Las Vegas Sun

Oh yeah. Since you didn't want to answer the question, I will.

When George W. Bush took office, the price of a barrel of crude was a little less than $30 a barrel.

So who, exactly, is OPEC's best friend?

"Most of the leases have no drillable energy resource on them. The leases are for exploration of energy. Most turn out not to energy resources that are worth drilling for. Most will expire and will be return to the Federal government."

Back that up with a citation.

Energy companies don't spend millions of dollars on leases without any notion of whether they contain resources. These areas are thoroughly surveyed before any bids are even accepted.

"So you are OK with losing millions of jobs."

No, that would make me George W. Bush. If you can demonstrate in any meaningful way that selling more leases will lead to lower gas prices and therefore save "millions of jobs" I'll agree that we should start selling those leases right now. But your say-so isn't substantial enough proof.

shestheone,

Please get over your anger and consider a vote for Obama. Think what will happen to womens' rights if John McCain gets to name the next two Supreme Court justices. Senator Clinton has come to the conclusion that electing Obama is in the country's best interest. Hopefully her supporters will come to the same conclusion.

Ask yourself if electing McCain honors the principles that Senator Clinton holds dear. Hillary will still be a viable candidate eight years from now.

reubenhwk,

You might have a point if we were making a serious effort to get ourselves off of oil. If we use only our oil and do nothing to find alternatives then we'll find ourselves back where we are now, only worse. Remember, the US has only about 4% of the world's known oil reserves while we use 25% of the world's oil.

jfnance,

I am OPEC's best friend??? What was the price of a barrel of crude when GW Bush took office? Remember when Bush warned us that if we elected Al Gore President we'd have $2 a gallon gas? OPEC is living in fear of the day we get serious about finding ways to live without oil. It's people like Bush, McCain, Cheney, and their sycophants who keep that from happening.

You constantly misquote me or put words in my mouth. Please stop. I did not say additional supply alone would bring lower prices; I said supply increasing faster than demand would bring lower prices. But as I explained, the people who control the supply will only allow it to expand as fast as demand.

Further, you consistently misstate the reasons for the increase in the cost of oil. Supply is not the issue here; there is enough oil on the market to meet demand.

"demand going up so freeze supply."

Baloney. The supply of oil has been increasing every year along with the demand, without our having to sell off more leases. Of course, with demand increasing exponentially this can't last, no matter how much we drill. Therefore, finding alternatives to oil should be our primary focus.

You also try to put words in my mouth by saying that I'm opposed to all drilling. Nothing could be further from the truth. I simply believe we should drill on the land and in the offshore areas we've already opened up before we start selling off more leases.

On top of that you assume I am opposed to opening up these leases on environmental grounds. If you'll read my posts, however, I never once said that. I'm opposed to selling additional leases for two major reasons, neither one of which is environmental. First, I oppose selling more leases because I believe we ought to hold on to our assets until it's advantageous to us to sell them. Selling off these leases in a panic right now is not judicious. Second, as we've already noted, selling off more leases will not bring us more plentiful, less expensive gasoline. So why do it?

jfnance,

You STILL haven't addressed the most salient fact: oil companies (and OPEC) will not take steps to increase the supply, and therefore lower the price, of oil because it's not in their best interest to do so. Since they have achieved vertical market integration they will always manage supply as to maximize profit. So tell me, if the oil companies won't take steps to increase supply beyond demand (which is what it will take to lower the price of a gallon of gas), who will? And how?

Answer that question satisfactorily for me and I'll agree that you are correct when you say we should open up more leases for drilling right now.

reubenhwk,

What I should have said to be more precise is oil companies make money by keeping supply constant relative to demand. Since worldwide demand is increasing by 5% per year, next year's worldwide consumption will increase by over 4 million barrels. In 2010 worldwide consumption will be about 94 million barrels per day. If we double America's output during that time it won't be enough to compensate for the added worldwide demand. Hence, the price we pay for oil will not decrease. Worldwide supply will increase as demand does because OPEC and others will keep production equal to demand, but if we add more to the supply they will simply add less.

The people controlling the worldwide oil supply (OPEC and the major oil companies) have every reason to see to it that our supply of oil is always enough, but only just enough, to meet our demand. They're walking a bit of a tightrope here; they want to squeeze every penny out of us that they can, but they don't want to make it so painful that we finally get serious about looking for ways to do without oil altogether.

That's also why the people who say we should just drill more are living in a fantasy land. The oil companies and OPEC will never drill so much that it will depress the amount of money they can get for a barrel of oil. The only way we'll get them to lower the price of gasoline is to stop paying the price they're asking, but in order to do that we'll have to have some alternative to oil in place.

The point I'm trying to make is that we won't be able to drill ourselves out of this situation either in the short term or the long term. Conserving, and finding alternatives to, oil are what we have to do to get out of this mess.

"This absolute no drilling stand by liberals is stubborn silliness."

That's a straw man argument. There is no such thing as an absolute no drilling policy. Liberals would simply like to see the oil companies use their existing leases before opening up new ones.

"Let's at least try."

We have tried. We've opened up tens of millions of acres of land for drilling. Eighty-six million of those acres are sitting idle. Obamanomics, as you call it, may or may not do anything to help gas prices, but neither will opening up more areas for drilling as long as those areas don't get drilled, and nobody is going to force the oil companies to start drilling. The best thing we as consumers can do to mitigate the high cost of oil is to stop using so much oil.

You still haven't addressed the most salient fact: oil companies will not take steps to increase the supply, and therefore lower the price, of oil because it's not in their best interest to do so. Since they have achieved vertical market integration they will always manage supply as to maximize profit. So tell me, if the oil companies won't take steps to increase supply beyond demand (which is what it will take to lower the price of a gallon of gas), who will? And how?

You don't get it, Mr. Nance.

WE can't do anything to increase the supply of oil. Only the people who control the supply can do that, in other words OPEC and the major oil companies.

We've already given over hundreds of millions of acres of this country to the oil companies to drill on AND THEY"RE NOT DOING IT. What is it about 86 million acres of unused leases that you fail to comprehend? How is it that opening up more acreage for drilling will increase the supply of oil when the oil companies won't drill on the acreage they already have?

"demand is sharply increasing every day so freeze supply"

The oil companies get this, that's why THEY are not increasing the supply. They could be drilling on those 86 million acres right now, but they're not. That ain't Obama's fault, or Reid's fault, or Bush's fault. It's simple economics. The oil companies don't stand to profit by it, so they're not going to do it.

How is opening up even more land for drilling going to change that simple fact?

A few big problems here.

1) Giving the oil companies more of our land on which to drill does not mean they will start digging holes right away. Or ever, for that matter.

2) Worldwide oil consumption is 85 million barrels per day and increasing at an annual rate of 5%. US oil production is about 6 million barrels per day. Even if we doubled US production overnight, it wouldn't introduce enough new oil into the world market to have a significant effect on the price of crude.

3) You will all notice that even though demand for oil has been increasing by 5% per year, the supply has managed to keep up. Nobody has run out of oil. So the notion that we face a short-term supply issue is flawed. We face a long term supply issue.

4) The long term problem of oil supply is much better addressed by finding alternatives to oil rather than by trying to find more oil.

5) Mr. Stockhausen asks, "How can we require a publicly owned company to sell to the lowest bidder?" The more appropriate question is how can we require a publicly owned company to sell anything at all? That's what's happening with our domestic oil supply right now; the owners of it (the oil companies) are sitting on it until its profitability can be maximized.

6) Let's assume that there is enough oil here in the US so that we could put enough new oil on the worldwide market to have an effect on the price (even though there isn't). Let's also assume that we open up every inch of federal land to drilling so that all possible oil is there for the taking and that we could start drilling all of it tomorrow. Ask yourselves, who's going to do it?

Use your heads, folks. The oil companies understand supply and demand as well as any of us. So why would they cooperate in increasing the supply of oil beyond the demand? It will only lower their profits. They're perfectly happy with things just the way they are.

News1950,

You want to see happy Democrats? Wait until November.