Political mess of an energy bill

Ok, I usually don't go out of my way to copy and paste links. Perhaps its because I don't have a computer attached to my butt all day 🙂

Anyways, since I killed cable I read everything now. Reading on yahoo I spot this...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423462,00.html

Drilling will be allowed where there is no oil. Renewables will be funded further, and we all get to pay extra for oil because the tax incentives will be reduced.

How does this do nothing congress keep getting elected? Bush will veto this, but the next prez won't.

Keep getting elected?? The Democratic majority is only since the last election.

And how do you deal with the fox news website?? it's all damn popup ads everywhere you mouse moves. it's like playing mine sweeper but without the fun!!

Hey! I don't have a computer glued to my ass, that's my chair's job! It's my eyes and fingers that are glued to the computer 😄

I don't understand how congress keeps getting elected either. I think it has something to do with everyone liking their rep, and thinking everyone else is crap 😀

I must admit that I am unsure about off-shore drilling and what the benefits would be compared to the costs. It seems to me that any reward would be very long term and that it is difficult to predict what the difference would be for us. The crazy thing is that oil because oil is sold on the international market. Anything we produce here is sold back to us at the international rate. Although there is a resource security implication, it's not like it saves us any money.

I did see some good things in that description:

foxnews wrote:—Roll back $18 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies and require energy companies to pay billions of dollars in royalties avoided because of an Interior Department contracting error.

— Require the release of oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to push down gasoline prices.

— Make it a federal crime for oil companies holding federal leases to provide gifts to government employees, a response to a recent sex and drug scandal involving the federal office that oversees the offshore oil royalty program and energy company employees.

— Provide tax credits for wind and solar energy industries, the development of cellulose ethanol and other biofuels.

— Require utilities nationwide to generate 15 percent of their electricity from solar, wind or other alternative energy source.

— Give tax breaks for new energy efficiency programs including the use of improved building codes and for companies that promote their employees' use of bicycles for commuting.

I think that we need to focus on finding alternatives to oil, and figuring out how to use what we have better.

Bubbaspanky wrote:Keep getting elected?? The Democratic majority is only since the last election.

And how do you deal with the fox news website?? it's all damn popup ads everywhere you mouse moves. it's like playing mine sweeper but without the fun!!

I don't have that problem Bubba. I link to it via yahoo.com and use adblock plus in FF. I have yahoo setup for all the major newsfeeds. Also since cutting cable I've been hitting foxnews for videos. The 3 day obama interview was pretty good.

Sarge for the opposite reason I disagreed with many of your points. Any taxes imposed on the oil companies will just be translated back to the consumer. As for making oil pay for renewables, again, I believe it should be more attuned to the marketplace. So far its only benefiting the iowa farmers with vote pandering.

I'm afraid if they ever get max walters' ideal of socializing the oil companies, we will be no better than any other 3rd world dictatorship controlling the country's oil wealth.

As stands from the last senate hearing on oil, the oil companies makes .05 a gal, while the fed gov makes .17 a gal for basically doing nothing. Who's gouging who?

International product yes, but we could give ourselves a price break as does S Arabia where gas costs what, .35 a gal? I guess legally its considered subsidized, but the way congress is twisting every other aspect of life, why not.


Er Bubba, before Newt congress was democrats for 30-40 years 🙁

I agree with Lexx. What good does it do to make the oil companies give back billions to the government? What benefit does that have for me at the pump?

Now, if that money was in turn given to other companies to research alternatives to oil, I would be all for it.

I did not know we had to sell oil back to ourselves via the international market. That is quite odd.

That's a tough question. They use public land but how much benefit do we see from that? How much lower are gas prices because they haven't paid these royalties? My guess is that they aren't lower at all but it's just been padding the wallets of their stockholders. If the oil companies are having record breaking profits, rolling back tax breaks would cut into those profits, but it shouldn't be enough to require raising the cost of gasoline except to maintain those record profit margins.

I would definitely like to see the money from this invested in finding solutions and alternatives.

BTW, I take back what I said about making the Oil companies receiving tax benefits. After all, I pay taxes, so therefore I am already paying the fee's. Maybe the companies should start holding there own.

Thats kinda ridiculous to say. You drop their incentives, your definitely going to see it at the pump. No big business is going to cut profits, oil, food, whomever. Its the little guy that takes the hit.

If you want alternatives subsidized, then make it through the federal tax system. Lets see how 50 states fight it out for the grants. Let these senators stand up and make it clear where they stand. Hiding this in an energy bill just lets these knobbers off the hook, and you know full well its still adding cents to your gallon of gas at the end of the day.

Er, leases on public lands is actually pretty easy to understand. The fed sells the leases via auction in chunks every now and then. They make money then. If the oil, coal, ore, or whatever is removed, then the fed gets royalties on the end product. Not drilling for oil on leased public land is just a talking point for the democrates, as they have already made money on it to begin with.

I'd assume there is no oil there or why would they want to spend 10x more to drill in the oceans or ANWR. Every country on the arctic circle is drilling except the US.

On a lighter note, this is pretty damn nifty. Might be just what Atomm was looking for.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423850,00.html

Which brings me back to *1* thing I liked that Carter did, the energy tax credit. I'd rather alternative tax credits went directly to the taxpayer to help buy things like this.

That would let the taxpayers decide whether they would want to buy silicone from CA or even something as lowly as fiberglass insulation or windows.

Lexx, that is darn cool. Living in a rather windy state, I could something like that being worth while. Then I calculated the cost savings vs the actual price.

500KWH @ $0.15 per KWH only comes out to a savings of $70 a year. At the lowest price of $3000 it would take 42 years to pay it back. That's nuts.

FYI, the tax incentives for installing solar power on your house expires at the end of this year. I do not believe I've heard anything from Congress about renewing it. Considering solar costs continue to drop and energy prices continue to rise, it's looking like a better deal all the time.

Yeah similar wind turbines such as this have been around a while one of the more popular are the helix ones (think DNA strand). They are quiet and dont' require much windspeed, but they aren't as effecient.

If it would do 500KWH a month, I would be all over it.

BTW, I went though and added timers to all the lamps my wife likes to leave on and it actually cut our August Electric bill by $40 from July. Considering August is always the worst bill of the year, I was pretty excited.