It's Oil Lies I Tell You

This week's mid-week rant is late, (and will probably be a bit short) for good reason, in that my health has been suffering for a couple of days.  Just as I get back into the swing of things however, I find that the truth is suffering far more than I have while I have been regaining my strength.  It's campaign season after all, and whether you're running for a nomination, or already running for the highest office in the land, it seems to be a requirement for the truth to take far more of a beating than my tired old carcass has taken this week.

The same president who refused to let the Keystone XL pipeline become part of a Congressional bill a couple of months ago and deferred approval to 2013, now has the political temerity to stand in front of a pile of pipe in Oklahoma and say that he's trying to expedite the process.  In typical campaign fashion, he blamed political opponents for attempting to circumvent a process that he felt needed more time three months ago; while now telling applauding audiences that he will cut regulatory red tape (that his Administration created) to speed the process up.       

Note:  The president and candidates for office are likely to see much more in the way of applauding audiences this year, since recently passed legislation makes it illegal to protest in the presence of someone guarded by the Secret Service ... like the president and presidential candidates.

He went on to say that he's going to order federal agencies to expedite the approval process that he once delayed (after all, the project has only been under review for three years).  Curiously, few in the media seem ready to point out that President Obama has no dog in this hunt, as the section of pipeline being built does not require federal approval; and none seem ready to use the term 'flip-flop' in discussing the President's restatement of his previous strongly held position, one which greatly appealed to his core constituencies in the environmental movement.

In a CNN piece offered today, he also said "Anyone who says that we're somehow suppressing domestic oil production isn't paying attention".  Now for those of you not paying attention, this is one of the lies by omission.  Oil production is not being suppressed by the Administration, since it comes from wells whose drilling began long before the President took office.  Fewer permits are being issued for new exploration however, and vast tracts of land have been placed out of reach for exploration by this Administration.  This bodes ill for future long-term domestic production. 

There was more 'creative truth' forthcoming in the Oklahoma speech, when the president said "the price of oil is set by the global market", going on to blame unrest in the Middle East for the higher prices.  Curious then, that the price of oil is higher now than during the Arab Spring or the Iraq War; nor did they reach current pricing levels even during Egypt's popular uprising and the uncertainty of its ability to control the Suez Canal.  

What wasn't mentioned in the speech however, is that oil is traded in US dollars; and that as our unaddressed national debt continues to go up faster than a 'shovel ready project' and the government printing presses held by the Federal Reserve continuing printing this fiat currency at a record pace, the value of those dollars continues to diminish in value for real goods like gold, silver, and OIL.  Hence this inflated currency will not buy as much oil as it used to, and prices effectively go up. 

It's not all lies however. Some is merely a misleading way of telling the truth.  For example, the President said in a speech in Columbus later today that, "America's dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year." (since he took office in 2009) This statement has some truth to it, if you use the excuse that the current floundering economy requires less oil to fuel it, and therefore depends less on foreign production.  This however, is like saying 'My out of pocket expenses were down this year, because I was dead'.    

Now before those of you flying your Republican flags dislocate your arms by patting yourself on the back, try and remember that none of your candidates has yet to put together a cohesive energy policy.  They remain content to castigate the man in the Oval Office, while presenting no alternatives other than 'Drill baby, drill'.  Newt Gingrich, mostly irrelevant now in the process anyway, has gone so far as to make $2.50 gas part of his stump speech; as if his wishing it were so will make it so.  

How then will he achieve this objective? More drilling would certainly bring up production and reduce prices, but as we've been reminded far too often, it take 5-7 years to bring a well into production; long after the first term of an Obama replacement were to end.  Oh sure, price controls mandating $2.50 per gallon for gas could be instituted, but not only would this have a negative impact on future drilling; but it hardly seems the reaction of someone who calls himself a  Capitalist and small government Conservative.

Rick Santorum is calling the current Administration policy that of "N-O", but this seems a strange attack from another supposed small government candidate who is already talking about calling out a new morality police to end pornography.  He also has failed to produce what anyone would even laughingly call an energy policy as part of his bid for the highest office in the land, being too concerned with winning the religious right instead of the fiscal right; something that's long been his Achilles heel.

The Republican frontrunner Romney is quick to slap the Administration around on what it's doing, inferring that this is about making gas on par with an alternative energy agenda that they've been pushing (which may the only truth being spoken here), but is much slower on the draw in describing what he'd do instead.  Perhaps this former business executive (and not career politician) thinks that this is situation is like what we were told about the now two year-old Patients Affordable Health Care law (Obamacare) that might be his opponent's largest achievement in office.  It's a situation where we should vote for him before we learn what his energy policy is.

The truth of the matter is that 75% of the potential Republican nominees energy position amounts to little more than, 'The other guy is a bad man, doing bad things'.  (I thought about using 'The other guy's a bad man and a doo-doo head'; but didn't want to slander the President for fear that I would quickly find myself doing an interview with the Secret Service.) 

I won't go into Ron Paul's position in great detail, in spite of the fact that it agrees with mine (or is it vice versa).  He believes that the real culprit in the oil crisis is inflation.  He in fact went on "The Tonight Show" earlier in the week (no, I don't watch Jay Leno, but read about it after the fact here), and described the problem rather succinctly.  Holding up a silver dime, he went on to explain that based on the current value of silver (approx $30 per ounce) that you could buy a gallon of gas (even at its current price) for the precious metal value of the weight of this 10 cent coin.  The cost of everything unfortunately, goes up when our currency is no longer based on the real value of real things, and when we allow the Federal Reserve and the Federal government to play games with the value of currency and the credit rating of the nation.  (But of course Ron Paul's opinions are crazy.)

The bottom line here is that with this one rare exception, everything that you're being told about the price of oil, and the subsequent price of a gallon of gas ... is Oil Lies.

                      

Silly Bits II

I've been trying to follow the results of the "Super Tuesday" voting with some degree of interest beyond a lingering yawn, but find my fervor for the process, and with it my attention span for endless coverage of the minutiae around them are flagging.  As a consequence of this general feeling of listlessness, I find myself without a desire to go into the pontifical rage on any particular subject required for a mid-week effort.  This does not mean that I haven't got a few things on my mind however, or that I'm willing to share them.  I am therefore going to attempt another 'Silly Bits' effort instead.

Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed savior of talk radio, has stepped in it once again; though I at least give him credit for an apology that was not entirely self-serving.  Unfortunately in spite of a valiant attempt at 20-20 hindsight, the damage has already been done.  Ms Fluke has managed to do exactly what she set out to do, draw attention to herself and change the discussion on the Obamacare mandate which tells the Catholic Church that its health insurance must provide treatments that violate its own doctrine on birth control.  

We're not asking any longer why such treatments must now be provided by any employer for free (and with no co-pay) when they're not that expensive to start with. We're not asking any longer how the government is able to tread over the fine line on the First Amendment or why disaffection with such care should be restricted to only the Church and not to any employer who feels that such mandates violate their personal beliefs. (Though perhaps it would be easier to get waivers if such organizations were simply to unionize.) We're not even asking where the president's executive order (the Stupak promise) that abortions would not be provided under the Obamacare compromise went to.  

Instead we're talking about Limbaugh impugning the character of a woman who's obviously a political activist, and who made her college choice by her own admission, in order to make a policy change at that university.  We're talking about access to women's health care that already exists as if it didn't, because Rush couldn't stop banging an out-of-tune drum that he thought would resonate with his audience.  Maybe his hearing is worse that he thinks, and he suffers from occasional bouts of being politically tone deaf.

(I won't even begin to talk about the disingenuous behavior of the progressive voices in the media, who want Rush's dismissal and an advertiser boycott for using some of the same language that they have in equally public venues when talking about their ideological opponents.)

Gas prices continue to go up, and the president goes out on the campaign trail to tell us that the problem can't be solved by drilling.  Really!  I can't and won't assign any particular blame to this chief executive; like most politicians running for office, he manages to pick and choose the stats he likes to back up his rhetoric, but the 'facts' are often contradictory.

Our president tells us that more oil is being produced in the US now than ever before ... and that this is to his credit.  Really!  What happened to the days not so long ago when he and other politicians told us that it takes 5-7 years for drilling to result in production; and if this is the case, how should he expect credit for drilling that began before he took office?  Meanwhile drilling permits remain at an all-time low, the pipeline from Canada can only be begun by going around presidential approval in an election year, and no new refinery has been built in over 30 years.

Hybrids must certainly be contributing to our ability to stretch the existing production, but the Middle East is becoming a scarier place week-by-week; so counting on them for our future oil seems like a worse plan than usual.  Increasing debt and Fed policies continue to make the dollar diminish in value against a barrel of oil (oil is currently only traded in dollars, though how long that will last is anybody's guess), which likewise contributes to its increased costs in the long term.  

As for electric cars, I am once again forced to point out what seems to escape those inside the Beltway in DC.  Even if we start buying fully electric cars, the electricity has to come from somewhere.  Coal burning power plants are closing, since they can't meet new EPA regulations.  Only one nuclear plant has been approved for construction since the Carter Administration, and it hasn't begun construction.  Solar and wind power generation can help but little (especially when solar panel manufacturers in this country are going down faster than the Titanic), and will never be able to fill the gap created by the impending loss of these coal plants, let alone provide us with the cheap energy which most economists agree is required to stimulate economic growth.  I guess that leaves us with further demands on oil and natural gas, which brings us back to where we started.  

(Then again, maybe the plan is to get us all into Chevy Volts that we can't afford, and with batteries catching fire for no apparent reason, keep us too scared to get into our cars in the first place and thereby reduce consumption.)
 
Super Tuesday winds to a close, and the winners (kind of) and losers (sort of) are both congratulating themselves on the job that they did (even if they didn't really do it).  And while they're patting themselves on the back, and thanking their staffs, their fundraisers, and their supporters; not one of them thinks to thank the American taxpayer; not for their vote, but for picking up the tab.  It is they after all, who are footing the bill for this state-by-state beauty contest; with many educated estimates holding the cost of these candidate benedictions  at $3,000,000 per state. 

Like the broken promises of most of candidates leave behind after an election, this bit of taxpayer largess goes largely unrecognized; something I find especially troubling when so many state budgets are being slashed left and right (pun intended) to at least attempt to meet the mandated responsibilities of a balanced budget.  When are we going to make these political parties pay for their own political parties?

It's a sad commentary on the political process indeed when 'hard working Americans' have to foot the bill so that the self-appointed political elite in this country can decide who's turn it is move up the political food chain.  Regardless of who gets the delegates, once again the American taxpayer has lost.

 

The Energy Crisis Is Over

While doing some research on impending legislation currently under review in Congress, I suddenly discovered that the Energy Crisis was over! I mean it must be or the Senate would not have passed omnibus legislation to set aside almost 2.2 million acres of land, significantly expanding National Parkland, Heritage areas, and of course Conservation areas (by about 60 sites in all). of oil rich land, banning any exploration or drilling on it.

The legislation, for those of you who love to look up the details (or to make sure that I am not pulling this stuff out of an orifice better left without discussion) is S.22 The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. I won't go into the details of this particular bill, as the link will allow you to do so at your leisure. I will tell you however, that it only failed to become a national reality on a political technicality. This legislation actually passed in the Senate by a vote of 73 to 21. It then moved on to the House, where it passed by a vote of 282 to 144. It failed to become the law of the land only because that vote was taken on a motion to suspend the rules, which requires a 2/3 rather than a simple majority for actual passage.

Knowing that Congress is the best and brightest of us all, I can only assume that we would only take potential oil rich land out of the mix during a time when the price of energy may help to determine the pace of economic recovery if in fact there were abundant sources of cheap power throughout the world. Certainly the senior legislative body of the Congress would not tamper with the future of the country in a time of impending economic crisis unless they knew that there was no possibility of negative repercussions, right? This whole thing certainly wouldn't have been perpetrated as political gamesmanship which would appease the radical environmental left and their virulent objection to any new oil exploration, while still managing to hold off the more moderate and and right wing elements who want to "drill here and drill now" to avoid seeing gasoline prices go back up to $4.00 per gallon.

Why isn't this all over the news? Why isn't the Obama Administration calling non-stop prime time press conferences to announce that they have resolved the energy crisis, one of the most baffling conundrums of the 20th and 21st Century? Why isn't gas under $1.50 per gallon?

I must tell you that I am amazed! Who would have thought that a bunch of politicians who can't seem to balance a checkbook (personal or governmental), can't pass gun control law that actually control anything but the right of law abiding citizens to defend themselves, and can't seem to remember which CIA questioning techniques they have been briefed on could possibly be smart enough to understand something as complex as economic energy policy and the distribution of natural resources in our country?

 

It's Like Oil & Water

I was taken by the discovery recently that not all of the oil currently floating on our oceans is the result of a tanker spill or the discharge from the bilge of a passing container ship. In fact most of this seepage is the result of a natural process.


You see, it turns out that that most oil doesn't like staying under the ground. Instead, it would rather rise to the surface. We have known about this since the 1860's, when it was noticed in areas as diverse as Pennsylvania and Azerbaijan. 

In fact, in a study published in the 90's by BP among others, it appears that there is seepage in 75% of the "petroliferous basins" (places where there is oil underground for those unwilling to pick up a dictionary or too lazy to follow the enclosed link). This fact is also true when the oil is under the ocean floor, and because oil is lighter than water, when it seeps out of the from these areas, it floats to the surface. This sub-surface seepage in the oceans can actually be detected by oil companies using a satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar, and is used as a indication of where they should be able to successfully drill for oil on the ocean floor.

Now if you believe (and I do) that oil floating on the ocean is a bad thing, impacting the fish and wildlife of this watery habitat, you must therefore agree that drilling for it and pumping it out from beneath the ocean's floor may be the only way to prevent this pollution of the world's oceans from continuing. It is not only environmentally sound therefore to do this drilling; but as good "Stewards of the Earth", it is the only compassionate thing to be done for the life of the planet. Please write or call your elected Representatives to make sure that any prohibition, regulation, or impediment to this off-shore drilling is removed immediately. This may be the last chance that we have to save Mother Earth.

Note: The fact that the actions described above will bring down the price of oil, stimulate the economy, and make us energy independent of a bunch of Third World despotic "hell holes" who would rather see us all dead should play no part in this argument. We are not talking here about feeding profiteering oil companies simply to promote the lifestyles of an uncaring American bourgeois class driving their SUV's. We are talking about saving the very planet that we live on.