Are the high gas prices Bush’s fault for not promoting more drilling for oil?
We don’t drill for oil in the artic, although the russians and swedes are starting to, and we don’t drill for oil in most of the gulf of mexico, its illegal for us to, although that won’t stop other countries for doing so. Should Bush have pushed to allow more drilling?
Julian, so you don’t believe in the law of supply and demand? You should go into economics, you could totally re-write it.
Steve, I know we have oil wells in the gulf of mexico, but it is illegal for american companies to drill in most of the gulf of mexico. Some areas its legal, most areas it’s not.
Retard, don’t you think more supply would lower prices? It seems to with everything else.
Humanaid, and what does that have to do with the price of oil?
Makingco, I know he did, but I don’t think he was forceful enough!
MIKEYANTREE, I’m not talking about oil on american soil, I’m talking about the gulf of mexico, international waters, and the artic. In 100 years we’ll have alternatives to oil.
LeAnn, then why aren’t we drilling for oil in the artic and all of the gulf of mexico? The enviromentalist got those areas made illegal to drill, of course that won’t stop other countries.
Avail, you’re WRONG. Supply and demand is the only thing that determines the price of anything. On guy paying 0 for a barrel of oil does so because no one will sell it to him for . If there were lots of barrels of oil, owned by lots of people, someone would sell him a barrel for .
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
A lot of answers, but no one has put forth the leading cause in the past few years–the economic growth of China has added a good bit to the cost of oil. They don’t have easy access to oil, steel, cooper, etc. on their own and with the economy booming so fast (in past because of the upcoming Olympics) they have to buy it on the open market. Just look at copper prices. 5 years ago a pound of scrap copper was worth about a buck, now its about 4 or 5. Scrap steel (like a used car) is now worth 6-8 bucks per hundred pounds. A 2 ton car would bring you about $150. 5 years ago a friend of mine would not sell his scrap cars if he couldn’t get $40 per car!
So when you come down to it, the main problem is that we are now living in a world that has caught up to our "need" for scarce materials.
We could bring our own prices down if we were able to once again drill as we have in the past. We have more oil in the ground then most people realize! Canada–who by the way is our leading supplier of oil (2.360 million barrels per day)–has more oil in shale than the proven reserves of Sudia Arabia; and these fields run down into our Northern states! If we were to take all the coal that is in the Appilacian Mountain region and convert it to gas, we would top Cananda’s supply of shale oil! But we can’t do either of these because the Enviromentalists won’t let us!
[All you liberals who complain about the cost of oil, why aren't you yelling at them!]
I think its funny when I read answers that say Bush and Cheny are out to help the oil companies make money! If that were true, and if it was the reason we went to war in Iraq, why are we paying so much for oil? It should be cheaper now that we have the "inside" track to it all!
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
No, increasing the amount of oil being drilled is not the reason why oil is expensive. Prices have gone up because of the instability in oil rich countries, OPEC always increases the price when that happens. And it’s also gone up because the value of the dollar has dropped. The war is the problem, our foreign policy with Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, etc are the biggest problems. We need to fix those problems and get off such heavy dependence on foreign oil — drilling at home isn’t going to change the price enough to even talk about it as a part of the solution.
Edit in response: supply and demand? That was one of the faulty reasons for going into Iraq, so we can privatize their nationalized oil, increase the supply and force OPEC to lower the price because of it — they control the prices based on their whims, not on some economic principles — they use it as a tool of power, not just profit.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
We will NEVER drill our way to energy independence.
To even suggest this is to demonstrate a vast misunderstanding of two things. 1: The amount of oil we import versus the amount of untapped resources. 2: The market forces that drive oil exploration (yes, it’s the market that is the primary determiner of oil exploration, not the government.)
By the way, we do drill for oil in the Gulf. I live on the Gulf Coast and I can look out and see the oil platforms at night.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
High prices are the consumers fault for using so much of it and driving inefficient cars.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
No, it’s Bush’s fault for picking a fight with the Middle East.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
NEWSFLASH: He tried and the liberals wouldnt let him. Where were you?
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
New drilling’s have been blocked by the Democrat and Liberals with support by reactionary enviro-wackos.
We also need new refineries, there hasn’t been a new refinery built in the USA for over 30 years. Yep all because of the same people who block the drilling.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Why drill our own, when we can save it for a hundred years from now …. that is when the middle east problem is resolved and the reason will be that they have run out of oil and the rest of the world could care less about their barren deserts.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Maybe because the demorats will oppose the drilling?
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
You are implying that it is Bush’s policies and actions that are actually based on preserving our environment?
That’s ridiculous…..Bush would drill a hole through Mt. Rushmore if he thought there was any oil under it.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
He has pushed. The dems are making the gas prices high.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
NO
The reason why oil is so high, is because:
anytime instability erupts in a oil producing nation it is viewed as a threat to supply. A threat to supply is viewed as a future profit opportunity, so the traders on Wall Street buy buy buy. This pushes the price of oil up as demand appears to have grown vs supply. In reality nothing has changed other than the number of "virtual hands" that the oil passes through.
gas prices are so high, because:
1) there is no economic incentive for refiners to boost refining capacity that will only drive supply up and their profit margins down
2) Refining capacity is barely meeting supply
3) environmentalists make good scapegoats, because people are stupid enough to believe they are the reason why refiners will not boost supply.
The only thing that will give refiners an incentive to boost supply, is to cut al their taxes to 0 and tax the middle class and poor higher to give to them, so they make what they want of each gallon, and whenever they want to increase profits, raise those taxes on the poor and middle class.
People like you act like oil compnaies are these nice little help the people companies, when we have to have oil unless we change to alternative fuels. this makes this a dependancy relationship, so they are drug dealers raising their prices everytime they boost their number of addicts.
I’m wrong??! The guy said he did it just because he wanted to be the first guy to pay $100 a barrel. The price jumped for less than a day, and then dropped again. There were plenty of people that would have sold it to him for under $99.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am
I heard somthing in the news recently, c-span, congress voted down the policy of uncapping wells here in the U.S. for the oil reserves. Its not Bush’s fault, hes doen’t have that kinda of power. LOL. Besides most of the U.S.’s sweet oil is sent out of the country because we don’t own the majority of our own oil resources. LOL.
Edit: Most of the U.S. sits on Oil Shale, which was in wide production to make gas up until the early 90’s. Most operations were shut down because the patent for the technology isn’t owned locally. I think Shell owns it and who owns shell? Some of the largest Oil Shale operations were shut down by the politics of a Dem…what was her name? It was ages ago.