Take down the oil companies!

[Riot]

As much as I love President Bush, he is not doing enough to stop the rising gas prices here in Minnesota. I was filling up my truck today and the pump shut off because the price went too high! What the hell! If I have to pay over $75 worth of gas I think it's time for someone to step up.

I could understand paying that much if the supply was low and the gas companies had to raise prices of oil to make a profit but these guys are having record highs in profit this year. The oil companies are getting greedy and they realize that we are overly dependent on gas and we can't do anything about it. President Bush insists that the prices will drop after the summer and that there is nothing he can do but research alternate fuel sources. That is great, but you need to target the big oil companies and put them under investigation. Put some kind of taxes on them or something. Do whatever it takes so they don't keep raising prices so they can fill their pockets up even more. It isn't right.

/end rant

[J@3]

Take down your own oil companies.

[Riot]

I will.

[peaches]

You might need some help.

[Riot]

I think I can do it on my own.

[J@3]

Godspeed, Riot, godspeed.

[The_Flying_Tomato]

Get a hybrid

[benji]

No, Riot.

President Bush is not dictator, he is not god. He does not set oil prices, he does not set gas prices at the pump. There is really nothing he should/could do. Certainly not what you're advocating.

Ted Kennedy, Bill Frist, and the band of kids want to investigate "price fixing" or "price gouging", and others even want to attack oil companies "excess profits" as they put it. (Some of the things you're on the bandwagon for.)

This is all wrong. Especially the "excess profits" garbage. Who is the federal government to decide how much money a company can make? Who decides what excess profits are? What if they decided you're making excess income and took it away? (More than they already do.)

Next time you're at the pump filling up your gas guzzler, read that little sign posted on all the pumps. It lists the minimum amount of taxes you're paying on that gas, and it's years old.

On average 45-55% of the price at the pump is in taxes.

The rest is set by the market. That market being a monopolistic one.

Alas, it's not the oil companies that are the monopoly.

It's the governments of various countries.

OPEC is a cartel for a reason, they set the price at whatever they decide. Just like drug cartels. If you want oil or coke, you have to pay whatever they decide, not what a true free market decides.

Then there's the United States government. They don't let anyone drill in ANWR for example. They, in conjuction with state and local governments, have essentially removed refineries from the United States.

A new oil refinery has not been built in the United States since 1976. During that time, our gasoline use has increased over 25 percent. The nation’s 149 existing refineries have been running at maximum capacity trying to meet record demand and, as a result, not only do we import oil, we actually have to import 10 percent of our daily gasoline from refineries overseas.

...

Consider the example of Arizona Clean Fuels, which has been trying to build a small refinery outside Yuma for almost 10 years. It took five years just to get air-quality permits. Now they hope to be operational in 2010, 15 years after they started the project.

...

in 1981 America had 315 oil refineries in operation; today, it has 144.

The prices are no record. Inflation adjusted the prices back in the '70s were $9 a gallon. When you pay $150 to fill your truck, it's a record.

Are there things Bush could do? Well, I suppose. But he has no hand in an election year Congress that's willing to vote against the will of the public.

Things he could push for:
-A five year moritorium on federal gasoline taxes, and perhaps throw in a permanent cut in those.
-Further tax incentives to companies developing new fuel technologies.
-Doubling the proposed ANWR drilling area and getting it going asap.
-Lowering federal enviromental regulations in the cases of refineries, and allowing them offshore again.
-Tax incentives to build new refineries.

And he could push governors in states to enact similar measures. Especially say, Jennifer Granholm here in Michigan who is fighting a tough re-election bid. There used to be a refinery up here where I live now, now it's cement. And it devestated the economy. All of Michigan's economy is hurting. If refineries are built in Michigan, it creates jobs, more than just those at the refineries, because of the way economics work obviously, but also if gas prices fall, people will be more willing to buy cars, which helps the auto industry. A much better plan for Jenny to get on than calling everyone a racist for wanting to ban discrimination and saying the economy just needs more black women engineers.

Sorry. Had to write some papers regarding Jenny and her fight against ending discrimination in Michigan. Went off on a tangent.

Taxing oil companies, stripping them of "excess profits", and dragging them through investigations ripe for grandstanding in an election year will not lower gas prices, instead increase them and retard economic growth.

The best government intervention in this case is no government intervention and in truth, government withdrawl.

[Dro]

As much as I love President Bush, he is not doing enough to stop the rising gas prices here in Minnesota. I was filling up my truck today and the pump shut off because the price went too high! What the hell! If I have to pay over $75 worth of gas I think it's time for someone to step up.

/end rant

That made me laugh...

Do your part in conserving gas, don't blame the guy you (would have) voted for. Buy a Japanese car and get 30 MPG!

[debiler]

Just out of curiosity, Riot: How much do you pay per gallon at the moment?

[Riot]

$2.80

[peaches]

Maybe you could write him a letter?

[Matt]

you still pay less than we do in Australia and less than most countries in Europe. $2.80? that's how much some places in Europe pay PER LITRE!!! Not to mention they earn less money.

[Jugs]

Dont the Europeans use Diesel as its cheaper and they have more of it? I'm probably wrong though

[Laxation]

Im doing my bit to help the environment by not owning a car!!!

[debiler]

Dont the Europeans use Diesel as its cheaper and they have more of it? I'm probably wrong though

Nope. Only about 15% of all our cars run on diesel.

I'll tell you someting: Over here, you'd have to pay U.S. $ 6.13 for one gallon(bless USA<->Europe conversion tables) of unleaded fuel. So please no more bitching about a problem I'd very much like to have.

[cyanide]

Dont the Europeans use Diesel as its cheaper and they have more of it? I'm probably wrong though

In Canada, and most likely in the States, there's these Smart Cars that are small and in European style and run on diesel gas. The funny thing is, nowadays, diesel is more expensive than regular gas, which has never happened as long as I've remembered ever since they came out with those Smart Cars.

[debiler]

In Germany, it's actually cheaper. But the diesel car owners suffer increased taxes due to the higher pollutant emission.

[Matt]

people get their cars converted to run on gas these days. Much cheaper but still the price of gas is the same as petrol was about 10yrs ago. I still remember the days you could get a litre of fuel for 60c.

[Riot]

I'm starting to use E10 because it's often cheaper.

Benji, you made a great post and I feel like an idiot by only replying with this one question:

How come gas prices keep rising and the oil companies profits keep rising with them? I would have no problem with them rising and rising their prices because they have to but they don't and they are doing it because they can and there is nothing we can do about it.

69% of Americans say the rising gas prices are really hurting them. Minnesota actually has cheap gas, most gas in the states is over $3.15 a gallon.

[cyanide]

How come gas prices keep rising and the oil companies profits keep rising with them? I would have no problem with them rising and rising their prices because they have to but they don't and they are doing it because they can and there is nothing we can do about it.

I'm no economics expert, but I'd say you just answered your own question. By that, I mean, the demand for gas is there and it's already high enough, and people need it to fill up their car/truck/SUV or else they have to use public transportation or ride a bike.

[benji]

How come gas prices keep rising and the oil companies profits keep rising with them? I would have no problem with them rising and rising their prices because they have to but they don't and they are doing it because they can

How do you know it's simply because they can?

Are you aware oil is $70 a barrel? That it was $28 in 2003, $10 in 1998?

Oil -> Refining -> Gasoline.

No new refineries since 1976 + rising oil prices + taxes = high gas prices.

When prices go up on a mostly 100% required good and a company sells that product of course they're going to make profits. That's how business works.

How about people smarter than me:

Americans are suffering high prices not because of a vast-yet-intricate conspiracy of global energy executives, Wall Streeters, and the owners and attendants of the nation’s 168,000 filling stations. If such a conspiracy indeed existed, and if these people and institutions had the power their critics are saying, then they simply never would have let the price of oil fall to $10 per barrel, as it did as recently as 1998.

...

The real culprit — or, to us a better word, explanation — is supply and demand, period. There is one global market for crude oil, and the price fluctuates. The world consumes 80 million barrels per day, a figure that has been growing steadily for years. As the oil appetites of developing countries have grown, along with the appetites of our own roaring economy, so has the pressure on suppliers all over the planet to meet rising demand. Accordingly, the price of oil has climbed and climbed and climbed. The average price of a barrel of oil in 2003 was $28. This week a barrel cost more than $70. The price of crude accounts for upwards of 50 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. As crude prices have spiked, so, naturally, have gasoline prices.

...

Then there are the numerous federal and state clean-air regulations that drive up the cost of gasoline. During the 1990s specialized blends of gasoline were required for different parts of the country. Today more than a dozen different blends are used, depending on the region. This puts extra pressure on refiners, and adds to the price at the pump. The requirement in last year’s energy bill to add eight million gallons of ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply will further drive up costs.

Finally, there are the prohibitions against domestic production of oil and gas that Congress has failed to remove. Conservative estimates suggest the United States has more than ten billion barrels of crude oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There are untold amounts in the waters off the coasts of Florida and California. But federal policies prohibit energy companies from bringing those resources to market.

The cackling oil executives have returned. They are the guys who sit around corporate boardrooms and decide how high the price of gas will be at the pump, rubbing their hands greedily and emitting squeals of Mephistophelean laughter all the while. These executives exist only in the imaginations of economic demagogues, but that doesn't make them seem any less real to Americans who are gripped by petroleum paranoia every time they don't like the price of gasoline.

...

Then there's the cackling executives' most inspired manipulation of all — the change of seasons. Without winter turning to summer, there would be no need to make the shift-over in seasonal blends of gasoline, with the inevitable pinch in supply that comes with it. Cato Institute energy analyst Jerry Taylor points out that there is a price-gouging debate every spring when refineries make this switch and prices bump up. This year the disruption has been compounded by refineries switching from using the environmentally suspect methyl tertiary-butyl ether as an additive in gasoline to using ethanol, which is hard to transport from the Midwest to the coasts. The story of how the cackling executives managed this one is too complicated to relate, let alone their secret alliance with environmentalists to limit domestic supply and thus prop up prices further.

Of course, there is a less seductively simple explanation of rising gas prices than that a handful of oil executives have planned it. In a world market, prices will go up and go down, and the forces that play into those trends are large, complicated and mostly uncontrollable. The foolish conceit of our politics is that the oil market works only when prices go down. When the prices go up, it's a scandal. So Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Bill Frist — showing either a dismaying attraction to the moronic or a desire to pretend to have such an attraction — have called on President Bush to investigate price gouging by the oil companies.

Maybe such an investigation will unravel a vast conspiracy of cackling executives, and the Federal Trade Commission will have to raid those corporate boardrooms to restore world crude-oil prices to their natural, low equilibrium. Such, at least, is the fevered dream of the petroleum paranoiacs.

"If America was facing shortages of milk or water, Congress would certainly take steps to increase supplies," Pombo continued. "But as soon as we start talking about oil and natural gas - the lifeblood of our economic and national security - liberals in Congress turn the simple principle of supply and demand on its head in ways that defy logic and common sense. Opposing everything accomplishes nothing, except high prices and economic vulnerability for Americans.

As developing nations like India and China increase the use of energy to improve the quality of life for their people, global demand for energy continues to rise with prices in tow. Fortunately, American taxpayers own roughly 2 billion acres of federal lands and the massive energy resources that lie beneath them. Putting Americans to work producing this energy is the key to lower prices and a strong economy.

While some in Congress chain themselves to the door of supply - keeping the resources of the ANWR, the deep ocean, and other federal lands under lock and key - many Americans today are struggling to get to work because of high gas prices. This country has made incredible strides in conservation and efficiency, and we must continue to improve, but Americans cannot conserve their way out of an empty tank of gas. Democrats must join Republicans to increase supply. There is no silver bullet in solving this side of the equation, but a billion barrels here, and a billion barrels there, and pretty soon we are talking about real energy.

He should be traveling across the country blaming the minority in Congress--Democrats and liberal Republicans--who continue to block policies to increase domestic energy production. The president, still suffering under the sad delusion that America is addicted to oil, seems to have forgotten that his policies would, if enacted, lead to increased energy supplies and lower prices over the next few years.

"This is a straightforward measure that will bring immediate relief to Americans facing $3-per-gallon gasoline prices," said U.S. Congressman John Shadegg, who today introduced the Ethanol Tax Relief Act. "With the gasoline additive MBTE being phased out, almost every gallon of gasoline sold in the United States is going to require ethanol. But right now our domestic ethanol supply is inadequate to meet this increased demand. As the cost of ethanol rises, so do gasoline prices. The answer is to temporarily suspend the tariff on imported ethanol."

MBTE is used as a fuel oxygenate to reduce air pollution. It currently constitutes 1.4 percent of the U.S. gasoline supply, but Congress' failure to pass MBTE liability protection last year means that MBTE producers are getting out of the business as rapidly as possible.

"Democrats in Washington are suggesting we raise taxes on energy companies - but that is exactly the wrong thing to do," Shadegg said.

The only remaining approved oxygenate is ethanol. In an effort to protect our domestic ethanol industry, the U.S. levies a tariff of 2.5 percent and a 54-cent per gallon duty on imported ethanol. For the time being, however, the domestic ethanol supply is simply inadequate. The result is higher gasoline prices. Rep. Shadegg's bill would suspend the taxes on imported ethanol until January 1, 2007, increasing supply and lowering prices.

"The U.S. ethanol supply will catch up to demand soon," Shadegg said. "But American families need help now."

More tongue in cheek,

Has anyone looked into the outrageous price of saffron? It is outrageously expensive. A single gas tank full of the stuff would cost millions. This criminal state of affairs has gone on for decades, if not millennia, and yet our leaders do nothing? Why is the DOJ ignoring this gouging of Americans too poor to afford the exotic flavoring of their rice? Where is Frist? Where is Hastert? Surely, we cannot leave this important issue to the market.

...

We are horribly dependent on foreign oil. But we shouldn't develop domestic oil or boost our refining capacity. We need a gas tax to wean Americans from foreign oil, but high gas prices are an outrage. We need alternative forms of energy, but we shouldn't use nuclear power. We need renewable, sustainable energy, unless it spoils the view of rich liberal icons. (Ted Kennedy's resistance to windmills near his compound.) Got it?

...

From a reader:
Your saffron suggestion reminds me of one of my alltime fave SNL quips. From a Weekend Update sketch: "New Scientist magazine reported that in the future, cars could be powered by hazelnuts. That's encouraging, considering an eight-ounce jar of hazelnuts costs about nine dollars. Yeah, I've got an idea for a car that runs on bald eagle heads and Faberge eggs."

[Riot]

Thanks for the reply, Benji. I must admit my expertise in this topic is rather non-exsistent. However, I do know that the taxes we pay in gas is unbelievable, too.

Benji, can I ask you a question? What do you think we can do to stop the rising gas prices? I am considering turning in my beloved truck and getting a more fuel efficient car because as a student I cannot afford these gas prices.

[peaches]

Benji, can I ask you a question?

Didnt give him much choice there did you?

[benji]

I enjoy when people ask that. It's why I always ask "can you I ask you two questions?" or don't even ask.

What do you think we can do to stop the rising gas prices? I am considering turning in my beloved truck and getting a more fuel efficient car because as a student I cannot afford these gas prices.

We? As in you and me and people like us. Not much other than better plan trips, take other transportation options, coast a lot, yes, even consider changing cars. Due to certain circumstances with my old car and the fact it was free, I lucked out and now drive a 1995 Honda Odyssey, the thing gets 32mpg. I haven't filled up on gas since March. Still got half a tank, and it's not like I haven't driven anywhere.

If you're using "we" as in the United States, I made some suggestions above. Cut taxes and regulations, and increase domestic production.

Crude oil and gasoline futures fell Tuesday after President Bush gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to relax regional clean-fuel standards to attract more imports of gasoline to the United States and to make it easier for supplies to be moved from one state to another.