WH rewrote Gulf spill report to support moratorium

Bastards!!!

12,000 people lost their jobs because of some "creative" editing of the report on the Gulf spill, but hey, that's no big thing over protecting the environment.

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.

“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

And let's not forget the 1.8 Billion dollars lost to the economy. The drilling rigs that went away rather than sit idle during the moratorium that ain't coming back...particularly any that went to Brazil, paid for with US taxpayer money to do DEEP WATER DRILLING!

The WH is claiming it was a misunderstanding...there was nothing to misunderstand! The Eco-Nazis in this administration rewrote the report so it would be interpreted to back up their desire to stop oil exploration on our coasts.

Jobs lost, houses foreclosed on all over not letting a crisis go to waste. Effing socialists.

STARK RAVING MAD!!!

This is a personal rant about what a WONDERFUL day I had today, so feel free to skip it if you like.

AN OIL FIELD PRIMER:

The production site I work at has been having problems for about the last 3 1/2 years. The oil wells that bring fluid up have an average cut (water to oil ratio) of 97%. For every barrel (42 gallons in the oil field...I don't know why), we get 32 barrels of water that we have to do something with. Normally we shoot this waste water down another non-producing well at about 1100 psi with the idea of flushing oil through the zone towards some of the producing wells...at least that's the theory. The ideal thing is to produce the maximum amount of oil while being able to get rid of the water so everything stay balanced.

MY COMPANY:

We have severe injection limitations.

The owner wants to produce a sh*tload of oil, as do we all, but he always wants to run the wells that bring the most oil which also bring up the most water. We Operators have come up with 9,000 combination's of maximum oil production and still get rid of the water, but he keeps insisting that "ON PAPER" we should be able to run this new combination that he's worked out.

It doesn't.

WHY I'M STARK RAVING:

Yesterday, the day Operator decided he would run over balanced and "hide" some of the water productions by shunting some of it to a stock tank, thereby getting the production numbers up for his last day on shift.

Well, he forgot to close the shut at the end of his shift, and the night guy after about two hours noticed the production for those two hours was equal to what we normally do in a day. It took him about an hour to find the valve that was cracked.

When I got to work this morning I had 417 bbls (17,514 gals) in the stock tank and and an unknown amount of water that had skimmed from the stock tank to our shipping tank, contaminating the oil (we cannot ship oil that has more than 3% water).

That worked out to another 123 bbls (5,166 gals)...that means I got stuck with 540 bbls (22,680 gals.) extra water to get rid of...and still try to produce oil, so shutting all the producing wells down is out of the question.

My Foreman called in sick this morning (good thing...bad thing?), so I got to make all the decisions about what wells to keep running and what to shut down. I managed to get rid of about 200 bbls but I left my relief right on the edge of disaster, and that is something I just don't like to do.

As an extra added bonus the company that handles our pipeline wasn't completely happy with the accuracy of the machine that records how much oil we ship out and wanted to run another test...out of any day to do this they picked a damn good one. I got us passed even though the bastards showed up 2 hours before they said they'd get there. (Damn, I'm good!!!)

This is not the first time that that Operator has pulled this crap, and I got to talk to the owner about what happened during our morning telephone report. This Operator is the first to talk about "team work" and is also the first to leave you hanging and the first to complain about others not doing something HE feels should have been done. I hung his ass this time, he screwed three people trying to make himself look good. He even left a note saying he would work OT during a guys vacation, not a full shift, but he'd come in for two or four hours....to help out. Damn, if I'm there for 8 to 10 hours, I might as well work the 12.

There...I feel better, tomorrow is another day with more problems and I'll get through it just like I did today.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Back to Politics!

As I've mentioned before I really am an easygoing guy. I can take a lot of grief without getting ruffled. I have my values and beliefs and if you don't agree with me, I may think you're wrong, but mostly I'll turn the other cheek. If they want to be an idiot, that's their right.

However, over the last month I've HAD to listen to this ad:



Sounds great, doesn't it? Can-do Americanism!

Any time this comes on I scare my animals and the neighbors ask themselves "What the hell keeps happening over at that house?", because most people just don't remember this:



This is the real message. "You will do as we say or we're going to hit you with taxes and fees so hard you can't survive, Damn the consequences."

It doesn't matter whether the technology exists, or even if it can be developed. Doesn't matter if this "change" can be met on the bureaucrats schedule or not..we'll just punish you and reduce your income so that your R&D funds are gone. Most likely in taxes that will subsidize the "poor" (all of us after paying our utility bills) that can't afford $3/Kwh bills.

Don't consider that 70% of our electrical needs come from coal.

If you still believe that the eco-nazi's or "workers of the world" really want (or care) about "green power" read this:

Solar Energy Meets Greenies and Big Labor

A chance to go to one of their chosen power sources that will save the world...but there ain't no where they will allow it to be built.

The first problem was the squirrel, or more specifically, the Mohave ground squirrel, which is considered to be threatened. While the squirrel has never been found at the project site, nor was there any evidence it had ever lived there, it could decide sometime in the future to live there.

I may, at any moment, decide to live in Texas. Maybe I should start paying taxes and registering my car there.

I Said What?

I just got done saying politics gave me a headache and what do I get in my E-mail from George Mellinger (a false internet friend) but a reminder of why I get these headaches.

I remember when this agency was created and the "absolutely must do now" goals this GOVERNMENT entity was established to deal with.

Let's see how it turned out:

Absolutely the funniest "joke" ever......"ON US !!!"

* Let it sink in.
* Quietly we go like Sheep to slaughter.


Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ...... during the Carter Administration?

* Anybody?
* Anything?
* No?
* Didn't think so!


Bottom line . . we ' ve spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency ... the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.

Ready???????
It was very simple
... and at the time everybody
thought it very appropriate...




The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977


TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.



Hey, pretty efficient, huh?????


AND NOW IT ' S 2009, 32 YEARS LATER ... AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS


NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR


THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES


AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!

THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY ' WHAT WAS I THINKING? '


Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy.





And NOW we are going to turn the Banking System & the Auto Industry over to them?


God Help Us !!!

We have gone from importing 23% (a crisis in 1970) of oil to make up what we need to 62% in 2009.

We've been paying 116,000 people bloated government salaries to dig us another 39% into this hole.

Maybe this year they'll get it right.

Cavuto v O'Reilly On Gas Prices

HT: Hot Air

I like Cavuto. He seems to be very up with business and how it affect politics and can explain it well.

O'Reilly, I can take him or leave him. He was my original draw to Fox News, but I tired of him over the years. Now I'll leave it running if he's on, but I don't schedule my day around him.

One area that O'Reilly pushes my buttons is when he goes off on oil. Here's a video with Neil and Bill going at it:



I love how Cavuto quietly explains how Bill is picking numbers that fit his position and ignoring those he doesn't like. Bill starts raising his voice to prove his point saying he likes "these numbers", even though they relate to different periods. Neil quietly tells Bill to "stop yelling at me".

Bill's big point was that oil prices have dropped 33% and we haven't seen a 33% drop in the price of gas. One thing that was pointed out and Bill didn't want to hear was that even though the price of oil had increased threefold, the price of gas had not even doubled.

I buy gas also. I have the same heart attack as everyone else when I fill up. Hell I've got a 30 gallon tank on my truck and if I don't catch it before 1/4 tank, at $4.00/gal.,the damn pump cuts me off before full ($100). I've also worked in gas stations, the cents they make on each gallon has to be able to pay for the next load coming in. The price drops slower that it goes up because you have to guess what that next load is going to cost.

I haven't seen a 33% decrease in the price, but it had gone down 28% as of last week when I bought gas, but the price of oil shot up $2 today after dropping $10 over the previous two days. You tell me what the dealer is going to pay for the some thousand gallons of gas he's ordered so you can make snide comments to the poor SOB working the cash register.

News...Good Or Bad?

I just got the true story on some scuttlebutt that has been bouncing around the last few days. I'm working graveyard this week, so I didn't have contact with anyone who knows.

This morning I was relieved by the Foreman and got the facts (as much as he knows).

My company is in escrow and being sold.

THE BAD:

I've only met the guys that are buying the company once, briefly, about a year ago, so I have no idea if we'll get along or have the same goals.

I make an appropriate salary, but ...new peons are cheaper, or the owners can just say "This is what we'll pay you."

They plan on me doing the work more fitting for a 20 year old.



THE GOOD:

They've got a reasonable budget to start correcting the ongoing problems with the facility and expanding production.

I have over 25 years experience in the oil field, I'm worth the money.

The budget (initially) sounds like they plan on using contractors to do the heavy work.

These are just my initial thoughts. I'm not going to go into panic mode just yet. It will take at least 3 months to get all the details worked out(permits, royalty contracts, etc.).

The only thing I know about the "possible" new owners from when I met them a year ago, is that they are that they are Iranian, they drive Benzes and one of the brothers has hair longer than I do.

One other piece of good news is that they have oil sites in Texas (and some other state that I immediately forgot because I just went "No way I'm going there"). So I may be able to transfer to Texas with a job in a couple of years. YeeeeeHaaaaw!!!

Or I get "let go", have to sell my house (with a 400% profit), and move to Texas. The Emperor just bought big new house, he must have a room to let.

Cool Pics Of My Old Oil Field

I intended to post some political commentary on some articles I read this morning, but when I got home, it was 100 degrees and the A/C is crapped out. I'm hot already, no need to get myself hotter.

I did some net searches just typing in things and seeing what popped up and I ran across some pics of my old oil field just west of downtown Los Angeles. These are of the jack-line sites.

This site was converted to individual pump jacks just before I started working there. It worked 6 wells. The building stood for about 5 more years and we'd store minor stuff that we didn't care if it got stolen, but basically it was a place for rats and cats to increase their population.



A close-up of one of the pumping jacks.



This next site was operational for about 4 years after I started there. I wish there was a pic of the inside of the power house. Big gears, 6 ft, long flat belt drive system...(insert Tim Allen grunt here).



Next is a plan of the site showing how three wells were run off one power plant. The concentric wheel that drove it always had one well at the top of it's stroke, one at the bottom and one half way. A position and balancing act.



Efficient? Yes, very! The only problem was if you had a problem with one well and had to work on it, the other two were off as you lost your counter balance. Three units down instead of one. We switched to individual pumping units in the mid '80's.

This well is at the corner of Rockwood and Glendale.


You want to know how close to the civic center we were, just MapQuest it...I did it for you here (lazy bastards), just back out one click (-), "A" is the site and the spot that says Los Angeles is city hall.



This is the power house. Wow, looking at it now, we should have slapped a coat of pain on it, but back then to me, it just looked like oil field.



I want to point out that the Queen Anne style house on this site was occupied by an owner. This was the fall back property for the Manleys. They started here and, if times got that bad, would return there. When the Manley member of the family that lived there, for 48 years, died, we rented it to one of our employees for the incredible sum of $180/month. (Kept his wages low...Oh yeah, he was Hispanic.)

In reality, the guy we rented to was the guy right below me in seniority, and made a damn good salary. Wife and three kids, it was a subsidy from a corporation. He got inexpensive rent...we were assured of someone in the area to respond to any oil field problems. A good trade.

This is how the site ended up. I saw it everyday, and didn't notice how crappy it looked, but it was in the middle of a crappy looking neighborhood. We had to put in the chainlink to keep people off the property, the area was getting a little scary and because nobody wanted to see oil wells, we put slats in the fence which gave them an easel to paint on which made the city bitch at us about covering up the graffiti, hence a crappy looking fence.



If this field were still producing, and I had anything to do with it, I would have proved that oil production and people could continue to coexist.

Do You Sell Used Cooking Oil?

Since the price of gasoline crossed $4.00, I have been getting an increasing number of phone calls that are just annoying the hell out of me!

Phone Rings...Most likely this occurs when I'm at the farthest point in the yard, so I walk quickly (no more running for me, that ended about 3 years ago when I tripped over my own feet and went down. Took me two weeks to work all the pains out) hoping whoever is calling will let it ring more than 6 times.

[Note: I am polite throughout the conversation, just getting a little exasperated as it progresses]

ME: [answering phone] "Name of Company" Oil.

CALLER: Who's is this?

ME: "Name of Company" Oil, may I help you?

CALLER: Do you sell used cooking oil?

ME: No. This is a crude oil facility.

CALLER: You don't sell used cooking oil?

ME: No, sorry.

CALLER: Do you sell new cooking oil?

ME: NO, as I said this is a CRUDE OIL facility.

CALLER: So, you don't selling any cooking oil?

ME: No.

CALLER: Do you know someone that sells used cooking oil?

ME: No, sorry.

CALLER: You don't know anyone?

ME: NO! I told you this is a CRUDE OIL FACILITY. What makes you think I'd know where to buy cooking oil, used or new, outside of a supermarket? [then being helpful] Maybe you can try "restaurant supply" or "recycling services" in the Yellow Pages.

CALLER: Do they sell used cooking oil?

ME: I haven't a clue, perhaps you should call them and ask.

CALLER: So, you don't sell used cooking oil?

ME: [AAARRGGHHH!!!] No! I hope you find what you're looking for, good luck.

CALLER: [click]

I admit, to a certain degree, I milk it. Most of the callers seem to be in their late 60's+, but they made me drop what I was doing and scurry across the yard, so I'm willing to sit for two minutes and go through the routine...again.

For most of these guys I'd be willing to bet that if they converted their vehicle over to running on used cooking oil, the cost of conversion added to the price of used cooking oil these days (nobody gives it away anymore), they wouldn't outlive the the investment costs.

Where Did Hell Did I Go?

Twelve days since my last post. I knew five had gone by, but the other week is just a blur.

The first five were my long change and I had made plans with my boy to get a jump on cleaning out the storage shed that my garage had become. In 1996, when the new guys bought my old company and I was made manager, I ended up working 14 to 18 hours per day, seven days a week, During this time, when my wife wanted to move something out of the house, it got stuck just inside the garage door. As the front got blocked, the stuff got pushed back until there was just a path around the table saw and over to my completely cluttered work bench or past the table saw to the back down the right side.

Typically, the time I decided to do this project the temperature went from mid 80's the day before to 105 to 112. I figured getting going around 7 AM would be good to beat the heat, but have you ever tried to get a 19 YO at that time of day? We'd be going by about 8ish and by noon to 1, I'd call it quits.

He did work diligently and we made a major hole in the stuff. It was a lot of sorting and the pile of crap to keep or toss was growing faster than I could make decisions. I'm a pack rat. but know from experience that the thing that has been sitting around for 4 years taking up space with no idea of what the hell you're ever going to do with it so it gets tossed, is the exact thing you will need in two weeks to complete a project.

Returning to my regular job, the temps dropped back into the mid 80's. I had one regular day, followed by a non-relief day where I had a twelve hour shift. On this day, the Division of Oil and Gas (DOG), after a year, decided to change some of the requirements for operation of a couple of our injector wells (the two best of course), the foreman was busy with a guy trying to get our pipeline plan up to date, so I had to figure out which wells we could keep running and still get rid of the water using the formulas of which wells produce the most oil and least water, balanced by which wells that produce enough gas to keep the that system flowing so our LTS (Low Temperature System) didn't freeze up. Then just to make life interesting, the Gas Company got pissed at us about something and turned of the readout that tells us the readings on inerts in the gas.

In order to sell gas, we have a ranges set to keep their automated valves open. The are parameters for BTU's and inerts (must be monitored closely), and CO2 and H2S (not usually a problem).

Without the reading on inerts (Gas CO) and wells getting turned off (DOG), it's been this was a fun week where intuition and juju played a big part in keeping things going.

It's been a fun week.

When I go back on Thursday, the foreman is on vacation so I get to look forward to two weeks of 12 hour shifts, being one of the guys from our site has to go over to our 23rd St. site to do line integrity testing.

Some good news, Thursday (float) and Friday are HOLIDAYS....double time shifts with 4 hours OT each day. The two things that suck are 1) I'm working days, so no shift differential and 2) by the time taxes get figured in, I'd probably take home more with just two straight eights.

For anyone who comes by on a semi-regular basis, thanks for not giving up. I really lost track of the time.

Friday!!!

Well, it's my Friday.

Off for a day and 3/4 then 7 on graveyard shift (then 5 1/2 off).

Haven't posted in a bit because they've been making me work (the bastards), so by the time I get done reading all my other sites when I get home, there isn't the time or the energy to post all the things I have marked.

Today I just want to hit a few of the things I meant to do the last few days.

GuyK demanded that I go over here and read this: "McCain's Better Half" at Tall Cool Drink of Water

Conservatives see a problem and figure out how they're fix it. Libs whine about the gov't not throwing money at the the problem.
___________________

A bunch of stuff from Hot Air:

McCain: Obama’s running for Carter’s second term

Just "Oh God, Noooo...!!!!" I lived through Jimmy Peanut's "change" which sounds an awful lot like Barack's "change". Now I know why so many of his supporters are young, they didn't have to go through gas lines and incredible inflation and "malaise". They probably think we're old farts and are exaggerating the ordeal through senility.

I know I'll come back to this subject in more detail, but wanted to get this story in: So when will Congress act on gas prices?

We expect the rest of the world to rape their ecosystem, but ours is somehow sacrosanct and shouldn't be impacted, nay...even touched. The ultimate in elitist thinking, but the world shouldn't hate us for that.

We were told, oh about 7 years ago that if we produced ANWAR, it wouldn't do any good for 7 years. Some of that oil trickling in about now probably would have been a good thing.

Congress isn't going to do anything about the price of oil now or after the elections. Gov't (Fed, state, local) get 24% of every dollar spent on gas, with no investment, while the oil company get 8.5% with trillions in investment. You tell me who's getting "Windfall Profits"?

On the Dhimitude of the free world: Anglicans: British gov’t pays more attention to Islam than to us; British gov’t: Of course we do

Because the ragheads are going to riot and burn if their fweelings are hurt, we better make sure they are front of the line for gov't attention. Won't matter if giving in to them dilutes or removes the rights of a majority of the population, can't have cars burning on the evening news like in Fwance.

Listen to a MP Ms Blears:

It is “common sense” for Christianity to be sidelined at the expense of Islam, a Government minister claimed on Sunday…

She said it was right that more money and effort was spent on Islam than Christianity because of the threat from extremism and home-grown terrorism.

It gets better.

She added: “We live in a secular democracy. That’s a precious thing. We don’t live in a theocracy, but we’ve always accepted that hundreds of thousands of people are motivated by faith. We live in a secular democracy but we want to recognise the role of faith.”

Secular democracy? England? Even I know about Henry VIII, but I'll let the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, Bishop for Urban Life and Faith of The Church of England rebut.

“She said we live in a secular democracy. That comes as news to me – we have an established Church, but the Government can’t deal with Christianity.”

great britain, shave your heads, lock your women away and get ready to pray at the appointed hours, or pay your dhimi tax, you are done.
_____________

That's all the Hot Air stuff. I saved the best for last. Got this through Sig94 who sent me to Transsylvania Phoenix to read this post: The British called, they want their guns back


I'll post the You Tube here just to peak your interest.


So maybe I shouldn't write the Brit's off to fast. I just hope we can look at what a crock and failure this was and not make the same mistake.

What Have I Been Saying?

There hasn't been an offshore-oil-well blowout since 1969. The onslaught of Gulf hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 ripped apart drilling rigs and pipelines, but not one drop of oil made landfall.

So why do we block energy companies from exploring many of our offshore waters for oil, including Florida's Gulf Coast?

Going green means having green to spend

Read it!

Maxine: Read the Constitution!

I'm still reeling from Maxine's declaration during the Congressional hearings on gas prides:

Borrowing liberally from: Maxine: Read the Constitution! by Henry Lamb

And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing – would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies.

That someone cannot take all the facts of OPEC cannot produce much more than they are, Russia's oil industry is an ecological nightmare, and we have at least a 60- to 70-year known supply of domestic oil available, but can't touch and world demand has outstripped supply, that prices are going to be high.

Congress does expect us to ignore that while "BIG OIL" is making under 8% profit per gallon, the gov't gets a 23% profit through taxes.

Government intervention into the marketplace is justified only to ensure consumer safety and honest competition. Beyond this, government intervention into business affairs creates a drag on the economy, and the greater the intervention, the heavier the weight that drags down the economy.

And the fun thing about gov't intervention is that when dealing with the multiple agencies, City, State and Federal, they all have their own rules that often run counter to each other, but expect you to comply with theirs, and being they all seem sit in their office all year then in a flurry try to catch up on inspections, you end up wasting time readjusting equipment to comply with whichever agency is coming in this week.

Maxine Waters' remedy – to nationalize the oil companies and, by inference, any other business she thinks the government can run better than the owners – is a sure-fire formula for the destruction of the U.S. economy and of the nation.

You can be damn sure the taxes won't be dropped, they'll probably be increased as a subsidy for a give back to the "poor". So now the gov't will get 31%+ profit from gas, but there will be no "Windfall Profit" brought up.


The main points are:

The more government dictates what business may and may not do, and the more costs the government imposes upon business in the form of taxes and regulatory compliance, the slower the economy turns.

and

Unless the elected representatives at every level of government get a grip on the principles of freedom the Constitution holds, the United States of America will continue to descend into the collectivist, dictatorial regime that Maxine Waters threatened. It may already be too late. A generation or more of people have been taught to expect the government to take control and solve whatever problems may come along. This is the mentality that drives the likes of Maxine Waters and Hugo Chavez.

Oil Profits

Gee, someone else out there gets it.

Mark Steyn: Your car can't run on Congress' hot air

I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."

Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"

Another waste of taxpayer money going over the same thing they went over a few years ago. Libtard thinking, every time the price of gas goes up, it must be BIG OIL causing it,with their 8% profit margin.

Once the show with Oil Execs is going nowhere and is over, they come up with the brilliant idea of suing OPEC members (sovereign nations) over the use of their own commodity...because we want it.

and then they went off and passed 324-82 the so-called NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is, in effect, a suit against OPEC, which, if I recall correctly, stands for the Oil Price-Exploiting Club. "No War For Oil!," as the bumper stickers say. But a massive suit for oil – now that's the American way.

"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product ... or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of oil, natural gas or other petroleum product in the United States."

I would assume that this law with penumbras and such, could be used to sue Fwance for limiting the import of Brie to the U.S. causing action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of Brie, or other cheezy stuff in the United States."

After all Nancy Pelosi may have a fund raiser for re-election and she wouldn't want to have to serve any of that nasty California cheese.

Er, OK. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don't we start by suing Congress? After all, who "limits the production or distribution of oil" right here in the United States by declaring that there'll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge? As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, "We can't drill our way out of this problem."

No, we can't...but:

Well, maybe not. But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon. More to the point, if the House of Representatives has now declared it "illegal" for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every form of energy production other than the bizarre fetish du jour of federally mandated ethanol production.

But we're protecting "our" environment, and you guys live in a sandbox.

Nuclear energy?

Whoa, no, remember Three Mile Island? (OK, nobody does, but kids and anyone under late middle age, you can look it up in your grandparents' school books.)

We have been operating a nuclear navy for decades now without mishap. I have a brother-in-law who would have loved to come out of the Navy, after running the reactor for 10 years and gone into a civilian job doint the same thing.

Coal?

Whoa, no, man, there go our carbon credits.

OK, how about if we all go back to the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, and start criss-crossing the country on wood-fired trains?

Are you nuts? Think of the clear-cutting. We can't have logging in environmentally sensitive areas such as forests.

Coal has progressed to where the technology is much, much cleaner than the old smoke belching stacks of the '50's, but future advances are limited when using it for a fuel source is just ruled out.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz believes in "alternative energy," which means not nuclear (like the French) but solar and wind power. At the moment, solar energy accounts for approximately 0.1 percent of U.S. electricity production, most of which is for devices that heat swimming pools. So if there was a tenfold increase in swimming pool construction you might be able to get it up to 1 percent, but the only way all those homeowners would be able to afford to build their new swimming pools is through the kinds of economic activity that depend on oil, gas and other forms of federally prohibited energy.

Concentrating solar rays in an area enough to produce meaningful energy, gee, I duuno, might cause an unnatural increase in the temperature in the surrounding area, thereby making it to hot for the two-tongued horny-toad to survive. (No one has seen a two-tongued horny-toad in over 60 years, but they could be out there and we wouldn't want to kill one.)

So, instead, Congress hauls Big Oil execs in for the dinner-theatre version of a Soviet show trial and then passes irrelevant poseur legislation like the NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is really the NO PECS bill – a waste of photocopier paper passed by what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests."

But, they did something, right?

The New Yorker ran a big piece the other day called "The Fall Of Conservatism." Indeed. This November isn't going to be pleasant for those of us of a right-wing bent. Many conservative voices in the media say: This is the way it is, get used to it. Voters want the government to "fix" health care and "fix" gas prices and "fix" the environment and, if all you're offering is the virtues of small government, you too sound small – and mean and uncaring about the real issues in real people's real lives. Standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" was a cute line from William F. Buckley, but it's not a practical position for a political party that wishes to stay in business. "The fact of change is the great fact of human life," writes my National Review colleague David Frum in "Comeback," his thoughtful critique of the conservative movement.

Frum is right. Change is a constant. You're a big railroad baron,and things are going swell, and then someone invents the horseless carriage and a big metal bird that holds hundreds of people and you never saw it coming – because you thought you were in the train business rather than in the transportation business. That kind of change is the great exhilarating rhythm of American life. [emp. mine]

Our countries past ability to glimpse around the next corner, that seem to be missing today.

But government "change," Obama change, NOPEC change is nothing to do with that. In fact, it obstructs real dynamic change. On energy, on environmentalism, on health care, government "change" generally does nothing more than set in motion the next crisis that the next change-peddling pol has to pledge to address.

So we complain about $4-a-gallon gas, and our leaders respond with showboating legislation like NOPEC and feel-good environmental regulatory overkill like putting the polar bear on the endangered-species list, while ensuring that we'll continue to bankroll every radical mosque and madrassah on the planet. In Britain, new "green taxes" do nothing to "save" the planet, but they are estimated to cost the average family about $6,000 a year. That's change you can believe in.

We refuse to recognize what needs to be done, try to push the blame off on others (NOPEC, the hearings) and continue to dig ourselves in deeper.

One final note: The Big Oil companies are not setting the price of a barrel of crude, they are having to pay that price, because if they don't, some other country will and we lose.

Windfall Profits?

OK, here it comes. Just yesterday I was bitching about nothing to write about and what happens...one flies down the pipe.

Profits Of Doom?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, May 01, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Profits: Exxon Mobil's first-quarter earnings of $10.9 billion, up 17% from a year earlier, are stirring outrage in Washington. Some are calling such profits "obscene." What a sad lack of understanding of economics.

I said it a few times before, I kept hearing these whispers of "Windfall Profit Taxes" being imposed again. I had just started working in the oil industry when Jimmy Peanutbrain tried this back in the early '80's. It didn't work then and it won't work now. "The Congressional Research Service has analysed that the windfall profit tax brought in $80 billion in extra revenues for the United States government, which was far less than the projected $393 billion. Also, domestic oil production by oil producers was said to be lowered."

Case in point: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Like her rival, Barack Obama, she's pushing a massive "windfall profit" tax on those "greedy" oil companies. "There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street," Clinton said Thursday. "This is truly Dick Cheney's wonderland."

No, what's seriously wrong is that politicians such as Clinton can cynically manipulate public opinion to enact disastrous policies.

[all emphasis: mine]

Believe me, it will be disastrous. They know what happened last time they tried this, so I'm fairly sure that if elected, they won't really push this too hard...either that, or they are insane. (They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.)

Our free-market economy is built on profit. Higher profits mean more jobs, higher incomes, more investment in equipment and people, higher standards of living. Yes, profits are the engine for all of this — and that includes the profits of "Big Oil."

By signaling that supply is scarce, higher profits encourage more production. Except, that is, when Congress through its inept lawmaking stands in the way. And that's the case now with the oil industry.Our free-market economy is built on profit. Higher profits mean more jobs, higher incomes, more investment in equipment and people, higher standards of living. Yes, profits are the engine for all of this — and that includes the profits of "Big Oil."

Congress seems almost constantly at war with the oil companies — slapping them with taxes and pillorying their CEOs while ignoring the fact that higher profits lead to more exploration, drilling and development.

Why is this? Having a domestic oil supply is what made this country grow and, over the last 100+ years, show the rest of the world what people can accomplished, given the means to develop an idea, manufacture it, and get it to a population spread over huge distances and still be worth the effort (profit).

If anyone is to blame for our current energy mess, it's Congress. At least 20 billion barrels of oil sit untapped in Alaska and another 30 billion lie offshore. Such sources that could help satisfy U.S. demand for years to come. Yet, Congress has put them out of bounds.

ANWAR has been blocked for years...because of the way oil was developed back in the 1890's. I've seen pictures of the "Old Downtown L.A. Oil Field" (where I started, see pic above), in a book, and the chapter's title was "Oil In The Streets Of Los Angeles". There where lakes of oil right next to the houses and wells gushing when brought in, but the industry doesn't work that way anymore.

At the price of oil, especially now-a-days, you don't just let that stuff just dump on the ground. The industry has really evolved over the last century and they understand and take (overly regulated) precautions so that doesn't happen any more.

Instead, Congress scapegoats oil profits. In reality, according to Ernst & Young, from 1992 to 2006 the U.S. oil industry spent $1.25 trillion on long-term investment vs. profits of $900 billion.

Truth is, oil industry profits are in line with the rest of American industry. In 2007, a record year, they earned 8.3 cents per dollar of sales. Beverage companies and cigarette makers, by contrast, earned 19.1 cents. Drug makers, 18.4 cents. Indeed, all manufacturers, 8.9 cents on average, made more than "Big Oil."

I know...I know, they've put extra ("sin") taxes on liquor and cigarettes, but did that "punish" the corporations for their perceived windfall profits....NO!! It only increased the consumers price of the product more. These taxes do not affect the profit of the company, just the amount you pay.

Besides, we've tried windfall profits taxes before, in the early 1980s, and they were an utter failure. As the Congressional Research Service found, revenues produced for the government were nearly 75% below what was expected. Meanwhile, , while oil imports surged 16%.

That's just poor policy, and even worse economics.

Oh. come on, give 'em a chance...They'll make this formula work this time.

NOTE: domestic oil output fell 8%

Due to this tax, for independents, it wasn't making money so they just shut it down.

Remember: Oil companies don't really pay "windfall profit" taxes, anyway. You do. Some 50 million Americans today own oil company stock, either directly or through 401(k)s and mutual funds. Don't be suckered: "Windfall profits" taxes come right out of your retirement account, not out of the oil industry's business.

Oh sure, Big Oil's profits are up. But so are the taxes they pay. In 2006, that came to $90 billion — up 334% in just four years.

As to the added tax, I covered that, however, did you notice that the taxes that they pay under the current system is up 334% in just four years.

Note: Those that were able restarted idled wells because they could make some money off producing. Nobody is going to pay $1.50 to deliver a commodity that you pay $1.00 for.

This is how Clinton-style populism works. It starts with ignorance and ends with serious damage to our economy.

I've never understood how anyone that has held a job and had the slightest grasp of the cost to keep a company going and still get enough return to make the hours worth the effort, unless you're Union.

Oil prices aren't high because profits are up; they're high because we don't have enough oil. By clamping down on drilling, refusing to move forward on nuclear energy and hitting producers with punitive taxes, Congress is doing all it can to ensure we don't have enough in the future.

I'm all for getting us off dependency on Middle East, Venezuelan, Mexican, even Canadian oil. I favor Nuclear myself. If the Frogs can handle it, I think we can.

If we started drilling today, it would be almost 12 years for ANWAR to be producing. I bet we could build quit a few nuclear plants in that time frame.

If you want to keep paying $100+ per barrel for oil, I'm not going to complain, you've guaranteed my income.

8.3% profit...damn them.