LIEBERMAN: No time for an oil crackdown

If high gas prices will ensure O'bam-bam and his version of socialism is gone in 4 years I am all for it.

Here's what I think about this government made situation. With an estimated 3 trillion barrels of oil in shale oil deposits out west, this country could be completely independent of imported oil with in a few years. This country sits on oceans of natural gas. This country has the largest coal deposits in the world and the technology to turn it into gas and oil for high grade, diesel and gasoline. It's called coal gasification and liquefaction. The funny thing about this is that China bought the process from an American company in 2002 and has been building plants using the process since then. The project is called "The Coal-to Clean Fuels and Power Project, Gilbertson, PA, USA" and it works using scrap coal that is not good enough for sale. Clean coal technology is already here, Mr. Obama and you should be promoting it big time. You don't have to fine coal out of existence for it's "carbon footprint". Winter started a month early this season and I mean Winter! Temperatures in the teens in Michigan in November! Last Winter was one of the coolest and longest since the 1960s. Hey! Al Gore! What Man Made Global Warming? Seems the real truth is that the Sun was doing all the dirty work. If that's not true, how come Mars warmed at the rate the Earth did? So why is the government prohibiting the development of these huge resources that can make this country supremely wealthy again? Think about it. The largest coal and oil deposits in the world. Possibly the largest natural gas deposits in the world. Global warming is a con and nothing but an excuse used by the government to perpetuate it's control of our energy resources and generate this seemingly overwhelming economic crisis. Bums me out to see the government sell the country out like this but it keeps getting voted into office to do this. Are the citizens of the United States that suicidal? I guess so. Such a bummer!

Steven Chu has it wrong. Europe's gas prices are not intended to keep Europeans from driving. They are intended to provide tax revenue for the socialist government programs. How can someone like this make such a ridiculous claim???? Look at the history of gas taxes in Europe and it is apparent. Further, I think Mr. Chu already has figured out how to "boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe". It is to tax it with 2 to 4$ a gallon charges by the government. What a disgrace! Where is the outrage!!~!????

to Kaga, we have the only population where 54% of the people are BELOW average intelligence. That is how this country is in the situation of keeping it from using it's natural resources which equate to wealth.

What else do we expect from those who think that the solution to every problem is tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend...ad infinitum? As one who has worked in two state government departments, in two different states, I can testify unequivocally that--to paraphrase Paul McCartney's "my love does it good"--no one does it bad as government. It does not matter whether it is the government of a democratic republic (what America used to be), a "communist" (which never truly existed anyway), a socialist (just a modern twist on dictatorship), or an oligarchy of whatever stripe (as in theistic/deistic dictatorships, or up-front tyrants (as in the former Borneo). They all do it equally bad. You choose which type you think this country has now.

Gas goes to $4.00 again without offshore drilling, D's will become as endangered as the oil platforms the did not allow to be built. The green energy policy will soon prove to be a pipe dream.

One definition of a lottery is that it is a tax on people that can't do math. The author implies that domestic oil production can make the US independent of oil imports with this statement: "Thus, the leasing process can commence in areas estimated to contain 19 billion barrels of untapped oil - about 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia. And, it should be noted, these initial estimates tend to be on the low side. We may well find much more oil." In 2006 the US consumed about 7.6 billion barrels of oil, and the domestic US oil production was about 3.1 billion barrels. Therefore, the US had to import the difference: 4.5 billion barrels. Finding an additional 19 billion barrels will eliminate our need to import oil for about four years - not 30 years. This is not a long term solution. Even if there is 50 percent more oil and if oil consumption declines due to a global economic slowdown we get maybe seven years. We are not going to be able to produce our way out of our dependency on foreign oil. We need to consume less oil. Do the math and stop gambling that we are going to hit the oil production jackpot.

The author implies that we can have about 30 years of current imports from SAUDI ARABIA, not all imports. Read the words. Further, the anti oil use crowd always break each domestic oil area as only good for supply the country with x years. Therefore it answers nothing to our problem. The point is if you take all the different supply areas added up it makes a large amount. Plus during this period others will be found and developed. The answer is not to stop drilling and using our natural resource, that is just stupid.

Dittoman: I read the words, and I thought they were misleading. So instead we will buy our our from Iran?

Sorry: change "our our" to "our oil". To clarify, the implication seems to be that we ought to do nothing to curtail consumption and should instead just drill, baby, drill. Higher fuel prices, whether it be due to taxes or low supplies, will ultimately reduce consumption and make the existing oil last longer. I think this is a good thing that most, but not all, can agree on. Oil is the preferred energy source now because there is still a lot of it, because the supplies are still readily abundant, and the technology to refine it and burn it are pretty mature. But it won't last forever and reducing pollution along the way is a noble goal, so I for one and pretty happy to see policy makers at least discussing issues that are likely to become more pressing in the future. I agree that increasing domestic oil production in every way possible does help reduce our dependency on foreign oil, but it is NOT going to solve the problem. No way. Efficiency, alternate energy, conservation, rezoning (force people to live closer together so they don't need to consume huge amounts of energy just to commute), and so on. That status quo is going to go away, and we need to acknowledge that fact.

If the Democrats push the price of fuel back up, they will succeed in pushing themselves right out of the majority. We are an energy rich, and at the same time impoverished nation. And that is our fault. What we need is quite simple. Royalties. Look at the support for oil exploration and production in Alaska even by rank-and-file Democrats there. Why? Because the state of Alaska, unlike your Federal Government, dispenses royalty payments to the people (this is not wind-fall profits as some would have you believe). So I propose that any leasing and royalty payments collected by Uncle Sam be paid to the people. Call it an economic stimulus payment. And let the drilling begin.

We don't buy from Iran, we buy from our own domestic supplies. Each barrel we bring in is one less we have to import. If people are really serious about curbing oil use(we don't have to be herded like cattle near cities) then they would be talking about building nuclear power plants to electrify our cities and plants and homes. Nuclear is capable of doing that, right here, right now...baby. That is how you know when someone is just anti oil and coal, usually the greenies. If they were sincere about running out of oil and coal, carbon footprints and mankind in general, they would see and support the energy of the 21st century. We should move forward not backward. We have the technology and should be using it. Europe the utopia of anti oil crowd produces most of it's electricity by nuclear. Stop with all these archaic arguments about alternative sources and get real about the enormity of the power that is needed. I read where if all the grains in the world for a year were turned into ethanol, it would still be a fraction of the oil used in that year. Yes, I will agree that alternative sources are fine to implement, but they should be recognized for their limited ability to actually supply the world needs.

To Dittoman: I don't think the IQ of US citizenry is so low. In the 1960s the USSR sent a horde of "teachers" to the US to indoctrinate and brainwash the young of this country. It seems to have succeeded beyond the USSR's wildest dreams. Unfortunately, the USSR is no longer able to take advantage of this policy of corruption of our youth. It is an ongoing project in all our schools now and has been promoted by our government for a few decades because, lets face it, the ignorant are easier to control than the well educated. The schools when I was young at least taught us how to learn and teach ourselves and THINK. You weren't taught how to feel good about your self unless you considered your accomplishment in your school projects something to feel good about. If something bad happened, there were no Grief Counselors. You talked it over with your family and friends or just kept it to yourself. The measure of intelligence is how much you know and how you use and adapt that knowledge to solve a problem. Not how stupid you become in government run schools. As for domestic energy, we don't need nuclear plants for electricity. There is enough coal in this country to last for an estimated 680 years. The WORLD usage of oil is estimated at one trillion barrels in the last 100 years (since Britain started using oil to power it's warships in 1908). There are three trillion barrels of oil in the oil shale deposits in a tri-state desert region of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Natural gas? This country sits on oceans of it. Our second biggest resource next to coal. Ethanol? Made from our food? How about methanol? Made from cow, chicken and pig crap. Works as good as ethanol. Open wheel race cars and drag race cars run on methanol. Crap is free, unless we're talking about all the crap you get out of Washington. That's expensive stuff. I guess the corn lobby won. The middle east is running out of oil. Iraq invaded Kuwait because Kuwait was side drilling into Iraqi oil fields. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves doubled from 130 billion to 260 billion barrels in the last thirty years since oil was nationalized there. How did that happen without any new discovery? I call it Saudi Math. This country imports 60% of it's imported oil from Canada. Canada would send more but the US doesn't have the refinery capacity to handle more. Canada gets the majority of it's oil from Oil Tar Sands. Similar to Oil Shale but the deposits are not as old and the sand hasn't turned into maral sandstone or what is called shale yet. Off shore drilling off the east coast of Florida? You saw what happened when Hurricane Ike covered the Gulf. All the oil drilling and refining platforms were shut down and had to be repaired after the storm. Don't you think that would happen when a tropical storm went up the east coast? Of course it would. Bad idea when there is so much oil in the middle of the mainland.

We do, however, buy from unsavory vendors like Venezuela. Even if we don't buy from Iran, others, like China, Japan, and India, will continue to do so. And so the petrodollars and petroyen and petroyuan will flow to countries with less than a kind regard for the developed world. Nuclear power is ok if it is done properly. In fact, the French are very admirable in this respect, as all of their nuclear plants are of the same design so that a large body of applicable maintenance and safety information is accrued...I agree that we need to look at every option: increasing supplies of energy and limiting usage. My fundamental assertion is that higher prices are not such a bad thing because they will bring about efficiency improvements. And the tax revenue will help reduce the national debt (if fiscal reserve can be exercised -- perhaps a tall order). I assume you are ok with reducing the national debt which devalues the dollar and endangers the well being of future generations. There are tons of business opportunities here with these emerging markets and technologies.

To Tanzkuchen: Higher prices can only be construed as good when it applies to imported goods with higher tariffs. Tariffs are a way of leveling the "Playing Field" when domestic products compete with cheaper imports. The tariff is a tax placed on the import by the government to raise the price of the import to the price of the same domestic product. Then competition is between the quality of the two products. This drives the domestic producer to higher standards for it's product and the consumer benefits. Tax revenue will never be able to pay off the national debt. Not when a consuming entity like the government barrows most of what it spends by selling paper like T-bills and other bonds to foreign government backed banks. Feature this: For the first time in US history, in 2008, the government's total debt exceeded the total wealth of it's citizens. Now that's exciting! Under Obama's reign, his "Economic Bailout and Reinvestment" plan is to aggressively borrow trillions more money to pump into this, failing, economy instead of practicing fiscal responsibility and changing the bad economic policies generated by the government for the past 50 years to benefit this country. Higher prices and taxes only harm the working poor in this country and drive them to the government dole. Gives the government more power over them but doesn't really help them any. The total government debt was estimated to be 87 trillion dollars in 1991. I wonder what it is now? $53 trillion more? Or so? How do you think that horrifying amount of debt can ever be paid back? It's beyond me how that could ever happen. Bill Clinton balanced the yearly budget by redesigning the Federal Script and printing both the old and new design without counting or collecting and destroying (the law) the old design. Since the economy is cash driven, this made the economy look twice as good as it actually was with twice the currency as was being counted. What a great con that was! And Obama's hiring Clinton guys to try it again. Change you can believe in? As the French say, "The more things change. The more they stay the same.".