Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Congress feels pressure for action on oil prices
Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said anxiety over fuel oil costs is at crisis proportions in her state. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said oil drilling advocates weighed in from the sidelines as she marched in a Fourth of July parade.
Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, heard it even closer to home, from his own teenager. “My daughter said, ‘Dad, what are you going to do about gas prices?’ ” Mr. Casey said.
After spending a week in their states and districts with angry and frightened consumers, many lawmakers have returned to Capitol Hill convinced that Congress cannot afford a prolonged stalemate over energy policy.
… Neither Republicans nor Democrats are being spared in the minds of voters, one said. “They blame ‘the government,’ ” said Ms. Collins, who noted that many Maine residents were panicked at the possibility of
paying $5,000 to heat their homes this winter. . .
In both parties, there was a notable shift in tone. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has made a refrain in recent weeks of saying, “We cannot drill our way out of this problem.” But he opened his news conference on Tuesday with a different approach: “Let’s begin the discussion here by saying, Democrats support domestic production.”
He also hinted at a potential element of compromise legislation: that any oil produced from wider access to federal lands off shore be reserved for domestic use and barred from export. . .
(9 July 2008)
BA:
Article describes some of the thinking and proposals about energy in Congress. From a peak oil perspective, they are pretty wide of the mark.
The demand to “do” something about oil prices brings to mind the saying they taught us in paramedic training: “Don’t just DO something, STAND THERE. In other words, don’t rush to do something without understanding what the problem really is.
Contributor Jeffrey J. Brown writes:
The underlying assumption that both political parties largely operate under is that we can have an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil energy resource base. There are two types of Americans: those who now realize that we live in a finite world with finite fossil fuel reserves, and those who will realize that we live in a finite world.
The US has been a net oil importer since the 1940’s, but we export some crude and petroleum products. Note the discussion of curtailing exports. This is a developing trend, where food and energy exporters restrict food and energy exports in order to meet domestic demand and to keep prices down.
Delta, other airlines urge fliers to lobby Congress about oil
Kelly Yamanouchi, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Delta, AirTran and other airlines on Wednesday began sending letters to frequent fliers encouraging them to pressure Congress to regulate oil speculation, which the airlines say is behind the huge spike in jet fuel prices.
Frequent fliers of Delta Air Lines, AirTran Airways and at least 10 other airlines are receiving the missives via e-mail. They encourage the consumers to go to a Web site that has a form memo ready to send to lawmakers.
The site, stopoilspeculationnow.com, lists members of a coalition including airlines, cargo carriers and other groups representing airport executives, unionized employees, corporate travel executives, gasoline dealers, bus companies and others.
The letter, signed by chief executives of the airlines, tells customers oil prices mean “widespread economic pain” and adds, “this pain can be alleviated, and that is why we are taking the extraordinary step of writing this joint letter to our customers.”
The e-mails are going out to tens of millions of frequent fliers, according to Air Transport Association spokesman David Castelveter.
(9 July 2008)
At the bottom of the email is a weird copyright message:
This email message and its content are copyrighted and are proprietary products of Delta Air Lines, Inc. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this message or its contents, in any medium, is strictly prohibited.
What is that all about? Normally if you are trying persuade the public, you encourage people to copy the message and pass it on. Is this an attempt to control how the message is presented? -BA
Kunstler: where we’re at
James Howard Kunstler, blog
Every time I saw a car towing a motorboat this holiday weekend, I wondered what was going through the head of the towee. Did they have a sense that darkness was falling on their careers in motor sports? Did they have an inkling that an oil-and-gas crisis is upon us and just not give a shit? Or were they just going through the motions, following some implacable rote programming induced by, say, forty-odd years of TV addiction and a diet based on corn-syrup byproducts?
The holiday to me was a creepy hiatus from an ever more desperate reality overtaking the nation like a miasma. Meanwhile, the mainstream media’s ongoing narrative has gotten stuck in the moronic groove of “drill drill drill.” The belief of people like Larry Kudlow of CNBC and uber-mega-idiot John Stossel of ABC-News is that we could go back to $1.50 gasoline if only congress would open the offshore exploration areas and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This view is just plain erroneous. Nothing we get out of these regions will come close to offsetting the ongoing depletion of worldwide oil resources, or even arresting our own losses.
Larry King had a particularly dreary debate Sunday night between Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and a grab bag of “drill drill drill” advocates.
(8 July 2008)
The dysfunctional U.S.A. as seen through the eyes of Jim Kunstler. -BA
