Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Oil Mess Stinks!

Question: What do you think of all this oil mess? Richard Walton, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Answer: It stinks. Unfortunately, no matter who wins the Presidential election, none of those running have yet proposed anything that would be of benefit to America or Americans. The Democrats want to tax oil companies even more. That is totally the wrong thing to do. It will do nothing positive nor will it produce a single gallon of gasoline. Oil has been politicized and that always hurts. Government has no reason to be involved. It should allow the free market to operate. The free market or capitalism would never have introduced a corn-based gas supplement that cost more to produce than it's worth. It was required by Congress and is a total disaster.
What we need, Richard, is more American oil. And we have plenty of it in the ground. We need to pump it out of the ground and we need new American refineries to turn it into gasoline. We have enough oil under American soil to be energy self-sufficient. However, we do not have the refining capacity to handle our own demand. Consequently, at the same time we begin a large drilling operation (Alaska, North Dakota, off-shore), we need to start building additional refineries. This would be a good thing for our nation (to rid ourselves of dependence upon foreign oil suppliers and stem the huge flow of American money to nations that do not like us and wish us harm), both politically and financially. It would also be a good thing for American consumers. So who would oppose something that would be good for our country and our people? Democrats stand in that line all the time. And, of course, our totally socialist friends, the environmentalists, would oppose both drilling for oil and refining oil.
Richard, I think that this is what we need to do. It is not what I think will happen anytime soon. The politics against it are too strong right now. And it takes about ten years to build a refinery and about ten years to begin getting oil from a new project. I suppose it will have to get a lot worst before enough Americans wake up and realize that environmentalists and Democrats do not have America's best interests at heart.