I'm amazed that it has taken me this long to go on a political rant, but now the time has come. We all suffer from extremely high gas prices. (The words suffer & extremely are correctly used.) The prices are so high that it has a significant effect upon our economy. Prices on all products are going up because of it. Everyone agrees that this is a significant issue and according to polls, it is the number 1 issue of this election. The President and many members of Congress have been pushing for an up or down vote on allowing more domestic oil to be obtained and sold to the public. But instead of allowing the vote to happen, and most likely pass. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi quickly adjourned the Congress for 5 weeks, thus avoiding the vote that she knew she would lose. Because of this, many members of the House stayed in the house chamber to debate the issue and call for congress to return and vote on the issue. But instead, Pelosi turned off the lights, cut the microphones and prevented CSPAN from filming any of these events.
When asked on a news program why she would not allow the vote, Nancy replied that it is her duty to save the planet. I ask, is it worth it to save the planet at the expense of the people who live on it. Food and heating prices are growing to levels that many people cannot afford, but (according to Nancy) this is unimportant compared to the needs of the planet. Does she feel that we do not have the ability to extract oil from the planet in an environmentally safe way? If we cannot, then why does she allow any oil in any part of the world from being refined and sold in the US? According to her, any oil regardless of where it is refined is causing environmental problems. It is because our economy is to much dependant on it and she knows this. But since we are so dependant on it, shouldn't the short term solution be to increase the amount of oil on the market so that the prices will decrease and our economy does not suffer further?
John McCain was against drilling for more domestic oil, but he saw the writing on the wall and knows that this is needed for the short term solution. Even Brack Obama, who has been adamantly against domestic drilling, has turned around and now acknowledges the need for it. Some democrats say they are for it too. However this may be because 70% of Americans want it and so these democrats want to be re-elected. However these same democrats have put and will continue to put Nancy Pelosi in as Speaker of the House and she will do anything she can, including mis-using her power, to prevent this issue from even being voted on. That leads me to believe that many democrats and going to flip flop and say that they are for the energy policy and once they are elected they will then be against it. Else they would force Nancy Pelosi to allow the vote, like what the Republicans standing in the dark house chamber are trying to do right now.(They have been on the darken house floor since Friday 8/1/08, but cannot get any news coverage. But that is for a different blog.)
I am sick of political games being played rather than work being done to address this national emergency. If our current politicians will not do their part to fix the problem, then I say throw the bums out and get someone who will.
P.S. For those who want to know what my idea is to fix this problem, here it is. I think our short term solution is to increase the amount of oil on the market to drive down prices. This includes getting more domestic oil sources that are not under the influence of OPEC which is a monopoly that drives prices up. We also need more hybrid and natural gas cars. Our long term solution is to obtain alternate energy sources. Someone invent a car that runs on water please! If we could drive our cars and fly our planes on an element that we have a lot of, then price would never be a problem. And if we could use an element that is already in our environment, then we would greatly decrease our pollution problem. What do you think?
7 comments:
A politician playing politics? Who would have thought of it.
Saving the planet she says? Since I know politicians only do things for money, I wonder who is paying her to do this?
We really need a third-party for the bulk of the population (those of us in the center). A party that would actually get something done.
Cars like the ones you describe have already been invented. The trick is how to get the major car companies and oil conglomerates to allow them to be made and marketed. Most of these inventions have been bought by these companies and buried because they are afraid that they will loose money in the long run if people don't rely on oil any more. The sad part is that there have been inventions out there since the 50s.
Trudi (Pam's cousin)
So let's all buy hybrids or alternative fuel cars and help the environment and the economy.
WOW! It has been less than a day and I got 3 comments already.
If the cars are already invented then we need them now more than ever. What do we need to do to get them at the dealership?
We don't need a third party that plays the same political games. We need all politicians to stop playing the game, Dems, GOPs & all other parties to stop trying to point the finger and address the problems. But that is the problem. Everyone plays it until we the voters tell them to stop it or get voted out!
This is also one of the issues I have with Obama. He says he will change and not play the game. But he seems to play it better than anyone else.
There are a lot of people that are pretty excited on this topic so lets take a moment and settle down and talk about reality. First of all new drilling is not a solution in any term. There are already many unexploited oil leases that companies have already and have chosen to sit on. Even if we allow more drilling it takes huge amounts of capital to set up a single rig that might get you 1,000 barrels per day (about $3 million). This expense is a lot more for offshore drilling. It also takes time to get the rigs set up. Only about a month in actual setup and drilling but much of the time for the oil companies to do research and figure out how they want to do the drilling. This is about a year of geological assessment. Also the peak capasity per rig goes down as soon as it is tapped. The decisions not to utilize these resources ultimately come down to economic ones. This being the case oil companies do want congress to allow more drilling to "secure future potential supplies". Any allowed new drilling would not increase oil supply in the short or medium terms.
This push for congress to allow more drilling is smoke and mirrors. It will not decrease oil or gas prices now or for some time. It may never decrease the price and demand from China and India is exploding. Right now the chinese have 20 cares per 1,000 per as opposed to 800 per 1,000 in the U.S. With the recent economic growth in HCina and the expanding chinese middle class their ratio will approach ours within only a few generations.
Politicians want to push more drilling because it sounds logical to the average person that does not understand the realities of energy exploitation. Obama concented to it as a cencession to get other aspects of his energy policy passed. I suspect even McCain knows this is not an answer but it looks good politically.
So Pelosi hasn't caved to the "political game" and doing what is politically popular despite being wrong. Don't hold it against her.
Areas that congress can have an impact on energy more immediately are tougher fuel efficiency standards, zero emission vehicle mandates (like California used to have before big business threw money against it), Public (absolutely not private) subsidies for alternative energy and alternative fuel vehicles.
Rob
Your comments are well thought out and well worded. However, ignores the fact that if our world wide demand for oil is only going to increase in the short and long term future. Then the limited or decreased supply of oil problem we face today will be greatly increased in the future. Prices will be higher than today unless we find a alternate energy source, increase supplies or a hybrid of both.
This is a rare thing for me to say, but Paris Hilton's energy plan is the way to go. Limited off shore drilling to increase supplies to help with the short & medium term supply needs. Which gives us time to work on the alternative energy sources that can then be used in the long term. Having more domestic oil sources benefits us more that India & China.
Current oil expert report that they can tap into off shore oil sites within 3 years. Meaning if we let them do this 3 years ago, we would not be seeing prices we have today. The cost to get the oil is paid for by the oil companies themselves, not the public, since they stand to benefit financially from the oil. So worrying about the economical cost to set up an oil rig is the oil companies, who current see record profits. So from a business stand point, why would the not spend 3 million to earn 3 billion?
The reason why current leased land is not being drilled is because there are not significant resources available there. And I propose that those leased lands be exchanged for the other options like Anwar & off shore drilling. Countries like China & Cuba are already drilling at some off shore sites. Why should they be the only ones to benefit from oil reserves close to our home.
So Speaker of the House Pelosi is not off the hook. Just in this post we have seen a few ideas on how to address the problem. But instead of discussing any of them, Pelosi has skipped town to promote her new book that is facing disappointing sales.
Maybe if she did something to address our energy concerns, we could afford the gas to drive to the store and buy her new book.
Neils, thought you might like this. A positive development out of Luxembourg and France. http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/106040/Air-Cars:-A-New-Wind-for-America%27s-Roads
I want a green one, they are too cute! 106 mpg WOW!
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