Redstate

Posted at 11:28pm on Jun. 18, 2008 Democrats Skip Right Over Socialism; Land Squarely In The Land Of Karl And Hugo

..and we all settle in nicely to our bonny new Communist America

By haystack

Picking up where Mr. Hahn left off...

Elections DO matter folks. The lunatics we put in power in 2006 have rather nicely gone and outdone themselves with this little brainstorm... I swear I'm stuck in a really bad episode of the Twilight Zone:

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.
[...]
We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

My head is exploding...they're doing SO well with all the other things they run, aren't they? These are the very same "geniuses" who, just a few days ago blocked efforts to make MORE of them, when they kicked H.R 3089 (No More Excuses Energy Act of 2007) out of Committee. The bill was submitted by Rep Mac Thornberry [TX-13] back in July 2007 [attaboy Mac-thanks for trying, at least].

These people on the left are freaking insane.

Watch as my hair spontaneously combusts below the fold..

Posted in absolute power corrupts absolutely | Congress | Democrats | Energy Policy | stick it to the little guy — Comments (55)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:22pm on Jun. 18, 2008 "Drill, Drill, Drill" The White House Gets Involved

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

John McCain's position on energy exploration is getting help at the highest levels:

With gasoline topping $4 a gallon, President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to lift its long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, saying the United States needs to increase its energy production. Democrats quickly rejected the idea.

"There is no excuse for delay," the president said in a statement in the Rose Garden. With the presidential election just months away, Bush made a pointed attack on Democrats, accusing them of obstructing his energy proposals and blaming them for high gasoline costs. His proposal echoed a call by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to open the Continental Shelf for exploration

"Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response," Bush said.

Democrats are, of course, opposing the proposal but given the popularity of the argument, they tread on dangerous political ground. It's clear that expanding drilling won't lower prices overnight. But that argument has been used again and again every time someone has had the courage to point out that drilling needs to be expanded and thus, we are where we are. If we had taken action in the past, perhaps we would have been able to bring some downward pressure on prices during the present day.

There has been quite enough delay on this issue. Ridiculously, for a period of many years, we have psyched ourselves out of expanding energy exploration because it would take time to achieve, and we are only now beginning to realize that if we had gone ahead with increased energy exploration, we may now be enjoying the benefits. There is nothing we can do now about past mistakes but there is something we can do about ensuring that future mistakes are not made. The fact that good policy coincides with good politics is only an added bonus as far as McCain supporters are concerned.

Posted in Barack Obama | Energy | Energy Policy | John McCain — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:58pm on Jun. 17, 2008 "Drill, Drill, Drill" A Continuing Series

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

It's nice to see that John McCain is in favor of removing the ban on offshore drilling (note the popularity of the proposal). I know that this kind of policy proposal is going to run into a partisan buzzsaw but it is impossible to take seriously the Obama campaign's argument that a removal of the ban on offshore drilling only serves to benefit oil companies. It appears that we have to delve into Economics 101; prices are high because demand outruns supply. To remedy that, we need to drill for more oil so that we can bring supply and demand into balance. I suppose, of course, that if someone has connections with the Magic Oil Fairy, we could avoid all of this but I kind of doubt that this is the case and it should be noted that the Obama campaign has come up with no proposals whatsoever aimed at increasing the supply of oil in order to alleviate current price pressures.

Posted in Energy | Energy Policy | John McCain — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:23am on Jun. 17, 2008 Obama promises that this time it will work

The magical power of Hope and Change

By Kevin Holtsberry

Obama continues to insist that his plans to use government to solve our energy challenges will work despite a long history of failure. Bill Clinton tried and failed but Obama won't because things are different:

The overall Obama economic approach echoes the 1992 presidential platform of Bill Clinton, who also launched his bid for the White House seeking a big expansion in infrastructure spending. But those plans were quickly shelved once he reached the White House. Congress rejected a proposal to steeply increase energy taxes, which could have been used to pay for the spending.

Clinton deficit hawks, especially then-White House economic adviser Robert Rubin, successfully argued that slashing the deficit would have a bigger impact on growth than boosting spending because markets would react favorably to a shrinking deficit. "Rubinomics" became the reigning Clinton economic strategy, and many labor leaders backing Sen. Obama worry that the 46-year-old senator ultimately will turn to Mr. Rubin, as Mr. Clinton did.

Sen. Obama waved off that concern. "I've got Bob Rubin on one hand [as an adviser] and [former Labor Secretary] Bob Reich on the other....I tend to be eclectic." Mr. Reich, has long championed infrastructure spending to boost jobs and the economy, and is a favorite of labor. He frequently and famously feuded with Mr. Rubin early in Mr. Clinton's term over the administration's ideological direction.

The chances of pushing through an infrastructure spending program are greater now than they were in 1992, Sen. Obama said, because of new concern about energy prices. Many alternative-energy projects -- clean-coal technology, wind-power generators and the like -- could be packaged as infrastructure. "The difference I would suggest is that there is a strong recognition in the public mind that we can't continue on our current energy path," he said. That means "there's a bigger opening to bring about change."

Its the magic of Change, you see. Obama is for it and so is the public. Presto! Outdated industrial policy magically works!

What's that you say? Haven't we tried this before? Yes, in fact we have. For more on that read on.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Barack Obama | Bill Clinton | Energy Policy | Jimmy | Obamafiles — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:38pm on Jun. 9, 2008 Policy on the margins matters

Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good

By Kevin Holtsberry

Everyday seems to bring another article on how McCain has not unified the base; how conservatives haven't warmed to his campaign. Conservative leaders and disgruntled activists alike seem intent on feeding this media story line. And I have heard many conservatives speak as if this election offers no real choice; that both candidates are liberals so a pox on them both.

Now, I don't have a problem with intelligent criticism or defending conservative ideas and policies in the public square. But much of this animus against McCain is shortsighted and counter productive. I want to stress that much of it is well intentioned. That there are a lot of honorable and intelligent people who have major issues with McCain and often for good reason.

But in a cycle where the game is tilted so far to the left, and where the GOP has been beat to a pulp in the media, now is not the time to forget that policy is often made on the margins and that center-right is better than far left.

A Wall Street Journal article on energy policy highlights this point. To see how read below.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Energy Policy | John McCain — Comments (24)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:46pm on May 5, 2008 Hillary Clinton's Dangerous Energy Policy Ideas

By Vladimir

I caught a brief snippet of Hillary Clinton's recent interview with populist windbag Bill O'Reilly, and my blood began to boil. In the interview, Hillary staked out some energy policy positions that are not only wrongheaded, but dangerous.

1. The Windfall Profits Tax. Jimmy Carter's WPT had the veneer of legitimacy as it came along at a time when oil prices were transitioning out from under government controls. Now the rationale is much more straightforward: the oil companies make too much money. Note that the last time it was tried, the WPT was counterproductive: it reduced domestic production while increasing dependence on imports, exactly opposite what we should be doing now.

"And there is no basis for them to have these huge profits. They're not inventing anything new." The domestic oil and gas industry suffered from essentially flat prices from 1984 to 2004. During that time period total industry employment fell by half. Companies and fortunes were destroyed, and no one from the government rushed forward to make good their losses. Today's industry survivors have been through tough times, and that survival is attributable to their intelligent, innovative use of technology.

I defy anyone to name an industry with a better record for adapting and implementing advanced technology than the oil and gas exploration and production sectors. We routinely use technology today in ways that were mere daydreaming fantasy 30 years ago when I graduated college. Much of the demand for advanced supercomputers is for seismic processing. Horizontal drilling is now commonplace. One thousand feet of water was once an unimaginable threshhold; now wells are drilled in 10,000 feet of water, and there is production in 6,000 feet. There have been thousands of other new techniques and technologies, some incremental, but some groundbreaking in scope.

When you say we haven't invented anything, Senator Clinton, you lie. You lie.

2. "I would also change the law so that citizens and businesses could file anti-trust actions. We're going to begin to hold them accountable." Well, as good Democrats, we all know that lawyers are the answer to every single one of the world's problems.

Note that this remark is juxtaposed with the Senator's remarks about OPEC, but in that context they would make no sense. OPEC members are sovereign states. If there are trade sanctions to be taken against OPEC, that would be the job of the FTC or the State Department, not an anti-trust matter for private American citizens to pursue.

No, Senator Clinton must have been talking about turning the legal beagles out on American oil companies. Here's problem with that plan: the only phase of the industry that could possibly be considered to be concentrated in the hands of just a few companies is refining, a segment with historically low returns. Even now, the big refiners are not all that profitable because they all have to pay the world price for the barrels that enter their refineries, and none of them are self-sufficient in crude. They have to supplement their own production with barrels they buy from the smaller, non-integrated independent producers (who, by the way, drill 90% of domestic wells), and from foreign imports.

So what good would it do to break up the refiners? Exactly zero. But the trial lawyers would have a field day, and the oil companies would concentrate on legal defense instead of finding new supplies.

Posted in 2008 | Energy Policy | Windfall Profits Tax — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:36pm on Apr. 29, 2008 Nancy Pelosi: Price of gas is $2.56/gallon

Does she support a gas tax holiday?

By Soren Dayton

Nancy Pelosi blames Bush:

But she has no idea what she's talking about. (BTW, 1.70 x 3 is 5 .10 not 2.56, but math probably isn't her strong point either)

Oh yeah. Weren't they going to lower gas prices?

Posted in 2008 | Energy Policy | Gas | Nancy Pelosi — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:42pm on Jan. 15, 2008 On Food Inflation

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

The points made here bear repeating. And who knew that I would find myself on the same side as Charles Schumer on so important and so contested a policy issue? Wonders never will cease, will they?

Posted at 9:16pm on Dec. 19, 2007 The Free Market Is A Wonderful Instrument

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Behold. Serious environmentalists--and the word "serious" is not emphasized by accident--might want to take note. I'm sure that anyone genuinely interested in saving the planet will greet the news that the free market is their most powerful ally with glee and happiness and will apply the lessons the linked post discusses in the blink of an eyelash.

Right?

Ah well, certain political decisions notwithstanding, it's still a good idea.

Posted in Energy | Energy Policy | Free Market — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:22pm on Nov. 24, 2007 Oil Oligopoly Revisited

By Vladimir

About six months ago, there was considerable exchange in these pages, running over several different diaries, focusing whether or not the word "oligopoly" defines the current market situation vis a vis gasoline.

So the argument goes, some 90% of domestic gasoline refining capacity is controlled by a relative handful of large companies. Some are integrated (meaning they own production, transportation and refining segments), while others are pure refiners.

And those companies act like an oligopoly, with all the ability to control the market that such a sinister moniker implies.

My, how times change.

More...

Posted in Energy | Energy Policy — Comments (34) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:32am on Oct. 30, 2007 On Energy Statistics

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Fuzzy math is made less fuzzy.