American Dependence On Oil

[Guest Maxed Out]

Has anyone seen this?

 

President Jimmy Carter - Address to the Nation on Energy

 

 

 

View the full speech here: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3398

 

President Jimmy Carter asked Americans to sacrifice for the sake of greater energy conservation and independence.

It is almost to scary to think that a President in the 70s told gave a speech on the real problems we have today.

[Guest ALWAYS RED]

REMARKS BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

SUBJECT: ENERGY, THE ECONOMY AND TAXES

 

JACKSON, OHIO

1:07 P.M. EDT, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2008

SEN. MCCAIN: (In progress) -- it's time to get America's economy moving again. Companies like Merillat and families across Ohio face challenges in their businesses and around the kitchen table. And obviously, energy prices are too high. We're losing jobs. Our housing market is on the decline. And, the cost of everything is going up.

 

And in the face of this, Washington is on vacation. In the face of a severe energy crisis, the Congress decides to go on a five week vacation. When I'm president of the United States I will call the Congress back into session and tell them to act and not to leave town to take their vacation or their pay raise until they address this energy crisis, and now is the time for action.

 

We need an "all of the above" plan to address our energy crisis with alternative energy, drilling and nuclear power. That means drilling here, drilling now in the United States of America and off the United States of America coast. Everybody knows that drilling is a very vital part of bridging our gap between our dependence on foreign oil, which is transferring $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much.

 

And we have the resources to be explored and exploited and we could obtain some of the benefit of that within months. My opponent, Senator Obama, opposes both storage and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. He opposes offshore drilling immediately and he's out of touch.

 

And we need to crack down on those who've abused our credit market and caused this housing decline. We need to take action to support American businesses so that we can stop jobs from going overseas and create more jobs here at home. America has the second highest business rate in the entire world. Is it any wonder that jobs are moving overseas? We're taxing them out of the country.

 

Unfortunately, Senator Obama's plans would raise taxes on businesses even more. He's promised tax increases on income, tax increases on investment, tax increases on small businesses. That's exactly, exactly the wrong strategy. Raising taxes in a bad economy is about the worst thing you can do because it will kill even more jobs when what we need are policies that create jobs.

 

What we need today is an economic surge. Our surge has succeeded in Iraq, militarily. Now we need an economic surge to keep jobs here at home and to create new ones.

 

We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. We need to reduce the cost of health care. And we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that's putting our debt on the backs of our children.

 

Now is the time for action, and when I'm president we are going to get it done. I want to say again to the people here at Merillat, thank you for your hospitality. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your obvious dedication to safety. I'm very impressed by your industrial safety record and your teams that have made such an outstanding record possible. And obviously, Karen Strauss and John Lewis (ph) and the entire team here, thank you very much.

[Luke_Wilbur]

MIT Institute Professor John Deutch stressed the importance of pursuing every available avenue on energy, in testimony Friday before the U.S. Senate's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

 

Deutch, who has served in major roles in several administrations including director of energy research under President Carter and undersecretary and deputy secretary of defense as well as director of central intelligence under President Clinton, said "the fact is that the United States has not been, and is not now, on a path to a secure and sustainable energy future." The nation's overall importation and consumption of fossil fuels is projected to go on increasing, he said.

 

While there are several factors that have prevented the adoption of a sustained national energy policy, he said, the key cause is that "political leaders find it difficult to speak the truth about energy matters." The reality, he said, is that progress will be slow because of the magnitude of the problems.

 

Deutch offered seven recommendations, and emphasized that these represent not a menu of choices, but a package of actions that are all essential in order to reach a sustainable future.

 

First, he said, charging for greenhouse gas emissions is essential, whether in the form of a direct carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. Second, a major 10-year program to demonstrate carbon sequestration is essential to make clean coal a reality. Third, a push is needed to improve the efficiency of energy use in buildings, cars, and appliances.

 

Fourth, much more research is needed on potential energy solutions. This requires at least a doubling of federal research funding, the creation of a new energy innovation council to develop a multi-year research strategy across all government agencies, and an energy technology corporation to manage demonstration projects, he said.

 

Fifth, there should be an expansion of domestic oil and gas production, which he said is important to add credibility to US efforts to encourage other nations to increase their production. Sixth, commercial nuclear power should be expanded, although this requires addressing issues of cost, waste management, and nuclear weapons proliferation.

 

Finally, Deutch said, there must be improvements in the coordination of energy policy across multiple government agencies, by creating an energy coordinating council.

 

Deutch rejected calls for an energy research program akin to the Apollo program or Manhattan Project. Unlike those focused government programs with very specific, clearly defined objectives, he said, "here, we're talking about having a technology deployed in the real economy, and the issues are much more complex."

 

After a question and answer period during which each of the 20 senators on the committee expressed their views, Deutch said "I'm impressed that all of you are saying that we need to do 'all of the above'" -- that is, that every possible alternative should be aggressively pursued, as he recommended. Given that support, he then asked, why isn't it happening?

[Luke_Wilbur]

Remarkably, the price of gasoline has fallen nearly $1.50 a gallon since peaking at its all-time high in mid-July, plunging from $4.11 since then to $2.63 overnight at pumps across the nation.

What’s more, the price of gas has dropped below $2 in a number of cities across the country and motorists are now saving nearly $380 million a day on the cost of gasoline. Yet the question remains: will demand for fuel increase in the wake of lower pump prices?

[Guest EI]

Despite the recent economic downturn, growing demand for energy—particularly in China, India, and other developing countries—and efforts by many countries to limit access to oil resources in their territories that are relatively easy to develop are expected to lead to rising real oil prices over the long term.

 

Since 2003, rising oil prices have pushed the nominal share of energy expenditures as a percent of GDP upward, and their 9.8-percent share in 2008 was the highest since 1986. World production of liquid fuels from unconventional resources in 2007 was 3.6 million barrels per day, or about 4 percent of total liquids production. Liquid fuels and natural gas account for 71 percent of industrial delivered energy consumption, with electricity, coal, and renewables accounting for the rest.

 

As the economy recovers from the current economic recession, construction, chemicals, primary metals, and transportation equipment industries will grow slowly. After 2011, however, their output returns to its long-run growth path. Increased foreign competition, weak expansion of domestic production capacity, and higher energy prices mean more competitive pressure for most energy-intensive industries, particularly after 2015.

 

The long-term decline in total U.S. crude production has slowed over the past few years, as higher world oil prices have spurred drilling. U.S. domestic crude oil production, which has been

falling for many years, will begin to increase in 2009. Most of the near-term increase is from the deepwater offshore. Growth is limited after 2010, however, because newer discoveries are smaller, and capital expenditures rise as development moves into deeper waters.

 

A number of deepwater discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico have begun to ramp up production recently or are expected to begin production by the end of 2009. The largest include Shenzi, Atlantis, Blind Faith, and Thunder Horse. Expiration of the Congressional moratoria on the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic, and Pacific regions of the OCS also allow crude oil production to increase in the Atlantic and Pacific OCS after 2014 and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico OCS after 2025. Total offshore production increases at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent, from 1.4 million barrels per day in 2007 to 2.7 million barrels per day in 2030.

 

U.S. onshore crude oil production will also increase, primarily as a result of increased application of CO2-enhanced oil recovery techniques. Oil shale production will begin around 2023, but increases

rapidly, averaging 35 percent per year from 2023 to 2030. There will be exploitation of oil from the Bakken shale formation, and the startup of liquids production from oil shale, which is supported by favorable world oil prices and continued advances in oil shale extraction technology. Total onshore production of crude oil increases from 2.9 million barrels per day in 2007 to 4.1 million barrels per day in 2030.

[Guest American4Progress]

This morning, the price for a barrel of oil nearly hit $107 in electronic trading, the highest since Sept. 26, 2008. As American families already financially stressed by the Great Recession grapple with this steep increase in a necessary product, political opportunists on the right have been quick to blame President Obama for what is a near-uncontrollable situation. Oil prices are inherently unstable, which is why the United States should increase efforts to wean itself from oil through a variety of actions -- improving fuel standards, increasing investment in natural gas use, and removing oil and gas subsidies to invest in clean energy initiatives. The conservative "solution" of increased domestic drilling will do nothing to reduce consumer prices but will increase the risk of new BP-style disasters. We should ignore calls for expanded domestic offshore drilling that takes too long to provide relief at the pump, until oil companies can prevent and clean up deep water blowouts.

 

PAIN AT THE PUMP: There are a whole universe of factors influencing the price of gas, making it an inherently unstable commodity. Presently, political upheaval in the Middle East over the past month has driven parallel unrest in world oil prices. On January 28, in the midst of unrest in Egypt, oil prices closed $4 to $5 higher than normal at $89 a barrel. This leap reflected concerns that the Egyptian revolution would interfere with Persian Gulf oil transportation and deliveries. Prices stabilized when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned in February, but of course, popular uprisings in the Middle East did not relent. The current turmoil in Libya -- which is far more violent than what took place in Egypt, with a dictator more willing to use force against his people and apparently less willing to step aside -- has created even more chaos in the oil markets. Libya supplies 1.8 million barrels of oil a day, or 2.1 percent of worldwide oil production. The United States does not import Libyan oil, but the oil market is so unstable that Libya's market share is substantial enough to push oil prices to $107 a barrel, harming American consumers anyway. As foreign oil workers flee and clashes continue to occur near key energy infrastructure, more spikes are possible. Unrest in Bahrain, which produces 48,000 barrels per day, could further increase prices. Potential uncertainty in Saudi Arabia is an even more pressing concern, as the Center for American Progress' Kate Gordon and Brian Katulis note, since that country produces one-fifth of the world's oil. Such spikes in oil prices present a clear threat to economic recovery in the United States and around the world. Already in the past year, families have experienced a 13 to 17 percent increase in gasoline and fuel heating oil prices, while family incomes have stagnated. According to the New York Times, "[a] sustained $10 increase in oil prices would shave about two-tenths of a percentage point off economic growth" and "[the] increase would offset nearly a quarter of the $120 billion payroll tax cut that Congress had intended to stimulate the economy this year." This substantial economic threat is caused by sudden, unexpected political volatility that the United States has a limited ability to control, but it could have -- and has been -- caused by any number of other factors. Excessive speculation in the commodities market can create price spikes, as can climate disasters -- prices jumped to record highs following Hurricane Katrina.

 

THE BLAME GAME: Political opportunists in the Republican Party have already sought to blame this inherently unstable situation on President Obama. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour ® -- a possible 2012 presidential candidate and former oil industry lobbyist -- has suggested that not only are increased prices Obama's fault, but that he desired and created them. "His administration's policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive," Barbour told the U.S Chamber of Commerce last week. "Their policy is to drive up energy prices." Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), chair of the House Tea Party Caucus and also a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said of high gas prices, "This is exactly what the ambition of the Obama administration is, because they want to move people toward green energy." In a post on Redstate.com titled "Blame the Democrats for High Gas Prices," CNN political commentator Erick Erickson argued that "Democrats have been politicizing and blocking expanded oil drilling for quite some time." Similarly, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) blamed Democrats' unwillingness to open up more domestic drilling sites for the spike. "We seem to have our hands behind our back," Johnson said. "And this lack of permitting -- this lack of going after resources that we have right here in America -- is indicative of a failed energy policy." There is a notable theme here -- aside from crass political point scoring, these attacks are calibrated to protect oil as a primary energy source at the expense of cheaper green alternatives, while pushing for even more oil drilling here in the United States. These opportunistic attacks come as the oil industry prepares to pump unprecedented sums of money into the political process. Since the midterm elections, the oil industry has "been very aggressive right out of the gate because of the huge opportunity with the election of their allies," as Daniel J. Weiss, the director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told the Houston Chronicle yesterday. Oil and gas companies spent $146.3 million on lobbying last year, and that number is poised to rise as the presidential election approaches. For example, the American Petroleum Institute will start donating money to political campaigns this year.

[Guest LAW]

Weekly Address: Energy Security Can Only Come If We Invest in Cleaner Fuels and Greater Efficiency

 

In his weekly address, President Obama discussed his strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and secure our nation’s energy future. When the President was elected, America imported eleven million barrels of oil a day. This week he announced a bold, but achievable goal of cutting this number by one-third by 2025.

 

To achieve this goal we will increase responsible domestic oil and gas development in the short term, while also increasing efficiency and harnessing new technologies including biofuels, natural gas, and advanced batteries. And through the Clean Fleets Partnership, large companies, such as UPS, FedEx, AT&T, Verizon, and PepsiCo, will help boost the market for clean fuels by switching their fleets over to electric and alternative vehicles.

 

Remarks of President Barack Obama

As Prepared for Delivery

Landover, Maryland

April 2, 2011

 

Hello, everybody. I’m speaking to you today from a UPS customer center in Landover, Maryland, where I came to talk about an issue that’s affecting families and businesses just like this one – the rising price of gas, and what we can do as a country to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

 

This week, I released a Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future. It’s a strategy to reduce the oil we import from around the world, and to make our economy stronger at home. Part of this strategy involves increasing our oil exploration right here in America. In fact, our oil production last year reached its highest level since 2003, and we want to encourage more safe, responsible drilling where we can.

 

But the truth is, drilling alone is not a real strategy to replace our dependence on foreign oil. And that’s because even though America uses 25 percent of the world’s oil, we currently have only about 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if we used every last drop of all the oil we have, it wouldn’t be enough to meet our long-term energy needs. So, real energy security can only come if we find ways to use less oil – if we invest in cleaner fuels and greater efficiency.

 

That’s what we’ve been doing since I took office. For example, we secured an agreement from all the major auto companies to raise the fuel efficiency of their cars and trucks. So if you buy a new car, the better gas mileage is going to save you about $3,000. Altogether, this will save us about 1.8 billion barrels of oil as a country.

 

We need to build on this progress. As we make our cars and trucks more efficient, we’ve got to harness new technologies to fuel our vehicles with everything from biofuels to natural gas to advanced batteries. And the good news is, these technologies aren’t science fiction anymore. They exist today. Already, American car companies are producing electric vehicles that use little or no gas. And innovators across America are testing new products that hold incredible promise not just for new vehicles, but for countless new jobs.

 

To help jumpstart this market, the federal government has doubled the number of clean energy vehicles that we have in our fleet. In the next few years, we’re going to switch the entire fleet over. And I’m here at UPS because it’s not just the government getting in on the action. Companies like UPS, FedEx, AT&T, Verizon, and PepsiCo – firms with some of the largest fleets in the country – are switching to more efficient vehicles. And through our Clean Fleets Partnership, driven not by government, but by business, more companies are going to be switching to electric and alternative vehicles, too – not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it’s good for their bottom lines.

 

The goal is simple. When I was elected to this office, America imported 11 million barrels of oil a day. Through these and other steps, by a little more than a decade from now, we will have cut that by one third. And by doing so, we’re going to make our economy less vulnerable to wild swings in oil prices. We’re going to use cleaner sources of energy that don’t imperil our climate. And we’re going to spark new products and businesses all over the country by tapping America’s greatest renewable resource: our ingenuity.

 

We know how important that is. This week, we learned that the economy added 230,000 private sector jobs last month. That makes 1.8 million private sector jobs created in the last thirteen months. That’s a good sign. But we have to keep up the momentum, and transitioning to a clean energy economy will help us do that. It will ensure that the United States of America is home to the jobs and industries of tomorrow. That’s how we’ll win the future. And that’s how we’ll leave our children an America that is more secure and prosperous than before.

 

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

[Guest HUMAN]

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2011/06/democratic-senator-blasts-obama-energy-policy-says-its-bouncing-around-like-a-ping-pong-bill/

 

Democratic senator blasts Obama energy policy, says it’s ‘bouncing around like a ping pong bill’U.S. energy policy is more like a frenzied game of table tennis than the product of sound, strategic decision-making, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Wednesday.

 

 

“We’re just bouncing around like a ping pong ball,” Manchin said at a Consumer Energy Alliance and Canadian American Business Council forum on natural gas. “We’re not making common-sense decisions anymore.”

 

Manchin said the nation’s lack of a comprehensive energy policy puts the U.S. at a disadvantage, especially given a tax code that benefits some power sources while shirking others.“We’re trying to pick winners and losers by our tax code,” Manchin said.

 

The tax issue came to a head last month, when a Democratic plan to raise $21 billion over the next 10 years by hiking taxes for the nation’s five biggest oil companies failed a key procedural vote in the Senate. Manchin joined all but three Senate Democrats in supporting the legislation.

 

But Wednesday, Manchin made clear he thought there was a better, middle-of-the-road approach, with industry-specific tax credits and other incentives tied to the price of the oil, natural gas, coal or other commodities at issue. Under that approach, if prices dip below a certain threshold, the incentives would be available to energy producers, Manchin said. But when prices are high, the tax breaks would be off limits, whether they are for coal, ethanol or oil.

 

That “would be a good compromise,” Manchin said.

 

Manchin also weighed in on other pressing energy policy issues:

 

on the possibility the U.S. government will deny TransCanada’s plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline extension to deliver oil sands crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries: “I would hope our policy would be very favorable for ongoing business with our friends.” “It’s truly a godsend for America to have that supply from a neighbor that is friendly.” “I can assure you (the Canadian oil) is going to be used somewhere in the world, if it’s not used in the U.S.”

on the threat of expanded federal regulation of the hydraulic fracturing process used to produce natural gas: “I assume EPA will be very aggressive — if anything, overaggressive — because that’s what they’ve done with coal.” Although West Virginia has a process where legislatively mandated regulations are reviewed by state lawmakers, there is nothing similar on the federal level. That’s a shame, Manchin said, because, while voters can fire elected representatives, “you can’t fire (a regulator). You can’t even find them.”

[Luke_Wilbur]

Manchin would be ruined in West Virginia if he did not express the sentiment of the birthplace of the oil and gas industry.

 

I wonder if this is really is QE3 in disguise? Manufacturing was slowing down. The dollar was getting weaker. Something had to be done and the Federal Reserve was getting real heat from its Quanitative easing.

 

http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=418

 

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka announced today that the 28 IEA member countries have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil in the coming month in response to the ongoing disruption of oil supplies from Libya. This supply disruption has been underway for some time and its effect has become more pronounced as it has continued. The normal seasonal increase in refiner demand expected for this summer will exacerbate the shortfall further. Greater tightness in the oil market threatens to undermine the fragile global economic recovery.

 

In deciding to take this collective action, IEA member countries agreed to make 2 million barrels of oil per day available from their emergency stocks over an initial period of 30 days. Leading up to this decision, the IEA has been in close consultation with major producing countries, as well as with key non-IEA importing countries.

 

The IEA estimates that the unrest in Libya had removed 132 mb of light, sweet crude oil from the market by the end of May. Although there are huge uncertainties, analysts generally agree that Libyan supplies will largely remain off the market for the rest of 2011. Given this loss and the seasonal increase in demand, the IEA warmly welcomes the announced intentions to increase production by major oil producing countries. As these production increases will inevitably take time and world economies are still recovering, the threat of a serious market tightening, particularly for some grades of oil, poses an immediate requirement for additional oil or products to be made available to the market. The IEA collective action is intended to complement expected increases in output by these producing countries, to help bridge the gap until sufficient additional oil from them reaches global markets.

 

“Today, for the third time in the history of the International Energy Agency, our member countries have decided to act together to ensure that adequate supplies of oil are available to the global market,” Mr. Tanaka said. “This decisive action demonstrates the IEA’s strong commitment to well-supplied markets and to ensuring a soft landing for world energy markets.”

 

Total oil stocks in IEA member countries amount to over 4.1 billion barrels, and nearly 1.6 billion barrels of this are public stocks held exclusively for emergency purposes. IEA net oil-importing countries have a legal obligation to hold emergency oil reserves equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports. These countries are holding stock levels well above this minimum amount, currently at 146 days of net imports. (http://www.iea.org/netimports.asp)

 

The IEA Governing Board will within 30 days of this notice reassess the oil market, review the impact of their coordinated action and decide on possible future steps.