Sunday I wrote an article on Faultline USA, It’s All About Gas Prices, posted below. In the article I asked the following question concerning the NOPEC (No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels)bill introducted by John Conyers of Michigan.
Here’s Sunday’s article with an update following:
Sticky note to McCain and Obama . . .
Unless the dollar rises quickly and gas prices come way down, the primary issue that will determine the presidential election in November WILL be the Economy/OIL Prices!!! And the solution won’t be more taxes. The candidate with the best economic recovery plan will get America’s votes. That is if most of us can still afford to drive to the polls on Election Day.
This past week the house passed the “feel good-do nothing but harm” NOPEC bill:
This from WSJ:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan, who introduced the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) Act, argued that cartels like OPEC are partly to blame for today’s high gasoline prices. The bill sailed through 345-to-72a day after the Energy Department said the average pump price of regular gasoline was a record $3.218 a gallon. The bill would change certain laws, like the Sherman Act and Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, to block OPEC countries like Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela from invoking immunity from U.S. court action relating to concerns about oil production.
I have a question. Why should it be illegal for OPEC nations “to limit the distribution and production of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product,” while Congress continues to severely limit "the production of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product” in the US???
Must read reaction to NOPEC.
Mark Steyn: Your car can't run on Congress' hot air
Here’s an excerpt:
. . .the Big Oil guy oozed as oleaginous as his product before the grand panjandrums of the House Subcommittee on Televised Posturing, and then they went off and passed 324-82 the so-called NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is, in effect, a suit against OPEC, which, if I recall correctly, stands for the Oil Price-Exploiting Club. "No War For Oil!," as the bumper stickers say. But a massive suit for oil – now that's the American way.
"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product ... or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of oil, natural gas or other petroleum product in the United States."
. . . So we complain about $4-a-gallon gas, and our leaders respond with showboating legislation like NOPEC and feel-good environmental regulatory overkill like putting the polar bear on the endangered-species list, while ensuring that we'll continue to bankroll every radical mosque and madrassah on the planet. In Britain, new "green taxes" do nothing to "save" the planet, but they are estimated to cost the average family about $6,000 a year. That's change you can believe in.
For a differing opinion see The Old Right Daily
But the real reason behind our troubles with Oil, is the DOLLAR’S DECLINE. (Yes, Ron Paul is right when talking about the Gold Standard). This is because, Oil is priced in dollars.
Oil is priced in dollars. So just to maintain the status quo, oil exporting countries must charge more for their oil to offset the lost revenues caused by the dollar’s decline. Indeed, of all the markets that rise when the dollar falls, oil and energy are the largest and potentially most powerful.
So, who really should our beloved Justice Department go after? The Federal Reserve. But this is an election year, and the idiots over on Capital Hill want to show you, how tough they are on those evil people who own OPEC. When in fact they should be looking at their own stupidity.
H/T to American Solutions for attempting a Tri-partisan approach.
73% of the American people agree that with appropriate safeguards to protect the environment, we should drill for oil off America's coasts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
As gas prices continue to increase, Congress continues to blame others while ignoring practical steps to stop the pain Americans are feeling at the pump. To reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we need real solutions to our energy challenges.
Watch Newt Gingrich explain our new Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less. campaign:
Memorial Weekend Travel Down Again
AAA reports that for the second year in a row, the number of people traveling will not exceed that of a typical weekend.
The agency blames the reduction in driving on another year of record high gas prices.
Chicago pays more because of high gas taxes!!!
Tired of seeing the price at the pump jump every time you need to buy gasoline? Well, the record-high price of gasoline in the Chicago area is linked to a record-high rate of taxation: nearly 20 percent of the Chicago price.
H/T to KICKIN’ AND SCREAMIN’ This article was just too good, so I had to cross-post it here!
We all know it is true. If Democrats had allowed us to build more refineries and drilled for more oil, we’d not be beholden to OPEC as we are today. I’ll be among the first to also say that there’s no guarantee prices would be lower as oil prices are, for the most part, set by futures traders since higher output and low prices drive up demand and oil companies, being international traders, sell to the highest bidder. For all we know, we can add another 3 million barrels per day to our output but countries like China would suck it up, demand goes up, prices go up, OPEC slashes production to maintain prices, etc. etc.
But that’s not really the point.
The point is this: Chuck Schumer, Democrat and asshole extraordinaire, recently said this when grilling oil company executives:
“If Saudi Arabia were to increase its production by 1 million barrels per day that translates to a reduction of 20 percent to 25 percent in the world price of crude oil, and crude oil prices could fall by more than $25 dollar per barrel from its current level of $126 per barrel. In turn, that would lower the price of gasoline between 13 percent and 17 percent, or by more than 62 cents off the expected summer regular-grade price - offering much needed relief to struggling families. “
Too bad none of the execs had access to Lexis-Nexis to dig up this by Schumer just a month earlier:
the Administration was “strangling” any attempts to make serious investments at alternative energy over the last seven years and that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge would “take ten years and reduce the price of oil by a penny.”
In conclusion, in case you liberals out there need help connecting the dots:
Schumer’s daily magic number of 1 million barrels is the exact increase experts believe we would today be pumping through the Alyeska pipeline had Bill Clinton not vetoed ANWR drilling back in 1995. And even the most rabid anti-domestic-drilling Democrats don’t take issue with that figure.
So then, the increase he demands of “Bush’s friends,” the Saudis - which he claims would reduce prices by up to 25 percent — is the exact amount he argued earlier this month would only “reduce the price of oil by a penny” were it coming from ANWR - eco-sacred breeding ground of the Porcupine Caribou.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D in economics to know that both figures can’t be right.
Nor one in Poli-Sci to know why they’re so starkly different nonetheless.
Update: Today, Monday, in Big Dog’s Weblog this same issue is being addressed. Did Congress Outlaw its Own Acts?