i am forwarding this becouse it explains so well why
we had a high cost of fuel before the storm and the
storm only made it worse.


> Subject: Re: PETITION FOR PRES. BUSH Presidential
> Petition /Response
>
>
>
> Ken is right on this! I sent this same petition
> thinking it might help.
> Below is a response I got from a CHS clasmate class
> of 71. He will make you
> stop and think..Judy
>
>
>
> Judy,
>
>
>
> While such a petition is a good way to express anger
> over fuel prices,
> there's nothing that the president can do to lower
> them - or raise them.
>
>
>
> One of the biggest myths in America today is that
> the office of the
> President has power over the economy as a whole.
> Other than signing bills
> that raise or lower taxes, appointing members to the
> Federal Reserve (who do
> have a good bit of economic power via raising or
> lowering interest rates and
> controlling currency flow) or via a foreign trade
> policy, the president has
> no economic power whatsoever!  The American people
> have far more economic
> power and, considering that the economy is two
> thirds consumer driven,
> that's a lot of power indeed!
>
>
>
> Oil and gas prices are high these days for several
> reasons.  1)  Lower
> supply and higher demand.  China and India have both
> massively increased
> their thirst for oil as their economies boom and
> that taps into the world
> oil supply at a level much higher than even three
> years ago.  There is only
> so much production capacity out there and even OPEC
> is running at pretty
> much full steam ahead with little reserve capacity.
> So - as the basic Law
> of Ecnomics teaches us - high demand, low supply
> equals high prices.
> Happens every time and always will.
>
>
>
> 2)  The USA has not built a new oil refinery in over
> 25 years.  This is not
> because we don't want to - it is because when oil
> companies seek to do so
> the Leftist evironmental movement sues to stop them
> from being built for
> pollution reasons.  Imagine an hour glass lying on
> its side - one big end is
> the world oil supply.  The other big end is gasoline
> demand - and the lttle
> choke point in the center is the oil refinery
> capacity.  That's what we are
> facing.  We have more oil available as crude but not
> enough refinery
> capacity to refine it all.  And, when a refinery has
> problems and has to
> shut down for repairs, etc., then the gas capacity
> drops even more.  This is
> why gas prices always drop in the Winter - lower
> demand for the product
> overall as the summer driving season is done.  Then
> heating oil takes up
> much of the capacity of refineries.  A refinery in
> northern Indiana had a
> fire a week or two ago and gas prices up north are
> about 20 cents a gallon
> higher than where I live in Tennessee (the South
> gets its gas from Gulf
> Coast refineries, which are subject to hurricanes
> and shut down as those
> approach)
>
>
>
> 3)  If you want to lower prices of something then
> the easiest way is to
> increase more of what is in demand.  This ties in
> well with the Law of
> Economics - supply and demand.   Thus, increase the
> oil supply and prices
> will go down.
>
>
>
> The problem is, that finding more oil is very
> expensive and when found often
> subject to mroe stuff from the Leftists in the
> environmental movement.  The
> ANWR oil supply is supposed to be even greater than
> that found in Prudhoe
> Bay in Alaska back in the 1960's (which in itself
> turned out to be 30 per
> cent larger than estimates of the time).  Alaska is
> a US state, thus it is
> our oil.  Alaskans overwhelmingly want drilling
> there but leftists in our
> government and the environmental movement do not.  I
> want clean air and
> water as much as anyone, but our national security
> is very much at stake
> here.
>
>
>
> Oil drilling technology is so good today that they
> only need about 2000
> acres for drilling in ANWR, which is over 1 milion
> acres!  You basically
> will not even know that they are drilling!  One
> thing the environmentalists
> cry about are the caribou and elk popualtions.  When
> the Alaska Oil Pipeline
> was built inhthe 1960's to move the oil from Prudhoe
> Bay south to the tanker
> terminals, they had to make it so it would cross
> over elk/caribou migration
> patterns.  No problem there.  Also - the pipeline is
> ehated so the oil can
> move in winter.  What this did was serve to raise
> the elk/caribou
> populations as they gathered near the pipleine to be
> warm and thus
> increasing the actual sizes of the herds!  The
> environmentalists don't tell
> you that part!  Same thing would happen with the new
> pipeline from ANWR.
>
>
>
> Secondly, there is even more oil under the floor of
> the Gulf of Mexico.  We
> already tap into that somewhat but not even close to
> its capacity.  Again,
> thank the environmentalists who take any new oil
> rigs to court.  There is so
> much oil unde r the Gulf that most of the natural
> seepage from fissures in
> the floor drifts to our shores as big globs.  These
> are not from the oil
> rigs in the Gulf - this is natural oil seepage from
> there being so much of
> it there!
>
>
>
> Oil exists under the Great lakes, in tar sands and
> oil shale and gasoline
> can even be made from the gasification of our vast
> coal reseves (we have the
> world's largest coal supply).  The German military
> in World War 2 ran
> largely on gassified coal (they had the largest
> reserves in Europe) and they
> invented the process back in the 1930's.  It is
> expensive but with oil
> prices being what they are today, well within the
> capability and price
> level.  Diesel fuel no longer needs to be made from
> oil; the first diesel
> engine did not run on oil, it ran on plant
>
> byproducts!  Thus, America's soy beans can be very
> easily, and cheaply,
> converted to diesel fuel for all of the trucks in
> America as bio-diesel.  I
> have a pal who has a diesel RV and he goes around my
> town and gets all the
> used cooking oil from Chinese restaraunts.  They
> normally have to pay
> someone to haul that off for recycling so are happy
> to give it to him.  He
> takes it back to his garage, filters it and then
> puts it in his gas tank of
> the RV and gets 600 free miles!  He only had to
> tweak something a bit in the
> engine for it to work!  There is absolutely no
> reason at all that any diesel
> fuel used in America has to come from oil!
>
>
>
> Another way to bring down oil prices by lowering
> demand is to stop making
> lots of people sit in rush hour traffic and drive to
> an office to work.
> With computers they can work at home and
> tele-commute!  I work at home.  One
> of my Clarkston classmates is a VP for Bank of
> America and she only has to
> go to the office once a week and yet overseas some
> 50 people from her home
> office!  Cutting down 20 percent of the traffic by
> letting people work from
> home would be a huge savings alone in gas and oil
> demand!  Not to mention
> helping to clean the air over cities!
>
>
>
> So - want to bring down gas prices?  A petition to
> President Bush will not
> help at all as he is powerless to do anything.
> Demand of your elected
> officials that drilling in ANWR begin immediately
> and that all of its oil is
> for America alone (7 per cent of Prudhoe Bay is sold
> to Japan).  Demand more
> drilling in the Gulf and start drilling in the Great
> Lakes.   Demand that
> they give tax incentives to businesses for
> converting coal to gasoline and
> oil shale and tars to gasoline.  Demand more wind
> farms and solar panels and
> get tax breaks for those that invest in these
> technologies from homes to
> businesses (put small wind turbines on your house
> along with solar panels so
> you can produce more of your own electricity).
> Demand that they give tax
> incentives to car makers to invest in hydrogen
> technology for cars to get
> them on the road must faster (hybrids are only a
> stop-gap).  This will
> create more American jobs too (we already are the
> world's largets maker of
> solar panels but most of what we make goes overseas)
> and, most importantly -
> demand an energy policy that weens the USA of all
> foreign energy supplies
> within 10 years!  We might all be old enough to
> recall when President
> Kennedy set the goal for landing a man on the moon
> by decade's end; we need
> the same type of national endeavor today!!!  It can
> be done!   We get most
> or our imported oil from Venezuela (who yesterday
> threatened to cut us off -
> they have a leftist government that we are not happy
> with), Canada and
> Mexico and less from the Middle East.  Even still,
> these nations can control
> us to some extent by the thrat of cutting us off.
> The USA needs to be able
> to stand on its own energy wise.
>
>
>
> That is the petition that needs to be sent to our
> Congress - demand that
> they help get us energy self-sufficient within ten
> years.
>
>
>
> But do understand the basic law of economics and
> world oil prices.  If the
> market perceives a terror threat to a pipeline or
> oil field the price will
> go up.  If a hurricane damages refineries and oil
> platforms on the Gulf
> Coast the price will go up.  If a refinery blows up,
> which happens, the
> price of gas will go up.  If China and India buy
> more and more oil from a
> world market already pumping to almost maximum
> capacity, the price will go
> up.  If more oil is found and put on the market the
> price will go down.  If
> more refineries are built the price will go down.
>
>
>
> Off the soapbox.
>
>
>
> Greg Biggs
>
>
>




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