Last Thursday oil prices increased $5.50 per barrel in one day. Last Friday marked the biggest single-day surge in oil price history, rocketing $11 more to $138 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In just two days, oil costs increased 13 percent.
Average Americans are literally driving to the poor house on financial fumes. With gas at more than $4 per gallon, roughly two cars in every household, and the average annual gas usage at 700 gallons, you do the math. Americans are being forced to use their hard-earned money that once put food in their stomachs to now put petroleum into their tanks, but to drive the exact same distances they drove a decade ago for four-to-five times the price.
As oil and gas prices skyrocket, Congress continues to play the blame game. In April 2006, with the Democrats poised to take over Congress with Nancy Pelosi at the helm, she released a statement saying, "With skyrocketing gas prices, it is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress." She followed that with the commitment, "Democrats have a common sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging." So has the Democrat's commonsense plan worked? Average gas prices were about $2.50 a gallon at the time. Now they're $4 a gallon and rising. Some crack-down plan.
- Though we have more oil in the shale of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming than combined in the Middle East (800 billion barrels), liberals and environmentalists have made it illegal to touch it.
- It's illegal to drill in northern Alaska (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), or off the coasts of Florida or California.
- Oil fields in Colorado are being shut down.
- We won't develop shale oil fields in the Western states
- It's illegal to explore in the Atlantic.
- It's illegal to explore in the Pacific
- It's illegal to explore in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico
- We're not receiving any more leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, while China, Venezuela and Cuba are.
- We haven't built an oil refinery in 25 years and reduced in half those we have
- There's enough natural gas beneath America (406 trillion cube feet) to heat every home in America for the next 150 years, but we can't tap it all.
- We have the largest supply of coal in the world, but it's Germany who is planning to build 27 coal-fired electrical plants by 2020.
- American airlines are in danger of going out of business.
- American truckers are being stranded on the sides of the road.
- American commuters are going bankrupt trying to travel back and forth to work, and are being forced to work locally for lower wages.
Anyone care to refute any of the things Chuck is saying? Oil shale was going to be economical at $40-$50 a barrel said the experts. Well here we are, almost 3x the amount, and yet, we've seen nothing.
There should be a two pronged approach. First off, require car manufacturers to reach certain mileage milestones quicker and higher then asked before. Secondly, open up these fields to exploration and to be exploited.
Do that, and energy independence will come VERY quickly.
Or we could just have Chuck give members of Congress a roundhouse kick. :)
Travis
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