Money Forum World

Congress gets it wrong on energy. Again
Congress looks intention to pass a regressive energy bill — in spite of the pleas of their constituents for releif at the pump. The truth is that, short of a moratorium on federal gas taxes, there's little Congress can do to offer short term releif at the pump but they could help ensure plentifiul supplies of oil and gas — and lower prices — at some point, but instead they seem intention to make our situation worse.
The National Petroleum Council recently released a report npcthe/7 18_Press_rls post.p. painting a pretty bleak picture for the worlds energy supply and demand equation. One way Congress could help could be to take off hurdles to domestic oil production on public lands like ANWR and on the OCS and from non conventional resources like oil shale and coal to oil. in spite of what business proponents argue, these resources dont need subsidies or a price floor to get going but who doesnt want guaranteed profit if they can get Congress to give it to them, however they do need the government to decrease hurdles to development on public lands — and more importantly, not make the situation worse with new lawmaking roadblocks or make the investment situation worse by rescinding reasonable standards for the depreciation of new equipment.
In light of high prices and declining domestic production, in the 2005 energy bill Congress sought to support new production by expediting the leasing of new oil and gas wells on public lands and off shore by giving new financial support and fast track authority to the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service, while decreasing the bureaucratic paperwork prerequisites to ensure that suggestions for new production were assessed, and contracts written, in a timely fashion – a statutory deadline for approval was built into the law. also, to support businesses to build costly, new platforms in high risk regions in the hurricane prone gulf of mexico, where dry wells aren't unusual, the government decided to treat oil and gas businesses on the same par as renewable energy companies, allowing them to write off or speed up the depreciation on capital equipment for new investments in production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new Democratic Congress wants to take all that away. to increase revenues to the government to fund their green priorities – none of which will bring much energy online and so help buyers – they wish to end the accelerated depreciation, extend the time federal agencies have to think about new leases and increase the paperwork hurdles. Each of these steps will deter or slow the development of new oil and gas projects and slow or halt in some cases the delivery of new oil and gas resources to the marketplace – high prices will remain high or rise as we become more reliant on foreign energy supplies. also, they want to force higher fees on new production and, not let energy businesses unwilling to renegotiate leases drawn up under the Clinton governance to bid on new leases.
When energy prices were low and new domestic production cost more than businesses may make, the Clinton governance, to support continued exploration, wrote off shore leases that that didn't require businesses to pay royalties. Now, when prices are high, the government wants to push businesses to break their contract, and pay royalties on oil made in the past. This does nothing to produce new oil, shows government to be an unreliable partner giving businesses less assurance when dealing with the government that the deals written will be kept, and will probably keep qualified businesses from bidding on new leases. Under this deal, unless qualified businesses accede to extortion, they'll not be able to get new leases, which means there will be less competition and less production or expensive production . Only Congress could think this will assist our energy situation. Worst of all, these policies will be most damaging to the poorest of the poor. They amount to a hidden tax on the most susceptible among us. Families earning more than $50,000 per year use up just four % of their earning to cover all energy costs. By comparison, households earning between $10,000 and $25,000 per year use up 13 % on their earning on energy in general, and families earning below $10,000 per year use up as much as 29 % of their incomes on energy. While the comparatively wealthy can pay for higher gas prices with little affect on their lifestyles – they'll still take vacations, and don’t have to choose between food, medication and fuel – poorer households are beginning to make that trade off every day. This bill will do nothing to decrease energy prices or produce more energy and it'll force unconscionable new costs on the poorest among us.

Oil isn't the way. More oil, domestic oil isn't a lasting solution.

Everyone has got to realize that by now. Time we think outside the pump.

Also if you couldn't cut and paste the extra text for your question from a PACs web site thatd be great.

We should let Vice President Cheney keep his energy plan secret from the American people.

Please see the terms of service and community terms. you're supposed to ask questions. put a question mark at the end of declaration doesn't make it a question. also this is more of a rant than anything else.

congress is only using energy for political reason. the Dems have greenies to answer to. so they're scared to do the right think.

So, do you work for the oil company, or do you shill for free?

I direct you to this web site : anwrthe/backgrnd/potent.html
This is a web site by a group, Artic Power, that WANTS drilling. And still, if you read the link on their site How much oil is there? It has some maybes and coulds, and unknowns.

Here is a direct quote from the site: The geologic indicators are better for the presence of important oil and gas resources in ANWR, but the restricted data means that there's a high level of doubt about how much oil and gas can be present. &lt, I didnt take it out of perspective, go see for yourself.

Now, this is the site that supposedly has oil just prepared to bust out of the ground and save us from the dirty center east oil. Hmm. Not by the admission of the people who want to drill.

So, rather than use up years drilling in an area that may or may not supply the promised oil, and which by the time it came online could be used up by a bigger population and growing countries like china nevertheless why dont we invest in lowering the cost of alternative energies that we KNOW work?

Hmm.