Congress would rather bash oil executives for doing their jobs--increasing profits--than remove barriers to cheaper oil. In an earlier life, when I participated in Republican politics, I worked a primary fight against Charlie Bass, the leader of the 25 House Republicans who killed the provision to allow drilling in the Arctic tundra. In that New Hampshire contest, the conservatives spilt the conservative vote, Bass squeaked by, and he subsequently defeated a sitting congressman. Now, more than a decade later, he has killed one of the few sensible measures government can take to reduce gasoline prices in the long run. Ideas have consequences and elections do too. If only I had stuffed a few more envelopes, delivered a few more lawn signs, or made a few more calls. Oh, well. Economics 101: A greater supply means a lesser price. Politics 101: It's better to bash rich fat white guys than it is to offend hemp-clad ablutophobes who have lots of time on their hands since Jerry Garcia died.

Great pic of Jer... thanks, duuude!

Dan
You are right about supply and demand regarding oil prices. The Oil companies manipulate the supply when they want prices to go up.
Regarding them being bashed by Congress, when events causes the cost of gasoline to consumers to sky rocket, the price increase should cover the increase in the cost not be the cause of record breaking windfall profits.
Regardless of your point of view, It was an insult to the America people that republicans would allow Congress to hear un sworn testimony from the most powerful cartel of companies in the world.

Yes, but you're wrong about Garcia. I have much LESS time on my hands since he died.

Sleep well, sweet Jer...we hardly knew ye.

Oh wait, yeah we did. You were a heroin addict whose cause of death should read: Junk Food! Played a mean guitar though...

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us." - Jerry Garcia

The old story….what did one Dead head say to the other when the drugs ran out? “this music really sucks!”.

There has always been and will for a long time be ample supplies of raw unrefined petroleum. But, as noted, it’s simple economics: keep supply comfortably (and profitably) behind demand.

Bottom line for the U.S. is to have us start becoming self-reliant and that means drilling more wells on our own turf. Every thing else is smoke and mirrors.

Dan, did I read somewhere that the oil company that made 9B profit, did so on 100B spent? That doesn't seem over the top to me. I hear people complain about gas prices, yet make no adjustments to their habits. This is madness. I adjusted my driving habits long ago. I miss my Durango, but, I am liking my Malibu Maxx more every day. The gas mileage is great for a 6 cylinder. I tell people, if you're not willing to change, or look for alternatives, I don't want to hear you gripe. I'm not always popular. ;-)

The Liberal solution to the energy crisis:

1. Conserve, don't produce more by disturbing the caribou or the views enjoyed by the 200 some enviros that visit ANWAR in their lifetime. FORGET about drilling any more in the waters off the continental U.S., 'cause almost forty years ago there was an oil spill off Santa Barbara. And you certainly can't build any more refining capacity.
2. Clean up power plant emissions, but heaven forbid you utilize the cleanest source of energy on the planet, nuclear power, or build any more hydroelectric facilities.
3. Utilize alternative energy, just don't build any windmills off of Nantucket, or any other Liberal hangouts where the wind actually blows on a regular basis.

Anything I've forgotten?

Conservative solution:

1. Screw oil shortages. God tells me these are imaginary anyway.

2. Nuke power is great, even if it produces huge and dangerous waste products, which we will spend billions shipping through every major city in the country, but almost nothing on to find some way to solve in some way that doesn't involve burying it in a hole and hoping that the inevitable leaks don't happen until they are long dead.

3. What alternative power? Oh, OK, if you insist, here is some pocket change to develop it.

Sorry, but while I fully agree with you that some idiots on the left can't be satified by "anything", the right thinks every crisis can be solved by ignoring it, pretending nothing needs to be done to actually fix it, then scrambling around like FEMA after Katrina, trying to 'fix' what they should have fixed 50 years earlier, when it would have cost 10% as much to do it. Drilling in Artic areas wouldn't have done shit to lower prices in any significant way, would have added a new set of potential crisis to the whole damn mess and in the long run only given the Republirats an excuse to delay finding 'real' solutions.

That the left has none is as irrelevant as someone complaining that they can't get their favorite micro-brew beer at a kids resturant, they don't want to try soda pop and all the 'liberals!' think maybe the suggestion of selling alcohol there is a bad idea. In other words, they don't want what they can get, don't understand why its not appropriate where they want to get it and are probably too damn drunk to figure out why only two places in town sell it in the first place, instead of on every damn street corner. Welcome to the, "More oil fields will save us from oil shortages!", crowd.

The solution is to find something that @@#$@ works, doesn't directly create a health hazard (or create the potential for one) that literally or even figuratively resembles Chernobal and which doesn't poison or chop to bits everything in a 50 mile radius, *while* being something we can sustain. Please name 'anything' other than the currently inefficient and underfunded solar research that doesn't violate 'something' on that list... Then explain how funding drilling in the Artic, instead of increasing funding to alternatives *drasticly* does anything but delay the inevitable.

Well seeing as the modern American nuclear plant is nothing like Chernoybl, and createst vastly less waste, problem solved?

Or maybe you prefer ideology and ad hominem attacks to the pragmatic solutions you so love patting yourself on the back for.

Kahegi, you miss the point when you say Conservatives dismiss conservation as a solution to the oil "crisis". The fact remains that there is no shortage of oil that demands "conservation". The Liberal use of the concept is as a means to decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil without having to utilize untapped domestic supplies. Anyone who wishes to conserve is free to do so at their option. But conservation will in no way solve our domestic supply issue, nor will anything other than increasing domestic sources of energy.

And your characterization of nuclear power is simplistic and uninformed.

As to your solution to the problem, "The solution is to find something that @@#$@ works, doesn't directly create a health hazard (or create the potential for one) that literally or even figuratively resembles Chernobal and which doesn't poison or chop to bits everything in a 50 mile radius, *while* being something we can sustain" is one hell of an answer!

Sorry, but oil takes millions of years to form. To make the assinine claim that somehow there isn't a problem now, so we shouldn't plan for one later is *exactly* to sort of bullshit logic I am talking about. And yeah, there are untapped oil reserves in the US. Most of which can't make up for what has already been used, and the rest of which is in shale and other locations that we currently have no 'safe' means to retrieve.

As for nuclear power. Yes, our systems are more efficient, blah, blah, blah. I 100% agree with you. All things said, its 'probably' the best possible solution we have. It does however produce the single most toxic biproduct of all fuel production systems, is being stored in a location that has little 'natural' radiation, because some idiots thought storing someplace where uranium lies out on the ground, like some parts of Navada, was too 'dangerous' due to it maybe getting into the water supply. Gosh! Guess that natural uranium covering every square inch of thousands of miles of land never gets into the water supply... No, instead we are going to store if in 'salt mines'. You know, those places where there once 'was' significant amounts of water and geological shift or changed in weather 'might' turn it back into the same thing... Yep, makes me feel safe. Maybe it even is now, but I can't help but wonder how much of it 'is' that it is safe, and how much of it is, "Well, we don't see a problem now, so we will wait until we have one."

I stand by my statement that so called conservatives have a habit of only ficing predictable disasters **after** they happen.

Kagehi: Wow, that's some tough reading. If experiencing your thoughts directly is anything like reading your thoughts on a blog comment, you must be completely unhinged. I can only take it for a few minutes at a time. How can you live with it 24-7?