Hold Onto Your Wallet, the First Lie Realized

[bolverk]

Well, it did not take long to take drilling off the table. Here goes the first piece now.

Environmentalists Look to Obama to Limit Drilling

Ofcourse Limit is double speak or duckspeak for eliminate.

[The Big Dog]

"Fragile lands in Utah"?? It's frickin desert, nothing grows there.

Get ready for more $4 per gas SoCo.... courtesy of your next president.

[jgaffney]

According to the Obama website, which is still currently up, Obama's energy program will include:

Provide Short-term Relief to American Families
• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families.
• Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation.
• Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.

Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years
• Increase Fuel Economy Standards.
• Get 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015.
• Create a New $7,000 Tax Credit for Purchasing Advanced Vehicles.
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
• A “Use it or Lose It” Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases.
• Promote the Responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Natural Gas.

So, to summarize, the Obama administration will take those windfall profits from the greedy oil companies and redistribute them among us consumers. There's no indication how this windfall profits tax scheme will affect consumer prices, or if there will be enough redistribution to account for the soaring petroleum costs that are sure to result. Remember, petroleum is not just transportation.

Ask yourself: Are you prepared to buy a new car, even with a $7,000 tax credit from the government? You just know that, when it comes to actually enacting this tax credit, it will end up reading, "up to $7,000." Which means that most of us will get squat.

Apparently, the "responsible domestic production of oil and natural gas" doesn't include drilling where those products actually are. It will be interesting to see how a "use it or lose it" policy will be enacted, given that the leases have already been paid for. How long will it take for someone of the caliber of T. Boone Pickens to take the government to court for breech of contract?

We're in big trouble.

[jgaffney]

Nov 10, 2008 20:49:35 GMT -5 The Big Dog said:

"Fragile lands in Utah"?? It's frickin desert, nothing grows there.

Last spring, my wife and I took a driving trip through southern Utah and northern Arizona. I can understand why some people would think that the area must be absolutely preserved. However, to preclude energy development in the area, given our current condition, is not reasonable.

Much of the area is the Navajo nation, a sovereign nation. The Navajos have managed to put together their own society, complete with police and courts, without any casinos. They do it with tourist revenue and energy development.

Right next to Glenn Canyon Dam, a huge hydroelectric dam that forms Lake Powell, is a Navajo-owned, coal-burning electrical generating plant. The coal that feeds the boilers is mined on Navajo land and delivered on a Navajo-owned rail line. On the day we drove into Page, AZ, the city closest to the dam, we saw a train lined up to make coal deliveries that must have filled more than fifty railcars.

Rather than leaving the question of energy development in the area to Carl Pope and the Sierra Club, why not ask the Navajos what they want to do? They have lived on the land quite a bit longer than any of us have, and any energy development they favor would certainly include the respect for the land that the Navajos deem appropriate.

BTW, if you ever go to Page, make sure you take one of the tours of Antelope Canyon. It's on Navajo land, so you can't go by yourself.