Congress Behind Latest Increases in Gas and Oil

Chris Mehl of the Wilderness Society was ecstatic, Kohlman Co., an Oil & Gas development firm, agreed to cede it's oil and gas leases on 33,411 acres along the "Front" to Trout Unlimited, a conservation group. So far the group has racked up 40,074 Acres from companies giving up their leases on the land. 4 companies have agreed to give up their leases on the land since Congress passed a law giving tax credits to companies who give up their leases on 400,000 acres of Federal lands along the Front.

The bill, passed by congress in 2006, expanded the 1997 decision to remove 365,000 acres of Federal land from Oil & Gas leases along the Front. The Front is the area where the Northern Rockies and the Great Plains meet from Montana Hwy. 200 to Glacier National Park in the North.

Chris Hunt, of Trout Unlimited, said the Badger ­Two Medicine area is home to the state fish, as well as grizzly bears that move back and forth between the plains and moun­tains.

“This is a treasured place for hunters and anglers,” Hunt said.

"Bob", A commenter on the Great Falls Tribune Website said, "May do some good for the trout, paid guides, people with the money to go on these wilderness trips and foreign governments that sell us their oil and gas and then kill us with our own money. But chock up another loss for the working class. These development companies are under such strict reclamation regulations and I've seen these newer developments myself in other states and they look fine. All that's left is a small fenced area with a pipe sticking out of the ground in most cases and a nice well maintained road." Roads that can be dismantled later after the well is exhausted.

Indeed, the industry is being blocked at every turn, in California, New Mexico, Utah, everywhere you look there are new roadblocks, new restrictions and more and more regulations being placed on the industry making it more difficult to find and extract the energy that America needs.

While Americans certainly wish to preserve their pristine places is such action really warranted?

With Gas prices hovering at well over $3.00 a Gallon and pricing experts saying that Gas should hit $4.00 a gallon very soon, and possibly much higher in the future, is Congress doing something, Anything to get a handle on this?

With the Technology that we have today, from zero noise drilling platforms, to Horizontal Drilling techniques, the actual footprint of oil drilling equipment is getting smaller and smaller. Even in the hotly contested area of ANWR, a report issued on March of 2003 on the North Slope, showed that Caribou populations in the area were through the roof, despite 30 years of drilling. The report showed that the environmental impact in the area was incredibly small. Less than 1% of the total area was affected.

According to BP, a 20 Acre well pad in 1970 could access about 502 acres of land, meaning you had to dot the landscape with Pads to get to the oil. With today's techniques, a pad of 5 to 6 Acres can access oil on about 32,000 acres of land. Clearly, with new technology, we no longer need to dot the entire landscape with drilling pads, which of course means a lot less access roads need to be built. Additionally, frozen areas like ANWAR, new Exploration techniques are leaving nary a trace of a footprint. Solid Ice Bases and Ice Roads are being implemented that simply melt out of existence in the Summer. Leaving a single capped well head as the only evidence that humans were there.

We need to ask congress, why with rising Food and Gas prices, are they, instead of urging the Oil companies to develop more oil, they instead are doing everything they can to make more and more lands not accessible to Drilling.

Instead, congress recently passed a huge tax increase (HR 5351) on the Oil and Gas industry that discourages the very investments on technology that have made the industry much cleaner. While it might feel good to "Stick it to them", if anything this will lead to even higher prices, as the industry attempts to compensate for higher costs of doing business.

These tax increases will have the effect of telling the industry to just buy the oil from overseas and resell here at the Gas Stations, since Capital Investments will no longer be tax deductible for them, like it is for every industry in the U.S. This coupled with the closure of more and more areas to drilling, will only have the future effect of making oil even more scarce, and the more scarce things get, the more expensive things get. It's a basic law of supply and demand.

But congress isn't done raising your Gas prices, not by a long shot, a proposed Bill S. 1419, includes provisions for the Oil industry to subsidize Ethanol. A move that could double the price of Gas by 2016, even without any additional increases in Oil. And if that's not enough, congress is also considering 29 Billion in new taxes on the Oil industry to subsidize Wind and Solar Power, a move that will surely increase the price of gas even more. If all of these provisions are passed, we could easily be paying $10-$15.00 a Gallon within the next 10 years.

When the Oil Embargo of 73 happened, it had devastating effects on our economy. We ended up with the tripled gas prices, long lines to purchase gas, gas rationing, double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, 21% Interest rates to buy cars, more people were unemployed since at any time since the Great Depression. Back then we only imported 35% of our oil. Today we import 53%! More and more of our money is ending up in the hands of enemies like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the Middle East, who have a penchant for funding Islamic Extremist of the sort that would rather see us dead. What happens to us now if there's a future disruption of supply?

The results are clear. With the artificial caps on production, and less and less supply every year, the prices of oil will continue to skyrocket. We're starting to see the huge problems that Green Fuels deliver, so that's not a real alternative. It turns out that the debate on Global Warming, really isn't over, so we shouldn't just stop producing oil, and destroy our economy for something that might be a mistake. It's nice to dream of some day when we will have cheap and plentiful clean power from some new mystical invention in the future, but right now our economy runs on Oil. And it's running out of Gas. We need to tell congress to be part of the Solution and not part of the Problem.

Global Warming Panic Causing Hunger and Rioting

U.S. Policy on Oil production is hitting the poorest of the poor, those who make less than $2.00 a day, the hardest. Mostly because of environmental concerns, especially over Global Warming, The United States has been steadily increasing regulations of it's oil production, to the point to where there are no new production projects coming online in the United States. The U.S. is now producing less oil than we have in almost 60 years, even though we have some of the worlds largest reserves. This in turn has created an artificial shortage of Oil which has seen Spot prices jump to all time high's of over $110.00 a barrel. At first, the higher gas prices started to cause food to go up in price mostly because of transport, but that was nothing, now with the "Biofuel" craze, food prices are rocketing up faster than most in the third world can handle, up to a threefold increase since 2005 on some commodities. Corn especially has been getting a lot of attention on being turned into Ethanol for Gas production, but is it really wise for us to use the planet's food supply to drive our cars with? Especially when there's plenty of oil available off the Coast of Florida and in Alaska?

Many people don't even realize that Corn is used in making everything from beer to bubblegum and while here in the U.S. the higher prices are more of an inconvenience, in Third World nations, it can be the difference on whether you eat or not. To make matters worse, corn is expected to go even higher, because farmers are planting more Wheat & Soybeans this year, due to better profitability. In addition, we've gone from 50 ethanol plants in 1999 to 134 today! The Renewable Fuels Association has estimated that up to 1/3rd of the nations Corn production could soon be swallowed up by the Ethanol producers.

Prices are not just accelerating on Corn, Wheat & Soybeans; dairy farmers, meat producers, chicken farmers and others who rely on corn feed for their livestock are having to increase prices to compensate for Corn's skyrocketing costs, adding even more upward pressure on the nations food supply. Could this be the spark that drives a 70's style runaway inflation?

The Dirty secret about Corn though, is that it takes massive amounts of water and Nitrogen fertilizers to grow. Additionally, mountains of pesticides need to be added to keep the bugs from devouring it. Since Nitrogen is derived from Natural Gas, and pesticides come from Petroleum, as corn production increases, we can expect to see much higher costs of heating our homes and even higher prices for oil.

Now the fallout, In Haiti, the government almost endured a coup d'etat over last week's food riots on April 5th & 7th where at least 3 people were killed. Prime Minister Jacques Edouard has been ousted, leaving his appointee's merely passengers on a bus going nowhere until a new head of state can be ushered in.

In Mexico 75,000 people came out to protest against rising Tortilla prices, if people think the border situation is bad now, wait until poor Mexicans can't afford their Tortillas. We'll see even more border crossings as people who are starving don't care about things like immigration laws.

From Bangladesh to Egypt to Latin America and Africa, food riots are breaking out all around the world, while the U.S. has committed to a 200 Million dollar emergency aid program, the U.N.'s World Food program needs at least 500 Million just to meet emergency needs. We've yet to see if other nations around the world will step up to fill the gaps.

If the debate is over, then we need to start a new debate, because the policy changes we're implementing seem to be doing more damage to the Economy and the rest of the world, than any actual Global Warming. The worst part is, that the planet has actually stopped warming several years ago! While the debate continues as to wether this is proof that Global Warming was overblown, or if this is temporary, it seems that the 'cure' is worse than the disease.

Obama Loses 10-Point Advantage Over McCain

Republican Sen. John McCain has erased Sen. Barack Obama's 10-point advantage in a head-to-head matchup, leaving him essentially tied with both Democratic candidates in an Associated Press-Ipsos national poll released Thursday.Further evidence that the story I wrote about previously is true. Obama cannot and will not win this election. He's hoping that the whole Wright thing will just go away, but it's an issue that won't go away, because the American public doesn't want someone in the White House that thinks they're a bunch of evil racists.

read more digg story

Why Obama Can't and Won't Win

If anyone were to take a look at the news coverage of the 2000 Elections, everyone was in agreement, Gore would win. To everyone's amazement, or at least anyone along either coastline of the U.S., Bush won the White House. Of course, there were the calls that Bush "stole" the election and all of that noise, or that Ralph Nader cost Gore the election, but wasn't Gore supposed to win by a wide margin, wasn't he supposed to win with a Reagan Style landslide? It didn't happen that way mostly because of the "Red States" along America's Beltway. Regions of the U.S. mostly ignored by your average Pundit and News Anchor, all voted for Bush. Keep in mind that the only states that voted for Gore, were most of the northern Midwest, the West Coast and except for New Hampshire, the Northeast, only 18 states and DC! Everyone else, 32 States, voted for Bush.

Fast forward to 2004, and again. No way that the "Moron" Bush could win. He's up against the "Intellectual" John Kerry, a man who's "Infinitely Smarter than Bush", polls were showing that Kerry was leading 47% to 44%, only 44% felt that the country was going in the right direction, 43% said that Bush should be re-elected and 51% wanted someone new. So what happened, again the Democrats lost.

So now here we are, 2008 and it's time for a new Election. Again, CNN and the rest of the Left Leaning Media are proclaiming that a Democrat will win, most likely Obama, since Obama leads and has most of the votes he needs to win. Unless of course Clinton can figure out a way to "steal" the election, at which point this article would be moot. But I don't think that's going to happen. The outrage in the democrat party, especially amongst the Blacks would be unbelievably intense. Obama will be the Democratic Candidate led to defeat at the hands of McCain. Why? It's simple, if my domain name hasn't hit you yet, NoSocialism.com.

When Americans are polled about whether they like the direction of the Administration, they're not given the choice to say specifically what it is that they don't like. The Pollsters assume that American's are dissatisfied with the same things that they themselves are dissatisfied with, but especially in the Heartland of America, nothing is further from the truth. So let me give you a clue as to what it is that Americans in the heartland worry about. Between the years of 2001 through 2005, Inflation went up by 12%, an average of around 3% a year. As for the Government, let's take a look at some numbers from the OMB:

• Science, Space & Technology; up 21%
• Department of Transportation; up 24%
• Unemployment Benefits; 26%
• General Government Spending; 32%
• Social Security & Related Programs; 39%
• Health Care Spending; 42%
• Community Programs; 71%
• Housing & Commerce; 86%
• International Affairs; 94%
• Education Department; 99%

This is a "Government Gone Wild" and it's only gotten worse since 2005. Social Security and related programs last year alone almost matched the increases between 2001 through 2005! I didn't even include increases in Military spending, because obviously with the war going on, it's a necessary expense and the only thing of this list here that is a constitutional requirement. These are the things that the Heartland is worried about, so what is Obama's response to this, absolutely nothing. He wants to increase spending not decrease it. He wants expanded government, not a government that's more limited. John McCain has a huge advantage here since, according to Pig Book, Hillary Clinton has inserted 281 individual projects totaling 296.2 Million bucks! Big Spender Obama wasn't quite as lavish, inserting 53 pet projects totaling over 97 Million a huge amount for a Jr. Senator. John McCain should be given a Medal for keeping his hands out of the cookie jar, he's the only one of the candidates with no pet projects and 1 out of only 4 senators with no pork barrel spending.

Spending is not the only reason why Obama will lose, but I think it highlights the differences between Obama and McCain and why Americans will choose a more responsible legislator, over someone who simply talks a good game. The biggest mistake that Democrats make is that they think they can win by Lying, by playing games, by grandstanding and other dishonest tactics. These things might work in NY, they might work in Chicago, they might work in San Fransisco, but they sure as heck don't work in America's Heartland where American's don't listen to CNN and MSNBC as if it were God's Gospel truth. In the 2000 election, did Gore really think that we didn't take "Fair Trade" to mean protectionism? Did he really think that voters didn't realize how expensive his Health care reforms would be? Did he think that Americans wanted to grant our sovereignty to World Governments via the Kyoto protocol? When it was Kerry's turn, again the lying. Did he really think we'd buy the "I voted for it before I voted against it"? How stupid did he think we were. Did he really think we wouldn't look at all the video's where he kept saying over and over that we needed to invade Iraq, but when the election came around, he disavowed everything he said. Did he really think we wouldn't look into it.

And now we have Obama. While not as easy to beat as Clinton, let's face it every time she opens her mouth, it's to expand government even more, but does Obama really think that people will believe that he didn't know what his pastor has been saying for the past 20 years? Does he think that we're so dimwitted that we don't know that all of these government programs he's proposing will have to be paid for out of our own pockets? As the Heartland continues to prosper with ever increasing exports to China and India of food and heavy manufacturing equipment, does he think that his protectionist rhetoric will sit well with them?

The Heartland of America believes in Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Obama believes in Abortion, Regulation and as Rush Limbaugh often says, "When was the last time you saw a happy Liberal... They're always complaining about how bad things are, even in Boom times!"

The Heartland of America believes in "Pull yourself up from the bootstraps". They believe in Patriotism. They believe in smaller government. They believe in equality. They believe that America is the GREATEST country in the world, and Obama doesn't believe any of these things. From Michelle's comments about this being the first time she's proud of America, to Obama's book outlining how he used to count the Marxist professors as friends to Obama's minister speaking of "Evil America" and the US of KKK A. These are things that don't sit well with Middle America, and unlike the major coastal cities, Middle America doesn't let CNN and MSNBC tell them How to vote.

Obama won't lose because America is Racist, on my street alone, (and I live in a fairly wealthy subdivision) at least 4 of my neighbors are biracial couples, and that's only counting the Marriages between Black's and Whites, it doesn't include the Asian / White couples, Asian /Hispanic couple, Jewish /Hispanic couples, so on and so forth. Keep in mind that my street is only 2 blocks long. I would go as far as to say that anywhere from a third to half of all my neighbors are of mixed backgrounds, this is no longer a big deal in America. By and large people no longer have the racist attitudes that their parents or grandparents had. I live in South Florida, and so we may be a bit more of a melting pot than the rest of the country, but I've been around enough to realize that most of the rest of America is just as tolerant as we are here.

No, the only reason that Obama will lose is because of his Socialist and Marxist policies that are totally at odds with core American Values. The sooner the Democrats realize this, the sooner they can put down their hateful name calling, their villainization of America, the villainization of the President and the Republican Party. Then and only then can the Democrats actually work together with us to build a stronger America that all Citizens will be proud to call home.