Gas Prices

This morning my car had between one quarter and half a tank so I thought I'd better fill it up for the upcoming week. The fill up took the same amount of time but when the receipt printed it was $50 instead of the $20-$25 I was paying not long ago. Price per gallon was $3.709 for regular unleaded gas of which 20 cents is state tax and 18.4 cents is federal tax.

I decided to do a little research because I could remember when all the media talked about for weeks at a time during the Bush administration were gas prices. This was 2005 when we were busy waging two wars and the media were really bashing Bush on any issue it could.

Image from RushLimbaugh.com

As you can see from the chart, the spike on the left is the amount of media coverage on gas prices under the Bush administration and if you look near his index finger you can see a tiny bump that reflects the amount of media coverage under the Obama administration. (Thanks Rush). But this isn't about the media being anti-Republican, it's about gas prices.

I've seen quite a few of the Democrats blaming oil speculators lately for the high prices. After all, oil is a commodity that is public traded. I've personally traded in oil futures and while nobody I know would invest in something when they think the price will go down it doesn't reflect the incredible prices we're seeing today. I've seen others blame "Big Oil" for gouging people at the pump. Let's put that to rest right now, "Big Oil" is making the same 9 cents a gallon it always has. OPEC has actually lowered the amount of oil it puts on the market lately. While this does help keep the prices high the amount of oil on the market right now is huge and who could blame anybody for trying to make a buck? The fact is that if OPEC were to open up every pipe they have to the maximum capacity we don't have the refining capabilities to make much of an impact. There hasn't been a single refinery built in 29 years!

While the BP gulf disaster was a terrible blow to the ecology it has to be compared to the nuclear meltdown in Japan to gain some perspective. Anytime humans are involved, accidents are inevitably going to happen. Some of these will be catastrophic, affecting hundreds, thousands or millions of people either directly or indirectly. This is the price we pay for not living in caves any longer. The Obama administration correctly halted all offshore drilling until it could be ascertained the accident was a freak happening and not a process defect. However, since that time, there has been ONE permit for offshore drilling issued. We are forced to purchase more foreign oil than ever before. During the interm when offshore drilling is banned China has teamed with Cuba to do the same deepwater drilling that BP was doing prior to the spill just off our shores. Obama also invested billions of dollars of taxpayer money in Brazilian and Columbian oil companies instead of investing in American oil companies that both provide energy and much needed jobs.

I think you have to understand the Obama administrations views on oil. Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu wanted to "figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” which at the time were over $7 a gallon. Immediately after taking office in 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah. Last summer President Obama needlessly instituted, not one, but two outright drilling bans in the Gulf of Mexico. After rescinding his outright offshore drilling ban, President Obama has refused to issue any new drilling permits in the Gulf, a policy that the Energy Information Administration estimates cut domestic offshore oil production by 13% last year. Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, and the Pacific coast will not be developed, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years. The Environmental Protection Agency has announced new global warming regulations for oil refineries. Interior Secretary Salazar announced new rules making it more difficult to develop energy resources on federal land.

I live in Texas near Houston, Energy City. The amount of people who made a living in the oil and related industries here are huge. But so many of these people are out of work due to the Administrations policies that it's disheartening. There is no good reason that we should not be developing our own energy and putting these people back to work.