase wasn't the issue. I have a seven figure short position in oil I have to cover at some point, I'm probably paying a little more attention to what's driving the market than you are atm.