Thursday, May 29, 2008

Blame Congress for High Oil Prices

Despite its pious denunciations of the behavior of U.S. investor-owned oil companies (IOCs), Congress by its actions over the years has ensured the economic viability of the foreign national oil company cartel (which control nearly 80% of world petroleum reserves).

It has done so by preventing the exploitation by IOCs of reserves available in nonpark federal lands in the West, Alaska and under the waters off our coasts. These areas hold an estimated 635 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas – enough to meet the needs of the 60 million American homes fueled by natural gas for over a century. They also hold an estimated 112 billion barrels of recoverable oil – enough to produce gasoline for 60 million cars and fuel oil for 25 million homes for 60 years.

If Congress really cared about the economic well-being of American citizens, it would stop fulminating against IOCs and reverse current policies that discourage, indeed prohibit, the production of domestic oil and natural gas. Even the announcement that Congress was opening the way for domestic production would lead to downward pressure on oil prices.

From today's WSJ

5 Comments:

At 5/29/2008 8:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr. Perry, I read once that the US signed an agreement mainly with Saudi Arabia King back in the 50s or 60s to have priviledges in the gulf in exchange for not becoming a high producer.

Does anyoen know anything about this?

 
At 5/29/2008 8:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Incredible.

"Russia Clears Measure to Cut Mineral Extraction Tax on Oil"

"the first of many steps it is planning to revive production growth in the industry."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121184717655921375.html

 
At 5/29/2008 8:46 AM, Blogger K T Cat said...

I know what this is! It's a call to arms against Iran! These are all neocon codewords rationalizing another illegal war!*

*-this makes at least as much sense as anything Congress is saying.

 
At 5/29/2008 9:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even Jay Leno has caught on to these people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjfssrKGsBU

 
At 5/29/2008 11:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's amazing the inability of Congress to grasp elementary economic thought. The arrogance of demanding more oil from OPEC when we have all the oil and gas that we need right here in our own backyard. Another example is trying to grow our fuel (corn), and
wondering why the price of food is rising...

 

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