Bloodthirsty Liberal

I’ll take mine in 30-weight, please? Light crude, and a shot of espresso:

The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.

The GAO testimony said that the federal government was in “a unique position to influence the development of oil shale” because the Green River deposits were mostly beneath federal land.

…

“The Green River Formation–an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming–contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.

“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

What’s the difference between the US and Saudi Arabia—besides the racist ideology, institutionalized misogyny, and pre-medieval world view, that is? Well, SA is our b*tch when it comes to proven oil reserves, for one. I suppose I could think of others if I had enough time.

Oh yeah, they drill their oil! We mothball ours, and tell Brazil we hope to be their biggest customer.

PS: Any other mention of this in the news? Hello…?

PPS: Give me by [bleeping] oil!

PPPS: NOW!!

PPPPS: Heh:

Israel has decided to search for oil on the Golan Heights after 20 years of delay due to objections from Syria…

Like most tyrants, they’re not shy about telling us who they are:

As gas prices continue to soar around the country, Joe Kennedy III, the Democratic candidate for Rep. Barney Frank’s seat, wrote an online letter to supporters calling for an end to “cheap oil.”

“Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama — they’ve all talked about the same thing: the need to wean ourselves off our debilitating dependence on foreign oil,” Kennedy wrote.

“The cycle that allows cheap oil to trump tough choices has to stop,” he continued. “Forty years is enough.”

In the week before Kennedy posted, AAA Southern New England reported that the price of gas in Massachusetts had risen a further two cents. The Worchester Business Journal reported that at an average of $3.899 a gallon for regular unleaded gas, the price is currently 24 cents higher than it was one year before.

And lo, it comes to pass:

President Obama’s announcement Tuesday that he wants to go after people who may be affecting oil prices by gaming the markets for personal gain was completely ignored Tuesday by the markets themselves, which promptly bid the price of oil up another dollar.

In fact, the price shot up upon opening at 9 am, just after Obama’s initiative was announced by the White House. By late afternoon Eastern Time, Oil had gained $1.26, or 1.2 percent, to $104.19 a barrel, according to Bloomberg, settling at its highest level in two weeks.

You have to understand JoKe III’s position: his dad, JoKe II, is in the oil business himself, shilling for that human oil barrel (or inhuman oil barrel), Hugo Chavez. So, abnormally high oil prices are good for the Kennedys, especially when financing a political campaign.

But compare Obama with George Bush: Obama opens his yap, and oil spikes a percentage point; Bush opened his (just musing about increased exploration or production) and the price per barrel fell from $130 to the mid-$30s.

That thick black smoke just over the horizon isn’t from another BP oil rig fire. It’s President Obama’s mom jeans engulfed in flames:

President Barack Obama’s struggled to defend his price-boosting energy policies during a speech in Cushing, Okla., today, even as rapidly spreading criticism and rising gas prices damage his poll ratings.

“He was incredibly defensive because little of what he says is true — that’s his dilemma,” said Dan Kish, a vice president at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Energy Research.

Speaking off-the-cuff, Obama mistakenly said that “we only produce 2 percent of the world’s oil.”

According to the federal government’s energy administration, the United States produces 10 percent of the world’s production, making it the third-largest oil producing nation.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. … This is the most incompetent administration I’ve ever seen — and I started under [President] Jimmy Carter,” Kish said.

…

[I]n his Prince George’s speech, Obama claimed that even if “we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere, we’d still have only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.” In New Mexico, Obama declared, “even if we drilled every square inch of this country, we’d still only have 2 or 3 or 4 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.”

That’s just simply wrong. The United States has the same number of barrels of proven oil reserves — 22 billion — today as it did in the 1940s. That’s because new sources of oil kept getting found, more-difficult-to-obtain oil suddenly became more economically viable, new oil-extraction techniques gained favor, and so forth.

So, in light of the president’s statement in Prince George’s County (and in New Mexico), we are going to change our ruling to Two Pinocchios.

No, no, no, you have it wrong. You can keep your doctor, and Bill Ayers was just some guy who lived in my neighborhood. I will accept public financing in my campaign, and I never heard Jeremiah Wright say anything remotely controversial. And if he did, it was Bush’s fault.

People will be torn. On the one hand, the media machine is about to blow a gasket keeping this guy’s story aloft; on the other, people fill their gas tanks every few days to a week. Only one reality can win.

For real.

The Washington Post’s David Nakamura, today’s White House pool reporter, had these odd lines in his last dispatch, just as the president was returning from a speech in Maryland:

POTUS arrived back at WH at 12:45 pm after uneventful ride. POTUS was greeted in Rose Garden by Bo. POTUS didn’t reply when another pooler asked: “Does Bo think you should release the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?”

So a gallon of regular is today costing Americans $3.82. And the question the press has for the president of the United States is whether his dog, Bo, thinks oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be released.

Is it possible to be any stupider than the mainstream media? Can it be done?

- Aggie

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists to… well, let them tell you:

If hurricanes or other unexpected physical conditions disrupt either crude oil imports or domestic production, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is ready to make replacement oil available to the extent approved by the President and/or the Secretary of Energy.

I suppose Obama’s dimming reelection chances would qualify as a “unexpected physical condition”:

Britain has decided to cooperate with the United States in a bilateral agreement to release strategic oil stocks, two British sources said, in an effort to prevent high fuel prices derailing economic growth in a U.S. election year.

A formal request from the United States to the UK to join forces in a release of oil from government-controlled reserves is expected “shortly” following a meeting on Wednesday in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, who discussed the issue, one source said.

Britain would respond positively, the two sources said.

Another random act of journalism (see post below)! Election year politics motivates Obama to raid the emergency supply of oil (which currently would meet our demands for just five weeks)!

Just hope Iran doesn’t do anything crazy in the meantime—anything else crazy, that is.

This from a president who turns up his nose at Canadian oil, Alaskan oil, Gulf oil. Now he’s practically up to his elbows in the stuff, like a modern day Beverly Hillbilly.

Y’all contribute to my PAC now, hear?

He would know whereof he speaks:

Leave it to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to one-up Rush Limbaugh in the name-calling department.

“Speaking of prostitutes, big oil’s top call girl Sen Inhofe wants to kill fuel economy backed by automakers, small biz, enviros, & consumers,” the New York-based environmentalist wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

Kennedy was targeting Inhofe for a letter the Oklahoma Republican sent last week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that questions the Obama administration’s fuel economy and air pollution policies.

“It’s hard to believe that Robert Kennedy Jr. would choose to use such language — especially this week,” Dempsey said. “I bet he now regrets it.”

Kennedy told POLITICO that he stands by his tweet.

Course he does. Chris Matthews won’t mention this. Keith Olbermann won’t mention this. Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, not one member of the Democrat-media complex will mention this.

I will accept that it’s one thing to call a private citizen (and a young woman) a slut and a prostitute, and another to use that language toward an older male senator. So, it’s less insulting—but fully equally as stupid. Which is what you expect from this clan.

PS: We can’t all buy our oil from Hugo Chavez like his brother Joe.

Refineries?

Refineries are so… southern:

Gasoline prices, rising quickly across the country, could increase even faster in New England over the next year because of the shutdown of three refineries that serve the Northeast and the likelihood that another could close in the summer.

Economists estimate that the loss of these plants, which account for at least half of the East Coast’s refining capacity, could boost New England gas prices by as much as 15 cents per gallon – over and above increases driven by unrest in the Middle East and other global factors. The additional price increases would result largely from added costs of transporting fuel from Gulf Coast or overseas refineries.

The price of diesel and heating oil, which also are refined at the facilities, could rise as well.

…

“You don’t have refineries in New England, you don’t have pipelines,’’ Felmy said. “You’re really an island.’’

Yeah, but why? Why have our elected leaders left us here on a very cold, very expensive island?

Refiners are shutting plants after losing billions of dollars in recent years due to a combination of factors. The weak economy lowered demand for gasoline, tighter environmental regulations raised costs, and increased global competition squeezed profit margins.

In the last six months, oil production companies Sunoco Inc. of Philadelphia and ConocoPhillips Co. of Houston have each closed a Pennsylvania refinery and put it up for sale – with few potential buyers emerging – as they exit the refining business. Hovensa LLC, a refiner in the US Virgin Islands, closed a refinery on St. Croix that primarily supplied the East Coast.

Meanwhile, Sunoco also has put up for sale a facility in Philadelphia that accounts for about nearly one-fourth of East Coast refining capacity. Sunoco, which says its refining business has lost nearly $1 billion in the past three years, plans to shutter the Philadelphia refinery in July if no buyer is found. “We could stay in the refining business and put the entire company at risk,’’ said Thomas Golembeski, a Sunoco spokesman, “or we could exit the refining business and stop the financial losses.’’

…

New England has no refineries of its own to take up the slack. Gulf Coast refiners have extra supplies to offset the loss of production in the Northeast, but pipelines that carry gas, diesel, and heating oil from the Gulf Coast to the region do not necessarily have capacity for the additional volume, according to an analysis released last week by the Energy Department.

Why is refining gasoline and heating oil economically viable on the Gulf Coast, but not the Atlantic coast? The article doesn’t say, and makes only one mention of “tighter environmental regulations”. But if closed refineries leave us on an island, I want to know why we’re there.

Instead, we get this:

With gas prices rising steadily in recent weeks, Governor Deval Patrick has directed state inspectors to step up efforts to ensure that gas stations are not engaged in price gouging, false advertising and other deceptive practices, state officials said Sunday.

“We want to get ahead of the curve here,” Barbara Anthony, the state’s undersecretary of consumer affairs and business regulation, said in a phone interview. “We want to make sure that no one’s even thinking about price-gouging.”

Anthony said that while nine inspectors perform regular audits of gas stations to ensure compliance with state regulations, Patrick has asked for increased oversight in light of recent price hikes nationwide.

In a statement, Anthony’s office cited data from a AAA report showing that gasoline prices have risen for 11 consecutive weeks, and that Bay State drivers are currently paying $3.73 per gallon on average, up from $3.30 at this time last year.

The averages for other New England states on Sunday were $3.99 in Connecticut, $3.84 in Maine, $3.80 in Rhode Island, $3.81 in Vermont, and $3.71 in New Hampshire, according to AAA.

Stop your grandstanding, Deval. Our gasoline is cheaper than most of the rest of the region—and way cheaper than California’s. The price is going up nationally because your big brother, Barack, wants it that way.

You could do us all a favor and offer incentives to the oil companies to reopen the local refineries before prices spiral into the $4 and $5 range, but something tells me you’re not going to do that.

Oil at highest point in four years!

Oil prices spiked to their highest levels since 2008 on fears that tensions with Iran have the potential to disrupt supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.

The price of a barrel of brent crude hit $128.40 a barrel and eclipsed $110 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after a disputed report Thursday on Iran’s Press TV and other Middle East outlets of a pipeline explosion in Saudi Arabia.

Prices for brent crude dropped to $125.45 and $108.50 on the NYMEX early Friday.

Whew! Down to $125!

“Frankly, it has nothing to do with supply and demand there — these are geopolitical situations,” Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, told CNN. “So it has to be solved at that level.”

While worries in the Middle East have caused a spike, oil prices face longer-term pressure due to increased demand from China and other emerging economies.

At 9.4 million barrels a day, China consumes half the amount of oil of the U.S., according to 2010 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But while U.S. usage has remained flat, China’s oil consumption rises about 5% per year.

So, it has nothing to do with supply and demand—but it will? Is that the party line?

What does Dudley Doofus say?

President Obama pushed for Congress to take $4 billion in tax breaks from big oil companies. “[T]hese companies are making record profits right now – tens of billions of dollars a year,” said Mr. Obama. “Every time you go to the gas tank or fill up your gas tank, they’re making money.”

Adding $4 billion to oil company costs—that’ll lower prices at the pump!

If we resumed drilling in the Gulf, if we built Keystone, if we drill-baby-drilled in Alaska, if we exploited every resource of our own (rather than promising to become Brazil’s customer), well, as the expert says, it’s not always about supply and demand. We’d be solving a geopolitical situation of our own.

Like that’s gonna happen…

Be like Europe.

Would the media have run a story like this in the Bush years???

Gas prices might have breached the $4 per gallon mark in the U.S., but there won’t be much sympathy for the American plight in Europe. In fact, that U.S. price of £2.52 a gallon looks highly affordable compared to the UK’s current average cost of £6.22 ($9.85).

In some places here you’ll pay an eye-watering £7.27 ($11.52) for a gallon of super unleaded. And prices throughout the rest of Europe are similarly high. But it is worth sparing a thought for the hard-pressed Norwegians who’ll pay £7.28 ($11.54) for a gallon of the regular stuff across their country.

We aspire to be like Europe, and we are achieving our goal!!

- Aggie

Hey, whaddya know! He really is scum!

President Barack Obama said Thursday his Republican critics promising immediate lower gas prices are either uninformed or dishonest, and he pledged in a speech to University of Miami students to continue pushing for alternative energy sources.

Framing the issue as “one of the major challenges of your generation,” Obama said developing a broad-based energy policy incorporating all sources — oil, gas, nuclear, solar, wind and alternatives such as algae — would take years but was essential for the nation’s future economic well-being.

His speech came as gas prices soared around the nation, rising 3.3 cents nationwide overnight to $3.61 a gallon, according to AAA.

Soaring gas prices, seething Moslems—it’s like Bush never left!

But of course, he has:

‘The American people aren’t stupid,” thundered President Obama yesterday in Miami, ridiculing Republicans who are blaming him for rising gasoline prices. Let’s hope he’s right, because not even Forrest Gump could believe the logic of what Mr. Obama is trying to sell.

To wit, that a) gasoline prices are beyond his control, but b) to the extent oil and gas production is rising in America, his energy policies deserve all the credit, and c) higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy. Where to begin?

What is it Aggie always says? “Elections have consequences.” What do reelections have?