You know what doesn’t bring down fuel prices? Leftist Congressman like NJ’s Frank Pallone. On January 11, 2011 he sponsored the, ‘No new drilling Act of 2011′. Pallone also sits on the ‘Natural Resources committee’.

Here is a link to the proposed legislation: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-261

NJ has Christie, but has a LOOOOng way to go…

The cheapest station in town charged $4.19 a gallon for the cheapest gas. The Hi-octane was $4.85.

One prime reason gas costs so much is all the funny money that the Obamacrats and our First Blue President have printed up. Ditto for the stock market. And Gold, And Silver. And food’s going that way.

In fact, if you track all these things together over the past few years, they closely track each other. The DOW stock market bottomed out just after Obama took office at 6k, it’s around 12k now. Gas $2, now $4, etc, etc…

Let us not forget that one silly goal of the Green Obamacrats is to make the cost of carbon energy closer to the cost of ‘green energy’. The easy way to get there is to inflate the cost of $ to import oil and shut down domestic sources as much as possible. It’s not rocket science — it’s political science at work.

h/t Mark Levin radio show tonight, sourced elsewhere here

And according to Democrat from Texas Martin Frost, the four billion Obama’s been talking about hasn’t gone to the “big” oil companies since 1975.

I’m a supporter of the president. I’m concerned that he’s going to lose credibility on this oil and gas issue, because he’s not telling the truth, entirely.

What he is saying is that you need to eliminate four billion dollars worth of tax breaks for major oil companies because major oil companies have obscene profits. The problem with this is that one of the big tax breaks that he’s citing, percentage depletion, was repealed by congress in 1975, thirty-six years, as it affects major oil companies.

The only ones that get percentage depletion any more are domestic independents, who drill most of the wells in the United States and employ four million people.

Frost claims to be worried that if people find out “the president is not telling the truth about the depletion allowance, that it doesn’t go to the major oil companies, he’s going to have some additional problems in the polls.”

It may still be a good idea to simplify the tax code so that independents don’t have to hire tax experts to reduce their tax burden, but we do need to understand what the current effects are if we expect to make any positive changes. If we don’t know what we’re changing, we can’t expect good results.

This is part of why it’s important, when we talk about ending subsidies, or ending loopholes, or ending deductions, to reform the entire system. When we focus on one particular subsidy or deduction, we become susceptible to lobbyists, who will lobby to ensure that it’s the other guy’s subsidies and deductions that get cut. This naturally puts the bigger companies in the position of being able to hurt smaller companies who can’t afford as many lobbyists and lawyers. In this case, Obama has been convinced by someone that he needs to hurt “independent oil”, which will naturally benefit “big oil”.

What Obama wrote

Our outdated tax laws currently provide the oil and gas industry more than $4 billion per year in these subsidies, even though oil prices are high and the industry is projected to report outsized profits this quarter. In fact, in the past CEO’s of the major oil companies made it clear that high oil prices provide more than enough profit motive to invest in domestic exploration and production without special tax breaks.

What Obama omitted from that last sentence

In fact, in the past CEO’s of the major oil companies made it clear that high oil prices provide more than enough profit motive to invest in domestic exploration and production without special tax breaks for the major oil companies’ smaller, independent competitors.

Now, refresh my memory. Which winning 2008 Presidential Candidate received $1 million in donations from BP?

of the vehicle that will carry the 4 people those 20 some miles when rationalizing that it is cheap…

“A gallon of gas can transport four or more people in relative comfort 20 or more miles, and they can go when and how they wish to go. What is the value of that?”

Your analysis should also address what the price of crude would be if we were drilling our own soil.

This article while factual seems to have a blue state twist. We should be thankful our gas is so affordable, I mean look at Europe! You should have delved into the hidden taxes within the cost of refining, etc.

Steve Maley seems to believe gas is way too cheap and we reap way too many benifits from its use.
Lets consider why he thinks that;
He was born into a family that belongs to OPEC and believes all Americans are to be robbed at his pleasure.
OR,
He was born into ownership of BP or Exon and believes all Americans are to be robbed at his pleasure.
But then again, he is probably just another democrat who can’t get a job at the NYT and getting a handout from Redstate to produce stupit ideas.
Excuse me Redstate, why?
Mick

I wrote something very similar at the beginning of the last surge in gasoline prices, back in 2008. I even used the gas pump graphic from the EIA. People need to be reminded that the price of oil is the result of market forces, not the result of “price-gouging” by “greedy” oil companies.

There are actually three major reasons why the price of crude is so high: (1) high demand esp. from the Asian rim, (2) disruptive events in oil-producing countries, and (3) a weak dollar, since the dollar is the currency used in oil trading.

It is also useful to note, as the boys at Powerline did recently, how little control Big Oil holds over crude oil prices. Exxon-Mobil produces less than 3% of the world’s crude oil from oil fields that they own, which is far too little to exert any control over market prices. All the big boys in the crude oil market are government-run oil companies: ARAMCO (Saudi Arabia), PETROBRAS (Brazil), PDVSA (Venezuela), and so forth. And no one of them controls enough production to actually control the price of oil, though any of them can affect it. The companies that the brainless liberals call “Big Oil” are actually net purchasers of crude oil: they have to purchase more for their refineries than they pump from wells that they own.

Illinois’ esteemed governor continually raises taxes and bemoans the exodus of revenue. I live in far southern Illinois and can easily go into MO or KY to get gas. KY gas is always at least 30 cents a gallon cheaper, their sales tax is 6% to Illinois’ 8% (with no sales tax on food) WHY would I buy in Illinois?