"Big Oil"
Did you know that the
United
States does NOT have any
big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil,
is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big
oil companies--all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored
monopolies--that dominate the world's oil supply.
With 94% of the world's oil supply
locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United
States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to
enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices
down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil
company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from
the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the
U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil
and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value
of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this
country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation
once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign.
This is obviously a tough situation for
the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The
United States--unlike, say, France--actually has vast petroleum reserves. It
would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a
far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to
American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of
jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless
billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela to be used in
propping up their economies.
So, why doesn't it happen? Because the
Democrat Party--aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans--deliberately keeps
gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our
reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean,
off Cuba, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil
fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits
in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American
consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to
be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't
know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how
badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and
map those reserves, let alone develop them.
In short, all Americans are paying a
terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I
own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming.
We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop
any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our
holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray
thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it
rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the
ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state
regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that
has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our
dirt berms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks
up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no berm around it. People
wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of
the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but
imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly
nothing.
So, America enjoy your
$4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62
Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP,
the massive trade
deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union
imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by
nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more
worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes
from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless
everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro, we'd be paying $62
dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a
gallon for crude oil.
What the US government also
does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most
oil production, and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for
electricity to lift the oil, and propane to keep the oil-water separators from
freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well
everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for
that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share
in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil
Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from
it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this
country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "record"
profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude
oil being siphoned away by the government. That money, plus the
road taxes, state taxes, etc., amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you
are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon.
To all you Democrats, when you
go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal
like Barrack Hussein Obama or Hillary Clinton, just
keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the
value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will
hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes
on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to
dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the
next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all
over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect
these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin
through a Democrat's name.
William "Bill"
Phillips