Root Cause of High Gas Prices - Radical Environmentalism

Okay, here is the scope on the impact of radial environmentalism on the price of gas in America and, for that matter, the entire world.

If there were any question in the past as to the environmentalists need to crush our way of life, not in my opinion, the environmentalists have turned on the lights so we all can see where they have been hiding and what they have been up to for the last forty years; legislation in congress to stop all energy development and demonstrations at jobs sites of new energy construction.

I love this country and I want it to be as beautiful as we can make it and that means having a good environmental policy that benefits us all. But it is equally important that this policy take into effect the needs of the population that depends on a growing economy. Without a growing and dynamic economy we won't have the money to support an environment that will sustain us and our offspring.

This is important - come November we have to get common sense back in our government - vote with your eyes open. Read as much as you can about free markets and energy demand that we need now and in the future. I will continue to bring this up as I see it as the single most important item in our country. Everything we do and need is related to fossil fuels.

Keep the faith, we are all doing our best in the battle for America!


Plugging Up The Pipeline

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008

Anyone who's not sure why gasoline prices are so high has the opportunity to see a real-time reason being played out in public as an environmental group sues over the expansion of a refinery

The Natural Resources Defense Council is asking a federal judge to stop construction of BP's planned $3.8 billion expansion — not a new facility — of its Whiting refinery in northwest Indiana. The group claims BP needs a more restrictive air permit from the state because the refinery would discharge far more pollution than what it's been approved for. In addition to shutting down construction, the NRDC wants BP fined $32,500 a day for each day it has been under construction without the more restrictive permit.

There hasn't been a new oil refinery built in the U.S. since 1976, in part because of actions like those of the NRDC. The environmental lobby, which went off the rails decades ago, has resisted almost every attempt to create more energy from fossil fuels.

One particularly telling example outside of Indiana can be found in Arizona. There, construction of a new refinery was held up for almost 10 years by environmental groups using regulations from the Clean Air Act as a hammer. The environmentalists will point out that industry executives themselves have said that refinery margins in the past 10 to 15 years have not been high enough to justify new refineries and that there will be no need to build a new one at least through 2030. But, we submit, that's because the industry was forced to keep up with demand by, in a sense, doing more with less.

First, the industry resorted to expansions of existing plants because it's cheaper than building new facilities due to environmental regulations. These are the same regulations that are holding up BP's Indiana expansion, which, according to environmental groups, isn't needed anyway. (If that's so, why is BP building it?).

Second, technological advances in refining let the demonized oil companies continue sending a steady supply into the market, even as refineries closed. While the number of facilities has been more than halved, from 324 in 1981 to 149 today (see chart), refining capacity over the same time has hardly dropped at all, from 18.6 millions barrels a day to only 17.5 million barrels a day now.

It should be obvious that more capacity is needed, given that as domestic refinery capacity fell, U.S. gasoline consumption jumped 42%, from 2.4 billion barrels in 1981 to 3.4 billion barrels last year. To keep our economy humming and maintain our standard of living, we need more refineries. It's that simple.

The environmentalists don't see it that way, though. Their gaze is to the rear, never ahead, except for their apocalyptic visions of the future: scorched Earth, too-thick-to-see-through smog, burning rivers, oceans running with crude, dried-up lakes, naked forests and hospitals overflowing with people sickened by industry, all watched over by greedy oilmen counting their billions.

America has so far paid a small price for the radical environmentalism that grew out of a rational movement in the 1960s. The costs will eventually be deeply painful, though, if lawmakers and the courts continue to give these groups license to shut down needed energy
advancements.

While the environmental groups will claim they are in no way responsible for rising gasoline prices, the fact is that, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis, almost 25% of the capital investment in refineries in the 1990s was used to comply with environmental regulations.

In raw dollars, oil companies laid out more than $100 billion between 1992 and 2001 to bring their refineries into compliance with environmental rules. Is the public supposed to believe these costs have had no impact on today's gasoline prices?

Americans need to get wise to what their "protectors" are doing to them, supposedly on their behalf.