Urgent: House Democrats call for nationalization of refineries
According to FOX NEWS:
Capitol Hill
House Democrats responded to President’s Bush’s call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.
Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.
“They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow. ”
“(A Republican) aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments. ”
“Here are the highlights from briefing
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling…”We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market….”
“They (Republicans) have a one-trick pony approach.Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the Resources Committee…”You cannot drill your way out of this…”
“Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming…”The White House has become a ventriloquist for the oil and gas energy. The finger should be directed back at them. They had plenty of opportunity to (arrange an energy policy). But they did not put an energy policy in place…”
Democrats have a strong energy policy, keep the supply artificially low by putting up every roadblock to exploration and new refineries we can think of, and let the high price force Americans to conserve or go broke.
NEWSMAN
Worked when Truman threatened the same with the steel industry. About time those oil companies learned who’s the boss.
But if the oil companies are manipulating the markets through artificial “maintenance window” shortfalls or other chicanery, then Eminent Domain is sounding kinda nice.
Big Oil doesn’t want regulation. The people who live near refineries and oil rigs want regulation to protect them from the assorted nasty things that refineries and oil rigs can emit. Many of the people who don’t live near refineries and oil rigs agree with the people who do.
If corporations are “persons”, then they need to live as good neighbors. Instead of trying to do that, they’re acting like spoiled children throwing a temper tantrum while dad’s home, knowing that mom’s a lot tougher on them and knowing that she’ll be back soon.
1 each in NJ, Mass, Texas, LA, Southern CAL & northern CA,
as (high capacity) pilot demos,
the industry would respond and upgrade theirs.
Just the threat of having the capability on-line to bypass the bottlenecks
would be sufficient to get Big Oil out of its destructive artificial ceilings.
…………..
How to pay for this ?
can you say $1 per gallon refinery surtax ?
…………………
I have no faith that government bureaucrats could manage a refinery profitably,
or even contractors from industry operating a government refinery.
But the threat,
and the surge capacity,
would be all it takes to incentivize oil majors to serve the public while they serve their shareholders.
.
.
the extreme measure of nationalizing private assets.
not now, anyway.
.
If the government put loan guarantees for the airline industry they could go out and build their own coal/avgas refinery and the government built their own refinery just for government needs it would free up tremendous refinery capacity.
At least we know when Barack Obama is President, we’ll have great relations with Venezuela. Crappy economy, but Hugo will like us.
That’s pretty much between all the lines of “Can’t lower prices now by drilling.” You can’t lower prices today by beginning research on fuel cells, either. Their goal is to force their conservation – and if they crash the economy in the process and force the free market to be nationalized, well, that was the point of environmentalism all along.
You have 1 representative talking about this. One!
And you came up with your own quote that is supposedly the Dem energy plan and then ping them for this supposed plan.
Come on guys – this is ridiculous.
Its not a quote. It’s my commentary.
The quotes are identified as quotes “” or
I used the suggested “…five words out of the middle of a long quote…”
as shown in pols how to get your diary promoted diary.
It is a lame Diary, put them the Democrats energy plan is a lame plan.
I support Newt Gingrich.
DRILL HERE !
DRILL NOW !
PAY LESS !
http://www.americansolutions.c…
What about my synopsis below is not an accurate depiction of the stated or actual result of mainstream Democrat’s policies on energy?
David
Even the headline is a FOX NEWS Quote
The only thing I changed was to leave out the word “house”.
They blow things out of context all the time. This would be like me quoting Dennis Kucinich as a source on what the Republicans want to do – it would be a quote but that doesn’t make it real.
You don’t dispute that the quotes are accurate, you just disagree with the headline right?
Newsie is right once in a while.
I wouldn’t quote a pundit’s editorial (unless they had some compelling facts in that opinion) but news articles are fair sources, even from Fox news. Sure, the headline might be inaccurate but the article will still be factual enough.
Don’t dismiss articles just because of their source. Even Fox has to live up to some journalistic standards.
Newsie is right once in a while.
I wouldn’t quote a pundit’s editorial (unless they had some compelling facts in that opinion) but news articles are fair sources, even from Fox news. Sure, the headline might be inaccurate but the article will still be factual enough.
Don’t dismiss articles just because of their source. Even Fox has to live up to some journalistic standards.
And the underlying quotes from the Democrat’s listed were from THEIR press conference.
Here is video on the subject, and more comments.
Maybe you will like their revised headline better:
http://hotair.com/archives/200…
Here is a cross section of what the blogs are saying about the statement, including Democratic underground that Loves the idea.
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo…
http://boards.historychannel.c…
http://www.democraticundergrou…
great sources there.
Question-Is Rachel Ray really a terrorist?
very very different from the first.
is: Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay More.
Yep, consistent across the US too; as drilling has climbed prices have skyrocketed. Companies drill when prices are high, decrease production when they are low. They even admit it in articles about the Rocky Mountain Express pipeline: making money on the backs of Colorado consumers.
Why should we think they will do anything else once they get their hands on the Arctic, Roan, or the off shore reserves. They’ll pump it off to whoever pays the highest dollar. Even the Bush Administration’s DOW admits that OCS drilling wouldn’t make an impact on gas prices that we lowly citizens pay at the pump, and that it wouldn’t boost our production until 2030. Meanwhile, if companies would just put the millions of acres they already have leased and the 10k or so drilling permits they have stockpiled under BushCo (a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil, Inc.) we could immediately (not in two decades like the OCS or a decade–if it even works–for oil shale) our imports by a third. Why aren’t they drilling what they already have? Cause they like to control the supply and drive up the demand. Big Oil didn’t become the world’s richest industry by playing in a free market.
Heres what really is happening.
As prices have skyrocketed, drilling has climbed.
The cost of operating an oil exploration expedition is enormous. At $30.00 a barrel for imported oil it’s just not economical or wise to take the risk.
It’s similar to the reason you can’t buy a TV made in the US.
But if the Asians raised their prices 300%, you would see a whole slew of new US made TV brands come onto the market.
Would you then say, as TV manufacturing in the US has climbed, prices have skyrocketed.
NO, it doesn’t make sense in manufacturing, or in exploration and production of natural resources.
With all that capital expenditures, companies seek their highest ROI, which means selling Coloradans down the river…shipping publicly-owned gas off to the highest bidder. Colorado gets drilled AND screwed.
NO they don’t.
They get jobs and tax revenue from the companies operating in the state.
All resources are traded on the Chicago exchange, Colorado wheat, midwest vegetables, Oregon lumber, and yes oil.
It’s a worldwide market for all these things.
Participating in the market place does not make us poorer.
The keyboard I am typing on was made in Japan, the food I just ate came from Kansas, Colorado, and Nicaragua. The drink was bottled in Texas.
The electricity I used to send this was generated by a coal fired plant in Kansas, or a wind generator in northern Colorado.
When a Colorado employer mines a resource, and it runs your car, heats you home, or it heats a home in “tinbucktoo”, it is the same.
Because the watch you are staring at wondering how long it will take to read more of that pesky NEWSMANs drivel was made in tinbucktoo, and they paid for their colorado gas with your money they got when they made and sold your watch.
So we the people own some land. And under (sometimes way under) that land lies a thick gooey substance that will ruin your cloths, and smells bad called crude oil.
So are you saying that after a private company pays us for the right to look for this goo under our ground, pays to buy the technology to find it, pays to pump it out of the ground, transport it, refine it, and transport it again, that WE still own it and they are ripping us off.
Well if so, we should charge more for the lease. But anything that adds to the raw cost will be paid for by the end consumer (read YOU) in any case.
So are you saying your gas prices aren’t high enough yet? Didn’t think so.
are hard numbers like: How many barrels a day can we get if these are up and running?
Claiming that opening these wells up will result in lower* gas prices is nonsense without knowing that.
*Unless we’re talking about 25% savings, “lower gas prices” is meaningless.
Drinking likker made in (patooey)Tex-ass.
What do we call $17 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the world’s richest industry–GOP Free Market?
at least one link that is a congressional or media source. All I can find are the usual suspects trying to create an attack point against the Democratic Party members.
unfortunately (for sNEWSMAN) it disproves what the GOP is saying…
http://courtney.house.gov/Uplo…
and came from an Obama supporter.
with me on the 2nd Wed of November.
Are you a partisan shill or just terribly gullible and naive?
Colorado gets significantly less in severance taxes from drilling in the state.
In fact, gas companies have admitted they are sitting on leases and developing them slower as national pipelines come online. This means Coloradans pay more than we have been, because now we have to compete with Chicago and Ohio.
There have been numerous articles written on this, especially about the Rocky Mountain Express pipleine, but the same case is made (by the industry) for other pipelines, such as Bull Mnt. which will go through three national forest roadless areas.
There are many external costs borne by Colorado and local communities–increased law enforcement, social service and other needs; increased infrastructure costs, declining health and air quality, impacts to water, loss of quality habitat (and recreation revenues).
in severance tax and federal mineral lease funds. Is it enough to cover the impacts of oil and gas in impacted areas, no. But then maybe we shouldn’t have shunted millions into higher education which has no nexus to the funding stream in question. And maybe voters will recognize this in the upcoming election when looking at some of the ballot issues this year.
Here’s a thought for y’all:
Don’t do anything. Or, more specifically, if you’re going to do something, do what helps you and yours.
With high gas prices, more and more people are biking, walking, buying scooters, reducing carbon output, cutting waste out of personal budgets (I still can’t kick the Starbucks habit, though) and society is actually becoming aware that Americans must sacrifice to get things they want.
What a concept. Something may not come easy for us and we may need to give up something in our lives to accomplish something greater for the future.
IMHO, if we reduce the price of gas again, Americans will go back to buying SUVs, driving everywhere they go and we’ll be right where we began in ten years.
we ought to give publicy-owned resources away for free?