(CNN) -- A huge oil spill oozing toward the Gulf Coast on Thursday threatens hundreds of species of wildlife, some in their prime breeding season, environmental organizations said.
The Coast Guard said Wednesday that the amount of oil spilling from an underwater well after an oil rig explosion last week has increased to as many as 5,000 barrels of oil a day, or 210,000 gallons, five times more than what was originally believed.
Last week, the Washington Post published an article about oil speculation and its effect on soaring fuel costs. The story, entitled "A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading," discusses how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) examined the books of one energy conglomerate and found that the company was involved in speculation "as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel."
North Mississippians are struggling to afford high gas prices, and we need to crack down on price manipulators like these that are artificially increasing fuel costs. I strongly support new oil drilling, but preparing drilling sites and building a sufficient number of refineries will take years. Ending speculation, on the other hand, would have an immediate effect on reducing gas prices and providing relief for Americans.From day one in office, I have fought against oil speculators. My first vote in Congress was to stop oil producers in the Middle East from price gouging Americans at the pump. The Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008, which passed in the House with overwhelming support, authorizes the U.S. Department of Justice to sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for colluding to limit the production and supply of oil and manipulating prices.
I have also introduced a six-point energy plan to provide immediate relief to North Mississippians from prices at the pump and offer long-term solutions to our nation's energy crisis. The first point in my plan is to stop speculation and price gouging as a means of providing this immediate relief.
As the CFTC findings in the Washington Post article suggest, there is reason to believe that speculation is artificially inflating the price of crude oil and other energy commodities. That's why I supported the bipartisan Energy Markets Emergency Act, which directs the CFTC to use its authority to eliminate excessive oil speculation, price distortion, and sudden or unwarranted changes in prices.
In July, the Agriculture Committee held an investigation on oil speculation. I serve on this Committee and participated in multiple hearings to explore various solutions to inflated prices of oil and other commodities, and to provide a general overview of current legislation to address issues surrounding commodities markets.
By stopping current oil speculation and preventing future price manipulation, we can start to drive down gas prices. I will continue to support and initiate important legislation and investigations that aim to end oil speculation and bring down the cost of fuel for North Mississippians.
Tax loopholes that save the oil industry $5 billion were removed from the original Senate version of the $70 billion GOP tax bill in 2006 but under pressure Congressional negotiators put them back in the final bill. The $5 billion for big-oil could have been used instead to partially offset an increase in middle class taxes. Not only did Wicker vote for the final tax bill with the big-oil tax breaks, but he also voted against a Democratic motion to repeal the big-oil tax breaks. [Republican Policy Committee, 2/7/06; Washington Post, 4/26/06; Joint Tax Committee, 5/9/06; Vote 135, 5/10/06; Vote 109, 4/27/06, USA Today, 4/27/06]They even have some nice graphs that display the profits for Big Oil in contrast with your rising prices at the pump.
A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.
In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.
...
From the beginning, it was clear that Cheney was running the show, chairing meetings of the task force -- made up of about a dozen Cabinet officers and senior officials -- in his ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Much of the task force's work was done by a six-person staff, led by its executive director, Andrew D. Lundquist, a former aide to Republican Sens. Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski of Alaska. In 2000, Lundquist was the Bush campaign's energy expert; Bush nicknamed him "Light Bulb."
Today, Lundquist is a lobbyist, and he has represented some of the companies who appeared before the task force, such as BP, Duke Energy and the American Petroleum Institute. He did not return phone calls for this article
Who do we know was there?
1. One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration
2. A week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings
3. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.
4. British Petroleum representatives dropped by on March 22, one of about 20 oil and drilling companies to get meetings.
5. The National Mining Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the American Petroleum Institute were among three dozen trade associations that met with Cheney's staff, the document shows.
The list of participants' names and when they met with administration officials provides a clearer picture of the task force's priorities and bolsters previous reports that the review leaned heavily on oil and gas companies and on trade groups -- many of them big contributors to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. But while it clears up much of the lingering uncertainty about who was granted access to present energy policy views to Cheney's staff, it does not entirely explain why the Bush administration fought so hard to keep it and other as-yet-unreleased internal memos secret.The price of a gallon of gas was around a $1.50. The prices have nearly tripled under the Cheney-Exxon plan. How did the oil companies fare?
In recent weeks, residents have heard loud blasts and seen crews on the ground, and officials with Denbury Resources say there could be a big payoff in store.
Denbury, which has the largest oil and gas presence in Mississippi, has set up seismic survey equipment from Flora to the Ross Barnett Reservoir that uses controlled blasts to create an underground map of the area, looking for carbon dioxide.
The company buys dead oil fields and pumps carbon dioxide into them to produce more oil.
Under normal conditions, about 20 to 40 percent of a reservoir's original oil can be extracted. Using the CO2 technique can push that to 30 to 60 percent.
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Ashbrooke resident Kim Barlow said the testing should have been publicized more because those who did not know about it could have been scared.
"It was like we were being bombed," she said. "You hear the blasts, and you see this helicopter flying over."
Barlow, who has two children, said she could hear the blasts for about four days.
She worried that, especially with children in the neighborhood, the listening devices could have been dangerous.
The spill is much smaller than the ones that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Mississippi and nearby waterways.
But Wilma Subra, a chemist who advises the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said the oil could affect wildlife and work its way up the food chain into residents, many of whom fish for subsistence.
"This is a spill that occurred in a very urban area, and it can impact a very large number of people," she said.
The oil, widely used as marine fuel, is heavier than diesel but lighter than crude, and it is likely to stick to rocks, trees and wildlife, Stroh said.
Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135. Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters' assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets.
Krapels said that it wouldn't even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets."Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals," according to Gheit. "Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel."
Speculators now account for about 70% of all benchmark crude trading on the New york Mercantile Exchange, up from 37% in 2000, said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the investigations subcommittee.
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.It has been very clear to a lot of us that this was the endgame in the Iraqi struggle as far as the current administration's interests are concerned. Not to mention the prize for Big Oil is "no bid contracts", per the New York Times. That is right NO BID.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
"With no oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, today's technology has proven we can utilize our domestic energy reserves in a safe and environmentally-sound way," Wicker said.We have already shown both of these statements to be categorically false in this post and this post.
"Congress should take immediate action to utilize this domestic energy in order to lower gas prices."
There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.Roger, there were oil spills due to Katrina. Just saying that there were not does not change the reality. Gas prices will not be brought down by any drilling until 2030, so stop acting like this a sure fire fix.
Nearly six million gallons of oil pouring out of seven pipelines and
coastal storage tanks ruptured by Hurricane Katrina amount to one of the largest U.S. oil spills in history.
For any of you doubters out there, since the link in the post is to an environmental website, these are for you.Major spills so far involve facilities owned by Shell, Chevron, Murphy Oil and Bass Enterprises Production. Offshore, nearly 40 drilling rigs have been destroyed. Some washed up on local beaches, one crashed into a bridge, while others simply disappeared.
By comparison to Katrina, the Exxon Valdez oil spill -- America's largest -- dumped 11 million gallons into Alaska's Prince William Sound.
Similarly, lower 48 natural gas production is not projected to increase substantially by 2030 as a result of increased access to the OCS.The real answer is to decrease demand and invest in clean energy research, not pandering to everyday Americans who are hurting at the pump by offering a solution that sounds great but is really just a windfall in profits for the corrupt oil and gas industry. The pander strategy did not work for Senator Clinton on the gas tax holiday and won't work for McCain either. This more than any other election is shaping up to be an election centered on policy. As long as McCain keeps flip-flopping in issues , and worse flopping the wrong way, we Democrats are in good shape.
Democratic congressional candidate Travis Childers stopped at a Texaco station here Friday afternoon to denounce rising gas prices and offer solutions if elected to the U.S. House of Representatives."We need to quit depending on foreign oil," said Childers, who is also Prentiss County's chancery clerk. "We need to start depending on ourselves and explore alternative energy sources."As a more immediate strategy, Childers recommended the nation ease the filling of its reserve fuel tanks to boost oil surplus and thereby lower gas prices.At the Texaco station, on the corner of South Gloster and South Green streets, gas prices posted were $3.54 for regular and $3.78 for premium. Childers estimated they were up 25 percent from last year and said some families can't afford to buy fuel anymore."It seems like everyone in Washington is concerned about everything but working-class families," he said. "I'm concerned about working-class families. I'm concerned about north Mississippians."He also said he would not take campaign contributions from big oil companies. Childers and Republican candidate Greg Davis, mayor of Southaven, will meet in a May 13 runoff election after both led an April 22 special election for U.S. House of Representatives' 1st District seat.
