Drilling for an energy plan
Published: May 15, 2008
Updated: May 16, 2008
When President Bush took office in 2001, the price of oil was around $30 a barrel. Six years later the price had doubled. Democrats promised voters they had “a common sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” On October 20, 2006, just before the Democrats took over Congress, a barrel of oil was about $57.
So, how is the Democrat’s “common sense plan” working? In the six years before they took control, oil increased an average of about $5 a year. But in the 16 months the Democrats have been responsible for the nation’s energy policy, the price of oil has risen to $126 — an increase of almost $70 a barrel or $5 each month.
If I had a choice, I’d take $5 a year over $5 a month. Meanwhile, gas prices on the Democrat’s watch went from $2.20 a gallon to $3.67, an increase of almost 10 cents a month. The Democrat’s plan isn’t working, unless their plan was to decrease our dependence on oil by making it so expensive we can’t afford to buy it.
It’s clear the Democrats are fumbling our energy policy. Last week Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged President Bush to get Saudi Arabia to drill more oil so prices would go down. But at the same time, she rejected drilling for domestic oil, claiming that increasing domestic supplies won’t lower the price we pay.
So which is it? Do we want more oil or not? How do we decrease our dependence on foreign oil if we reject domestic oil and increase foreign oil?
While claiming oil drilling won’t help, the Democrats said we should stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which will increase supplies by 70,000 barrels a day. They say this will decrease gas prices by up to 24 cents a gallon. Economists say the effect will be negligible.
Meanwhile, Democrats reject drilling in ANWR because they say adding a million barrels a day would only drop the oil prices about 5 cents a barrel. So 70 thousand barrels saves us 24 cents a gallon, while a million barrels won’t do a thing?
Also, Democrats want to raise taxes on oil companies. By increasing taxes, they promise the price of gasoline will drop, and the oil companies will increase supply. In reality, taxes decrease incentives to supply oil and raise the price we pay.
Of course, we are collecting a huge amount of taxes from the oil companies. The feds took over $30 billion from Exxon-Mobil last year (that’s more than the taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of all individuals).
The Democrats also say drilling in ANWR is useless because we won’t get any oil for 10 years. But they take credit for a bill they passed which will force Americans to buy more fuel-efficient cars. Their plan requires cars to get 35 miles per gallon, by 2020 — 13 years from now. So we shouldn’t drill in ANWR because it will take 10 years before it helps us, but increasing gas mileage over 13 years is “smart energy policy.”
Meanwhile, my car gets over 45 miles per gallon today — beating their standard for 13 years from now by 30 percent. Americans could buy these cars now, but haven’t. So the Democrats will force us to.
But it won’t help as much as they claim — when cars get more efficient, gas use will increase, because people will be able to afford to drive farther.
The one thing that will make us stop using oil, and switch to alternative fuels, is if gas gets so expensive we get tired of paying the cost. The Democrats claim they want us to stop using gasoline, but they are pushing the administration to force companies to lower gas prices, which will make people use more gas.
So the Democrats want to cut gas use, but are pushing lower prices. They say Bush let prices get too high, but since they took over the price has gone up ten times as fast. They say a million barrels a day won’t make a difference, but 70 thousand a day will. They won’t drill ANWR because it will take too long, but passed fuel efficiency standards that will take longer.
The energy bill is one of the few real “accomplishments” the Democrats have had since they took office. If $3.70 a gallon gas is an “accomplishment,” I hope they fail more. We can’t afford too many more “success stories.”
Charles Reichley has been a Prince William County resident since 1981. He can be reached at critically .
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Reader Reactions
before I get slammed for the way I stated that, we dont imort most of our oil from mexico and canada. that should state: Most of the oil we import comes from mexico and canada.
I just read the article about what makes up the cost of gasoline. It starts with the fact that crude costs 135 a barrel. that is not what domestic oils costs by a long shot and we all need to remember that we only import SOME of our oil. We import MOST of our oil from Canada and Mexico through piplelines, not ships from overseas. If we are paying them the same as overseas oil, I’d have to ask the obvious question “why”
We do agree on some things. I can almost always find some common ground with anyone that thinks realistically and logically even if I dont generally agree with them. The US in general has been lazy about energy. We did start on this in the late 70’s when fuel was so high and then relaxed when prices came down. You could inject a conspiracy theory into this, intentionally driving prices up to kick start the american mindset again. The US has millions of acres of farmland that is in the “farm bank”. Ethanol should have been better planned and restricted from using feilds and crops that supply our food chain. I do think we should drill in Anwar. The current alaskan pipeline has brought a lot of fuel to the US. The market price for oil is a Joke and should not affect us the way it has. That is not what it costs us for US drilled oil. it costs almost exactly the same to drill for domestic oil today as it did 10 yrs ago. We do not buy or import natural gas and propane so that should not have gone up so high for household utilities. Diesel is barely refined crude so there is NO reason for diesel to be higher than gasoline. Rocky Mountain Crude oil sells for about 12 dollars a barrel. The people are being scammed to the inth degree.
Barnun,
I can’t believe we actually agree on something (check weather reports from the nether regions). I won’t go so far as to say ethanol is evil, but it’s not a solution to our energy needs, especially the way this country is approaching it. Brazil is using sugar cane waste (also saw grass I think) for ethanol production, which seems to be more environmentally sound vice using corn which is perhaps the worst possible approach.
We should have been laying the groundwork for shifting away from oil dependency 30 years ago, not eight. The mid-1970’s oil shortages should have been our wake-up call. But eight years would have been better than nothing, and please remember that during most of the Clinton Administration Republicans controlled at least one branch of Congress.
However, Clinton was not as pro-active in pushing for alternative energy as he should have been (see, that’s twice we agree, sorta). I will say again, the energy policy pushed by Cheney/Bush, and supported by a Republican-controlled Congress (until 2006) have made our energy problems worse. We are now in a position of watching fuel rapidly spiral out of the price range for average Americans with nothing as an alternative to fall back on. It will take at three to five years for ANY alternative energy and mass transit programs to take effect. Even local mass transit programs such as dramatically increasing the number of PRTC busses and bus routes will need at least three years to implement.
Note to Mr. Reichley: PLEASE give up the ANWAR fantasy already. There’s at best a six month national supply of oil available in ANWAR which will take five to ten years to extract, and no one or no projections show that extracting oil from this reserve will lower fuel prices.
Ron,
based on what you are saying, we should have been fully prepared after 8 yrs of a democrat president. Instead, during his term, the average mpg of vehicles in the US dropped, Suv’s grew and hot rods kept coming on strong. I’m all for that but the econo models dissappeared. The last I heard, big business along with the very wealthy pay the lions share of taxes in our country as well as keeping us po folk employed and off welfare. I do agree though that the big oil companies should have to actually produce or fund alternative enery not just to equal but to match the government incentives or lose the incentives. The democrats are the original pushers of ethanol ( dating back to Carter ) and ethonal has helped drive up the price of gas while contribution to US and world starvation. ethanol is evil and should be stopped immediately.
Barnun,
This column puts the fault for high gas prices on the Democratically-controlled Congress. In other words, Reichley wants his readers to believe that only one side should bear the blame for high gas prices - which sounds like just the opposite of what you are now arguing.
Last I checked, it is the President who always signs legislature into law (unless he vetoes it and gets overrules by a 2/3’s vote in both houses) and it’s the president who normally initiates major policy actions that then gets picked and poked at by Congress.
I agree with you that neither party is entirely blameless in the fiasco of our current energy crisis. But, facts show that a Republican energy solution always favors tax breaks and tax-payer funded incentives to oil companies and nuclear-power companies with little to nothing for alternative non- or low- polluting imagery sources or energy conservation. Which is what got us where we are today; oil climbing to $200/BBL, and no alternative energy sources ready.
Democrats generally favor investing in alternative non- or low- polluting energy sources and conservation along with making oil companies pay their fair share of taxes.
Charles, I love the way you wrote.
You are one of the best writers with common sense.
This would make a lot of common sense to build & drill for domestic oil so that way USA will remain Strong without having to depend on other countries.
I wonder who does Pelosi think she is ?
I think that Pelosi is such a Pinhead.
Pelosi ought to be fired for doing such a lousy job.
Ron, I didn’t Say that Clinton was responsible for the Hummer, it just came under his term. I pointed out that congress as a body, both sides, are responsible. you came back with one sided rhetoric again. you state that the democrat president is not reponsible because of congress but then flip to a republican president being at fault. you cant have it both ways. Like it or not, congress passes the bills and approves the policies. As long as people continue to beleive that only one side can bear the responsiblity, nothing will ever improve. What was our energy situation like under Carter ?? Hah! He did have a good push for alternative energy though. One of his government owned windmills was sold to a private individual. It ran as a power plant in Medicine Bow Wyoming for many years and was the largest single windmill in the world.
What a big piece of garbage. Just Democrat bashing by a die-hard Republican. Something like the notorious Jim Young might write. —The fact is that the oil producing countries have caught on how to exploit markets a la Wall Street. The US has lived off cheap oil and gas for years. The honeymoon is over, thanks to a global economy. And there isn’t anything the US can do except pay for it. Oh yes, we might try invading Iran, like we did Iraq, for oil. We are in a similar situatiion the Japaneses were in before WWII.
Barnun,
You are as ridiculous as Reichley. So now Pres Clinton is responsible for Detroit’s decision to build gas guzzeling SUVs and demilitarized HUMMERS? California, with the strictest emissions control regualtions in the US, and the largest number of hybred and all-electric vehicles, is blocking high-mileage imports due to Nancy Pelosi?
Is the Democratic-controlled Congress responsible for Republican Governor Schwarzenegger buying one of those Hummers?
One of first things the Bush administration did was for Cheney to convene a group of private citizens to develope a national energy policy. To this day, we don’t know who was involved and what was discussed as Cheney fought all the way to the Supreme Court (the same court that appointed Bush president) to keep the records of these meetings secret from the public We do know that no leading figure of alternative energies was invited. Surprisingly enough, the policy that came out of these meetings supported high consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power, essentially nothing for the alternative energies or conservation that could be paying dividends now.
A National energy policy takes years to show effects. The first thing Regean did when taking office was to kill the very strong alternative,conservation energy programs started by Pres Carter. During the Clinton administration Congress was mostly controlled by Republicans, who blocked any energy measures that did not involve tax breaks to oil companies. We’ve had more of the same under Cheney/Bush.
Any policy a Democratic-controlled goverment takes now will not begin to show results for many years.
Republicans = tax breaks for oil companies. Live with it.
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