The Political Voices of Women

Will Offshore Drilling Lower Gas Prices? – by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

This will be part one in a series of posts I will be doing on gas prices and offshore drilling. I want to take a look at the facts, and attempt to separate the truth from the fiction. Would offshore drilling lower gas prices? Why do the oil companies need more places to drill, if they aren’t even using all of what they have now? How would more offshore drilling effect the environment? Does this have more to do with politics than the people? These are just a few of the many question we will try to answer here.

Let’s start with an article in today’s New York Times. Here are a few excepts from that article, I really recommend you read the full piece.


READ FULL POST AT THE CARE2 ELECTION BLOG

Here is a guest post from Frances at Frances Ellen Speaks.

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Have you noticed whether your gas station is putting ethanol in their gas? Have you noticed that your gas mileage has decreased?

I get my gas at a Shell station and right there on the front of the pump is a sticker that says, Contains 10% Ethanol. My gas consumption has been rising by leaps and bounds lately, but I’m not driving any more than usual. Actually, because of the gas prices, I’m more selective about where I go and how I get there.

While I was pumping, I looked up at the sign to see if the price had come down since my gas was now being spiked with ethanol. What a joke! What made me think a gas company would dream of giving the consumer a break.

It appears I’m not the only person that’s miffed. Here’s an excerpt from Slow Food Waltz

Ethanol, isn’t it’s use supposed to lower gas prices? Huh??

Help me out someone, what am I missing here. I just noticed this Shell gas station uses 10 percent ethanol, but the gas prices are exactly the same as they are at other places. Will ethanol ever translate to a cost savings for the consumer??

Okay, so the price hasn’t come down. It’s still up there at $3.90 a gallon in my neck of the woods. To top that off, I recently purchased a fuel economy car, but now I’m getting less gas mileage. That’s a fact and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. See information from Punny Money.

It lowers fuel economy. That 10% ethanol being mixed into your gasoline might be helping to keep it 10 cents a gallon cheaper, but you’re probably getting 10-30% fewer miles per gallon because of it. Since all the gas stations around here switched to a 10% ethanol blend, my gas mileage has dropped by about 15%!

What is going on? I understand it’s imperative that we cultivate some type of alternative fuel, but why am I suffering while the gas companies are reporting record-breaking profits? Oh yeah, I forgot–I don’t have a lobbyist. Drat!

So, it appears that you and I will be at the pumps more often, paying the same ridiculous prices. And I don’t expect to hear too much squawking from anyone because the change is couched in “alternative fuel” rhetoric. I suppose the media will somehow find a way to make it sound unpatriotic if anyone speaks out against it, too. What a racket!

READ MORE BY FRANCES AT FRANCES ELLEN SPEAKS

Also See:

How High Will Gas Prices Go?

Taxes on Big Oil

$4+ Gas Prices

Are Speculators Manipulating The Price of Oil? – by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

Apparently, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been investigating this since December. Is there really anyone that thought the prices haven’t been manipulated?

The Great Oil Swindle: How much did the Fed really know?

The Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating trading in oil futures to determine whether the surge in prices to record levels is the result of manipulation or fraud. They might want to take a look at wheat, rice and corn futures while they’re at it. The whole thing is a hoax cooked up by the investment banks and hedge funds who are trying to dig their way out of the trillion dollar mortgage-backed securities (MBS) mess that they created by turning garbage loans into securities. That scam blew up in their face last August and left them scrounging for handouts from the Federal Reserve. Now the billions of dollars they’re getting from the Fed is being diverted into commodities which is destabilizing the world economy; driving gas prices to the moon and triggering food riots across the planet.

For months we’ve been told that the soaring price of oil has been the result of Peak Oil, fighting in Iraq, attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria, labor problems in Norway, and (the all-time favorite)growth in China. It’s all baloney. Just like Goldman Sachs prediction of $200 per barrel oil is baloney. If oil is about to skyrocket then why has G-Sax kept a neutral rating on some of its oil holdings like Exxon Mobile? Could it be that they know that oil is just another mega-inflated equity bubble—like housing, corporate bonds and dot.com stocks—that is about to crash to earth as soon as the big players grab a parachute?

Who Killed the Electric Car?

During the same period, the further development, marketing and production if the Electric Car was being stifled. This was ominously explained in the 2006 Documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”. The film explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. According to the documentary, GM claimed there was no demand for this product and they then took back every single vehicle (which were only available on lease – none were actually purchased from GM). Despite many owners wanting to purchase their vehicles outright, GM would not respond to these drives, and at the end of the leases the vehicles were taken back and crushed. (Yes physically destroyed!)

From The Tampa Tribune…

The sudden, shocking increase in the price of oil is a market failure that resembles the damaging excesses of the dot-com bubble, Enron scandal and housing meltdown.

Speculators, loosely regulated, have bid up crude-oil prices to illogical highs. There is no oil shortage. You don’t have to wait in lines at the pump. The cost of bringing oil to market has not changed.

. . .

Part of the problem is that the Federal Reserve has kept money flowing, empowering consumers to bid up the price of food and oil. The easy-money policy helped the economy, but at the price of a weaker dollar, which adds to the rising price of oil and invites a surge of money into inflation-resistant commodities, such as grain, gold and oil.

Reining in speculators is key to returning the price of fuel to a fair level. Frenzied buying with borrowed money by people who never take possession of the oil does no good for either producers or consumers.

Also See:

How High Will Gas Prices Go?

Skyrocketing Gas Prices

How Green Are The Oil Companies?

What Is The Real Reason Gas Prices Are So High?

What do you think? Are gas and oil prices being manipulated? If so, what can be done to stop it? Does anyone think that the prices aren’t being manipulated?

Oil Companies – How Green Are They? — Posted by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

Are the oil companies going green? If by “green” we are talking about cold hard cash…The oil companies are very, very green. In fact, their cups runneth over with greenness. However, in this case, the oil companies (a.k.a. Big Oil) are spending a lot of money on commercials designed to convince you and me that they are investing in our environmental future. So, how green are they?

So what do you think? Are the oil companies really going green? Or, are they just playing green on tv?

Personally, I think they should be required to spend a certain percentage of their profits on green alternatives to oil…at the very least.

Skyrocketing Gas Prices + Fear = Billions for Big Oil – by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at Care2 Election Blog)

The last eight years have been a classic example of the tail wagging the dog. And even when the Bush administration (aka, the tail) is gone, the lessons will live on forever. Not only will our government continue to run like a well oiled propaganda machine, but the most powerful industries that we are forced to rely on, will have mastered the art of deception, manipulation, and cover-up. So, you probably want to know what this has to do with gas prices? Let me tell you…

Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Fear has blinded us to the manipulation.

Crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis. A continuing crisis, after crisis, after crisis, fosters a perpetual state of fear. The gas crisis, the health care crisis, the crisis that is our economy, and the biggest crisis of all…the war.

We are living in a paradigm of fear. Actually, to be more accurate…We have been (very cleverly) locked into a paradigm of fear. The oil and gas industry is using our fear of higher gas prices, to lull us into complacency and into trusting them. Here is an ad they are currently running that illustrates what I am talking about.

This is from The Wonk Room…

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues “America’s future” lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The “facts” in Big Oil’s ad are based on a thirty-six page API document entitled, “The Truth About Oil and Gasoline.” This “primer” was published last week, with numerous figures and charts on oil company profits and gas prices, but nary a single mention of climate change or greenhouse gas emissions. Here are the facts Big Oil left out:

Future With 45% More Oil And Gas Demand Involves 60% More Global Warming Emissions. The projection of “45% more by 2030″ gas and oil demand is drawn from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2007 report. The API accurately describes the increase in global oil and gas demand in the IEA’s business-as-usual scenario, although United States demand is only projected to increase by less than 5%. However, API fails to mention the business-as-usual scenario also predicts energy-related carbon emissions would “increase by almost 60%” by 2030.

Business As Usual Spells Catastrophic Future. The IEA business-as-usual scenario would put the planet on a pathway to “temperature change at equilibrium of about 4.9 to 6.1 degrees C [8.9 to 11°F] compared to pre-industrial levels.” That’s five to seven times as much warming as we’ve already experienced, and would make catastrophic global change — including mass species extinction, crop devastation, and significant sea level rise — unavoidable.

Big Oil Ignores The ‘Secure’ Scenario. The IEA’s report includes a “450 Stabilisation Case,” in which greenhouse emissions are limited such that atmospheric concentrations stabilize at 450 parts per million of CO₂ equivalent — what the IPCC calculated is need to avoid catastrophic climate change. In this scenario, total global oil and gas demand only increases by 10 percent from current levels, not the 45 percent that API says the world will “require.”

The ad’s tag line, “Together, we can secure America’s future,” mimics the We Campaign climate activism spot that concludes: “Together, we can solve the climate crisis.” The path Big Oil envisions — even as warning signs increase — would instead destroy the future of America and the rest of the planet.

Also See:

What Is The Real Reason Gas Prices Are So High?

So, why is the oil and gas industry doing this? Because they can. And because our fear is putting billions and billions of $$$$ in their pockets.

Do We Need A Gas Tax Holiday? Will We Get One? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

What is a gas tax holiday? And would one help you? We have three candidates and three positions on this idea. McCain’s proposal doesn’t replace the tax revenue lost by this plan, but Hillary’s does, and Obama is against it altogether.

Here are video clips of each candidate, and then I’ll tell you what I think. Let me know how you feel about this issue in comments.

Hillary Clinton talks with Katie Couric about her proposed “gas tax holiday,” which critics say is politically motivated, and the upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina…


Barack Obama on Meet The Press talking about Hillary Clinton’s proposed gas tax…


McCain on his gas tax holiday proposal...



So, what do you think? Who is right on the gas tax holiday? The way I see it is…At best this would be a band-aid on a gaping chest wound, and at worst it’s simply political pandering. Either way, this gas crisis brought on by the policies of the Bush administration, is going nowhere but up. The truth is…There is no end in site, with or without a gas tax holiday. Sorry.

Read more »

Iraq Making Billions Off Oil – But U.S. Still Paying For Reconstruction? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at Care2 Election Blog)


Iraq is making billions over skyrocketing oil prices. But the U.S. taxpayer continues to pay billions for the Iraq reconstruction. What is that about? How can our government just watch, as American families are struggling to keep their heads above water? The American people are getting scraps (or $600 dollars), while our government continues to throw billions of our tax dollars at the Iraqi’s as if it were Mardi Gras beads. I honestly don’t know how Bush and his administration can even sleep at night.


This is from American Citizen News Network…

Just over a month ago I wrote a post on this same subject. But evidently the American taxpayers don’t care, for if they did, they would be screaming by the hundreds of thousands on the front lawn of the White House and the steps of Congress. Instead we are screaming at each other over whose political party wears a halo over their head and whose political party has horns growing out of their heads. But why should we care if the Iraqi’s are screwing us; we are letting our politicians take our money every day and give it away to those who already have more than they can spend. And who can blame Iraq?

From The Crypt’s Blog…

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said the continued heavy spending by the United States on funding the military campaign in Iraq is a problem for the American people, particularly as the Iraqi government is running up a budget surplus.

“It’s a burr in the side of the American people that the Iraqi government has a budget surplus while we have massive budget deficits,” McCaskill said. With oil prices hovering in the $100-per-barrel range, the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is projecting a budget surplus in the area of $50 billion this year.

How do you feel about U.S. tax dollars being spent to rebuild Iraq?

Exxon Mobil Continues To Post Record Profits??? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at the Care2 Election Blog)

This just doesn’t seem right to me. There is something seriously wrong when oil and gas corporations continue making record profits, in a time when most Americans are struggling to pay the bills, the dollar is falling, and gas prices are going through the roof.

See Exxon Mobil Profit Sets Record Again at The New York Times…

Exxon Mobil delivered its strongest performance ever last year, earning a record $40.6 billion in net income because of surging oil prices, the company said Friday.

The figure, a 3 percent increase from the previous year, exceeded the company’s own record for profits at an American corporation, set in 2006, and is nearly twice what it earned in 2003. — read full article at The New York Times

If it was up to me (and I know it’s not), I would require these companies to begin to use a large portion of their profits, on finding and producing alternative fuels. It doesn’t even have to be a law, just take away tax incentives and raise taxes on companies that refuse to comply. I know, it’s a free market…bla, bla, bla. I still think there is no reason for giving tax incentives to companies that clearly do not need them.

Other bloggers blogging on this…

Redzilla Attacks — Exxon Reports Record Profits while giving America the finger

IntoxiNation – As We Loose Jobs, Exxon Sets Records

Cracked Virtue

Day Dreaming

What do you think about this???  Does it make you mad???? 

This is from a post at Make it Stop! Make it Stop!

Like Texas, Alaska is one of those states whose occupants don’t do much in small ways. So it’s not surprising that one of the best quotes from a lobbyist Congressional-buying frenzy comes from an Alaskan elected representative.

As the WaPo shows us today, Pete Kott, “the former Republican (there’s a big surprise) speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives bragged of the depths to which he would sink for money. As the article notes, Kott “crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed by oil companies. “I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie. Exxon’s happy. BP’s happy. I’ll sell my soul to the devil.”

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If you want to understand what is currently going on with the oil/gas crisis in this country, I would urge you to check out this post over at The Crone Speaks.

Crude oil, which, for us, translates to gas at the pumps, has gone up $25 per barrel in the last ten weeks. But, you may be surprised at what is going on to drive the price up — which translates to higher prices at the pump.

“Instead, traders who treat oil like any other commodity are widely thought to be driving prices upward, bolstered by a weak dollar and money flowing out of stock markets and other investment vehicles.”

. . .

“Many veteran oil analysts say this is a bubble. Oil is historically a cyclical business. Modestly higher production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a warm winter, slower U.S. economic growth and a flattening of demand in the United States could puncture these lofty prices.”

Let’s drive this up to a nice round number of $100 per barrel. And long as you don’t complain, and even if you do complain, these traders are going to continue to strive for the gold ring, aka $100 per barrel.

But, wait. There’s more speculation. What really caught my attention is this exercise on what could come to pass, and what is believed to be coming:

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