IT was announced that the House plans to pass the (ahem) President's Energy Bill today. It will give the oil companies the right to drill in Alaskan preserves and give them tax breaks, as well.

Is it me, or do you think that the oil companies, knowing that they have a friend (or two) in the White House, are playing the American people like Fast Eddie?

Prez (to America): We have to do this... oil prices have gotten so high that we need to ease the burden on the Average American; and this will help.

Oil Companies (to themselves, and maybe the Prez): [Burns]Excellent![/Burns] Maybe we can release a little more of that oil that we've been holding back. And we'll all be RICH!!! Um... RICHER!!!!

Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory, so what about it?

First off, I don't agree with the decision to drill in ANWR, and yes, I believe that more effort and incentives should be directed towards finding a non-petroleum based renewable fuel system. We can do that. We have the brains and we have the creativity to pull it off. Give some tax breaks or rewards as catalysts, and it will get some much needed attention.

But before this gets hot and heavy, I think that when you reflexively believe that most decisions made by GWB and the GOP are motivated by greed, or some other vain and misguided principles, including downright evil, the argument starts on the wrong foot. As a matter of fact, that's not a very open-minded premise, while so many here brag of their open-mindedness.

Sure, I'm not naive enough to believe there isn't some lobbying and cushy deals skating through Congress. I think that Bush and the administration are doing what they believe will help relieve the situation, and if not, at least it's an easy political pill to prescribe.

Everyone and their brother in this thread will start rolling off meaningless statistics on how it won't work or impact oil prices if there is even any oil at all. But the key here is that GWB tried to find some sort of relief from higher oil prices. It may not be the right answer, but it is an attempt.

Considering there are a great number of people in this country--and I guarantee there are a fair amount on this board--who are ignorant enough to believe an email that says boycotting certain gas stations is a boycott of Middle Eastern nations, rogue states or terrorist backers, then this is a token gesture that shows that we are going to eschew the America haters and support ourselves.

Or maybe the phrasing will be something like, we aren't outsourcing as much of our oil.

It's style of substance, and I don't think it's going to cause much harm to the GOP. For Dems, this ain't the hill you want to die on.

EDIT: This wasn't directed at you personally, Todd, but I know the path this thread will go down in almost no time.

I think people like Cheney are guided by vain and misguided principles, but there are plenty of well-intentioned Republicans.

Elvis Fu:
A resonable, well-thought out arguement like that has NO place in a public internet BBS. You should be ashamed!

Now, go back and edit your post to be cocky, inane, and flat-out beligerant.

EDIT: And c'mon Dems., grown some and... FILIBUSTER!

Hop On Pop sucks my ass.

P.S. Yo momma was the real globetrotta.

np: Hop On Pop, "Cary's Here"

this is off the top of my head....

but i was having this discussion a few weeks ago....

using the most conservative numbers, the oil in anwar could suppliment 10 percent of u.s. oil consumption for forty years....thats not too bad....

I want to retro-fit my car to run on dry ice. Then I could cruise down the highway leaving a really cool cloud-trail of ground-hugging fog.

Yeah, Hillary did. C'mon!

[img][444:500]http://www.nesfiles.com/NES/Spy_Hunter/Spy_Hunter_cart.jpg[/img]

As usual, Corey is the voice of reason. Todd, I agree with you that this is pretty bs, especially because I have heard nothing like the estimates scottycash is spouting, which MIGHT make it palatable.

The problem here is the same as many for the Dems: The Republicans have teh bully pulpit, and instead of presenting a rational, reasoned and consistent response as to why this is a bad idea, the Dems just kinda go: "DER, IT DUH ENVIRNGMENK," well, lemme tell you something, your average person cares a little more about gas prices and national security than they do the environment (mostly because the day to day degradation of the environment is not entirely visible to your average person, while $2.50/gallon to fill up their cars is) So, the Reoublicans couch their argument in those terms, and get an added bonus of another issue with which to hammer once election time comes around.

The PR apparatus of the Dems is so ham-fisted at the moment, it is laughable. I was with some friends at the Capital (MGM, not DC) the other day and they were explaining that during the campaign for Florida's Med-Mal Caps Amendment last year, the Trial Lawyers spent 27.4 million to the opposition's 11 million, and lost 65-35. Can you fathom how fucked up you have to be do something like that? They are basically conceding that their issues can't win, and that they need to now start converting Republican legislators to their side. In short, we are all fucked. Get used to it.[/code]

My problem is not with the drilling b/c I think in this day and age we should be able to engineer drilling where it doesn't have to hurt the surrounding ecosystem. However, I don't trust those in charge to take the time and spend the money to make sure this happens.

Everyone needs to face the reality. We are not going to look seriously at alternate energy sources until we are forced by a total lack of available oil. Only in the face of total oil extinction will change happen.

do some research.....then some math

they say there is between 6-16 billion barrels of oil in anwar

the u.s. consumes an estimated 20 million barrels of oil a day....

if there ends up being 7.5 billion barrels of oil (on the conservative side of the estimate)

divide that by the 20 million barrels of oil consumed a day

that 375 days worth of oil

mutiple that by 10 =

3750 days or just over 10 years....


btw im not for drilling in anwar

By the way, how come nobody gives a shit what oil production has done to ecosystem of Louisiana? Everybody wants to save Alaska. Well, Louisiana has produced more oil per capita than any state in the union, and were home to most of the seafood you eat.

What do we have to show for it? We are losing our coastline at the rate of a 100yds. every 30 SECONDS! Not only is your seafood, sugar, and other natural resources in dire circumstances, but our homes are threaten. Just this year my city started forcing people to leave their homes b/c it was under a severe threat.

If you really care about ecosystems and what not, please tell your congressman to vote for legislation to restore our coast.

Not only that, but all the fructose and corn syrup shit has screwed the sugar industry in some ways...and now shrimp and crawfish from Hong Kong and Thailand will screw your fishing industry like it has Bama's. The awesome thing is, when these Republicans who reflect "values" get into office, they crawfish on the people and vot for corporate interests or how the party tells them to.

LA will SORELY miss John Breaux, I mean Chris John was no John Breaux, but David Vitter pfffffft! That's like comparing C. Saxby Chambuster to Sam Nunn

I read a very long, very nerdy technical paper yesterday for fun about hydrogen power, and what's holding it up. But as a substitute (for petrolium) energy carrier, hydrogen is pretty much without rivals right now. The issues are hanging on production (splitting of water) and then storage, and both need quantum leaps forward before they're a sure-bet. As things stand now, we can split water and make pure hydrogen, but it uses fossil fuels in the process, which just moves the emissions farther up the chain instead of getting rid of them, and we're not very efficient at it yet anyway. But there are theories... plants do it at room temperature with manganese and something else, we just can't figure out how to replicate it on our scale yet. That or solar power goes directly into a little cell that converts it to current and then splits water, but it doesn't work at normal temps yet.

And the storage is tough... canisters work, but the compression gets up to like 10,000 psi before the size comes down to be small enough for a vehicle, and that's pretty dangerous. So now they're looking at having the hydrogen embed itself to solid surfaces, with nano-scale structured ribs or honeycombs to provide a shit-ton of surface area for the stuff to bond with.

The field of electronics (things that need batteries) is where this will all break through first, most likely. Man, that was a good article.

Sorry.

this is why i don't eat seafood.

on an only slightly related note, did anyone see Dennis Miller on the Daily Show last night? His take on the ANWR situation was "who cares about alaska? nobody goes there but the oil workers anyway. their state emblem should be a bounced child support check" and then proceeded to launch into a tirade of like 30 jokes in a row that his TEAM of writers probably spent a week putting together. sad.

Yeah, that guy...a sad shell of his former self. It would be OK if he turned into a wingnut and was still FUNNY...but now his jokes are lame and he's a 100% down the line Republican. So sad.

Shrimping is already in the pisser here. Talk to any sugarcane farmer here, and it's becoming harder and harder to make a living each year.

I don't expect the rest of the nation to care about economy, but 25% of their total oil is dependent on LA, and it's home to 70 endangered species. Not to mention this is our major River Delta Area. Just looking at all of the national problems losing this Wetland Area would cause, I can't fathom why basically nothing has been done.

Gotta hand it to him, his math is correct.

However, you're assuming the pumping and transport capacity won't bottle-neck your 2mm barrels a day.

I'm with Oldbulee, I think the environmental risk of drilling is overstated, and that what risk there is shouldn't be too difficult to mitigate.

We've got incentives galore to foster the alternate fuel movement. Many public fleets--buses, etc, run on natural gas or some other hybrid. However, the technology is still in its infancy.

Give it time, once alternate fuel performance catches up to, or surpasses the gasoline powered engine, folks'll switch. Until they make an affordable 300HP alt-fuel engine, gas'll be the fuel of choice.

The other neat thing touted by hydrogen theorists was suplimental power for neighborhoods from local fuel cells. Like, basically, you have a little plant every few blocks that kicks in a bunch of extra juice to the power grid, but is still autonomous. Reduces strain and emissions from the big plants in a big way.

i have no idea what the pumping/refining capacity would be. i'm really only speaking in terms how much oil there is.

im not sure if its possible (or economically fesable) to pump/ship/refine/ship 2 million barrels from anwar a day.

im not sure it would/wouldn't be a bad idea to put all of the oil pumped from anwar into the oil reserve....

Nah, we could do it, but you can't do it without abandoning party mantra.

This country had a guy who put fucking rocks in a box with straw and sold them by the truckload. Have we forgotten Edison, Bell, Whitney, Ford, Gates, Jobs and Fred Smith?

I feel that we can innovate and create with the best of them, but so far there isn't any real incentive. I know a lot of Democrats would curl up in fear at the mere suggestion, but cut the tax rate on R&D for these cars. You have to make them not only attractive to build, but also to make them marketable.

Try this, for a rough idea: Pass some legislation geared to GM, Ford and Chrysler that gives them a deal. For instance, for every hybrid car or E85 car you sell, take 25% off your sales tax bill. For a car that uses no gasoline and little oil, take off 50-75%. Or if a car is tested at 100 mpg, take off 35%.

Make the ROI higher, so they pump the money in, and make the incentive hinged on sales so that they have an incentive to make cars that people will buy and use. That's the key.

I would love to have a car that is a hybrid or electric or whatever, cause I hate going to the gas station. But right now, a fair amount of these cars either don't present enough advantage, e.g. 5 more mpg and $7000 more expensive, or the look like some kind of rejected design from Back to the Future. Make them look like cars, not what we thought cars of the future would look like 20 years ago.

This won't happen of course, because I don't see Dems getting behind a plan that would cut taxes for evil corporations, even if the end result would be beneficial to their cause. That's part of the problem is that you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet, and most politicians today are just fine grabbing a McGriddle in the drive-through.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more
and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and
glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright
moron."
--H.L. Mencken

Don't confuse can't with won't. I know we can do it. I am saying we won't untill we are practically forced to. It's just the natural order of government . It only responds to near catasprophes, usually. It's like Social Security. It will not be overhauled til it collapses. There are very few exceptions of a government being pro-active. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but it's rare.

You are right about that. I do find it a bit frustrating though that too many legislators like to just pontificate about it rather than actually make a real attempt. Of course, that's what this whole thread is about.

That Silverado hybird is pretty badass though. It has two external plugs in the back that you could run a refrigerator off of. Then again, the gas mileage still sucks and it costs a chunk more than usual.