Could gas spike by $1.50 a gallon

[AUTiger1 0]

There are BOTH Republican and Democrats that are co sponsors of this bill.....personally, I'm equal opportunity, I choose to blame them all. I choose to blame the Democrats for blocking drilling and exploration 10 years ago and I blame the Republicans for not pushing hard enough. If we had got the drills out and built some more refineries 10 years ago, that oil would be on the market and it would be cheap enough. Which today, would allow us today to spend money and invest into new technologies, cleaner energy and we wouldn't have to wait around for them to hit the market before it would benefit our pocketbooks and the environment. If the rising cost of energy is such an issue to them, then why haven't they got off their (non)honorable butts and done something about it when energy cost first started going up? It's not like this happened overnight and that we didn't see it was going to happen for some time now. If the studies mentioned in the article are true, times are going to get tough for a lot of people.

Senators Warn Bill Could Spike Gas $1.50 to $5 a Gallon

Inhofe, Sessions blast massive costs of global warming legislation.

By Jeff Poor

Business & Media Institute

5/15/2008 5:44:34 PM

Worried about gas prices hitting $4 a gallon and beyond? Imagine if they were $6, $7 or even $8 a gallon. Those levels are a certain possibility should Congress pass cap-and-trade legislation, which could face a vote in early June.

Oil is trading at record levels, in excess of $120 a barrel. Leading Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) both told the Business & Media Institute (BMI) energy prices would drastically increase if the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) is signed into law.

“The studies show it would be directly affected, would be a $1.50 a gallon, in addition to what it is today,” Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said to (BMI).

Inhofe spoke at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 15 to introduce the “We Get It!” campaign – a program founded by evangelical Christians that question the merits of global warming alarmism. According to Inhofe, the bill will make it to the floor of the Senate on June 2.

“So now I think we need to concentrate on what it will cost the American people,” he said during the press conference. “To try to put it in a perspective people understand, if we had ratified, according to the Wharton School of Economics, the Kyoto Treaty, back five years ago, it would have cost about – between $300 and $330 billion – that was the range they had. This bill that’s up today is $471 billion – far more than that. And the question is, what do you get for it?”

Sessions, a member of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, went a step further. He cited sources that suggest the increase could be as much as $5 a gallon. “[L]et me tell you what’s heading down the tracks,” Sessions said to BMI on May 14. “In a few weeks, we expect that the cap-and-trade legislation that’s been voted out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works Committee will be on the floor and according to the Environmental Protection Agency it will increase gas prices by $1.50. The National Association of Manufacturers says it will increase it as much as $5 per gallon.”

Sessions proposed that money should be spent on energy investment versus a regulatory bureaucracy to enforce the provisions of the Lieberman-Warner bill. “So instead of actually coming forward with any idea about what to do about rising prices, we’ll soon be voting on a bill that has already passed committee, has some Republican support, that would surge the price of energy, create a bureaucracy – and I just don’t think is the right thing to do,” Sessions said. “I’d rather spend our money in investing in the new the technologies, helping get nuclear power online, improving batteries, researching cellulosic ethanol. Let’s spend our money on that without creating cap-and-trade bureaucracies that have not worked in Europe.”

According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas in Europe ranges from $8 to $9 a gallon. Gas prices have been one of the most reported news stories of the past several years. Reporters have repeatedly warned of prices approaching the levels Inhofe and Sessions warned about. However, journalists have consistently complained about oil company profits, not taxes, making gas prices higher. On NBC’s May 15 “Today,” host Matt Lauer interviewed ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) CEO Rex Tillerson. Lauer quizzed Tillerson on oil companies’ profit margins and higher gas prices, but Lauer didn’t ask Tillerson about the potential impact Lieberman-Warner would have on the price of gasoline.

“Well, the problem we have right now, and fortunately we have several months before the election, to make sure the American people know that this is a supply problem that is causing the gas prices to go up,” Inhofe said to BMI. “You know the Democrats, right down party lines – they do not want to drill in ANWR, they do not want to drill offshore. They don’t want the tar sands. They don’t want more energy. And they don’t want refinery capacity.” The Senate defeated a measure to drill in ANWR on May 13. The vote, an amendment to another bill, was killed by a vote of 42-56, largely along party lines. Only one Democrat voted for the amendment, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and five Republicans voting against it.

Inhofe blamed Democratic policies going as far back as the Clinton administration. “The Democrats are the reason we have high prices at the pumps, and we’re not going to be able to alleviate that until we start producing again in America,” Inhofe added. “And I knew this was happening way back, well 10 years ago, when President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to drill in ANWR. I said on the Senate floor that day 10 years ago that in 10 years we would regret this. It’s now 10 years later.”

LINK

[Justin5 20]

Is oil a resource that is unlimited?

No?

Then you would agree we need to come up with new solutions, correct?

Then you can't keep drilling your way to lower prices. We need energy reform.

[AUTiger1 0]

Is oil a resource that is unlimited?

No?

Then you would agree we need to come up with new solutions, correct?

Then you can't keep drilling your way to lower prices. We need energy reform.

I know this hard for a lot of people. Reading is a difficult concept. I said, If we had drilled and built refineries 10 years ago, that oil would be on the market available to the consumer right now as of today and it would be cheap! We could already today have our money invested in new technologies and cleaner energy. If we had done this 10yrs ago then we wouldn't be paying what we are for fuel and those with lesser incomes wouldn't be driving to work just so they could afford to drive to work. Jezz, some of you people on the left kill me, you read what you want to read and never listen to all a person has to say. Just b/c I wished we would have drilled our own oil 10yrs ago, doesn't mean that I don't want us to invest in new technologies and cleaner energy. But god forbid we drill our own oil so people wouldn't be struggling. The newer technologies that you talk about, will take years to hit the market. We should have done what we needed too 10 years ago!!! Dang it people, wake up. Our wonderful congress knew this and they have done nothing other than partisan bickering and we are stuck today exactly where we are b/c of it. So once again, I blame them all.

[OldNewby 27]

There are a multitude of people to blame… lack of leadership from the past several decades of Presidents, Reps and Senators who have waltzed around the problem since the 70s, environmentalists who have stifled improvements in nuclear energy, building of new refineries, and domestic oil exploration and capture, and the driving public who need a tank to drive themselves to work and back five days a week.

So… what do we do now? Get to work on all avenues of improving and solving the current mess, that's what! Build more refineries and build new nuclear plants and retrofit old ones - drill more of our own oil fields - invest in wind, solar and battery technology. IOW, get off our sorry butts, and never say never

If we think gas is high now, just wait and repeat the last 40 years of stop gap thinking.

[AUTiger1 0]

There are a multitude of people to blame… lack of leadership from the past several decades of Presidents, Reps and Senators who have waltzed around the problem since the 70s, environmentalists who have stifled improvements in nuclear energy, building of new refineries, and domestic oil exploration and capture, and the driving public who need a tank to drive themselves to work and back five days a week.

So… what do we do now? Get to work on all avenues of improving and solving the current mess, that's what! Build more refineries and build new nuclear plants and retrofit old ones - drill more of our own oil fields - invest in wind, solar and battery technology. IOW, get off our sorry butts, and never say never

If we think gas is high now, just wait and repeat the last 40 years of stop gap thinking.

You are saying the exact thing that Sessions was saying in the article and not long ago on the Senate Floor. I agree, you are spot on.

I don't understand why if you are for drilling then you are automatically labeled as not being for researching new sources of energy. That is not what I am saying at all. My point is that this should have been a major concern a long time ago. We knew there is a limited amount of oil and we carried on like it would all be ok.

What makes me so mad is that, and now this is where I blame the public, we keep voting these goons into their office every time and if they truly felt that this was going to be a major issue or if they cared at all, they would have done something about it a long time ago. I use 10 yrs ago, but you are correct, it was avoided like the plague in the 70's and 80's as well. Everyone in the House and Senate has been guilty of using the rising cost of energy to score political points and that's all. Just ticks me off to no end.

[tiger88 934]

We are just starting to see some of the effects of high gas on the economy. "Get ready, cause this sh$t's about to get heavy", as eminem would say.