Congress presses oil execs on high prices (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Miller]

1. The energy policy that was created behind closed doors, with the consultation of the oil executives? The one Cheney moderated? There's policy, it's just not transparent, and apparently it's so wrapped up in special interests that it's hard to understand what it's objective is.

2. The pie in the sky comment means what? All emerging technolocies are considered pie-in-the-sky, especially by the established special interests who stand to lose money if they succeed. Some efforts will be dead ends, some will succeed, some will create unforeseen problems that mitigate any benefit. It's strange that conservatives have faith in technology when it comes to dealing with issues like global warming, pollution, and overpopulation--but when it comes to creating new energy technologies and new forms of transportation, it's all unrealistic and "pie-in-the-sky." You can't have it both ways.

3. Let the oil companies make their money. Let them make even more of it--the market forces exist outside of the U.S., so I'm not sure how much blame they deserve. But I'll be damned if the're going to continue to receive tax breaks and government subsidies, or favorable leases on public lands.They have the money to fund their own exploration, and to pay for their own extraction technologies. How much more clear could it be?

3) Agree completely.

1) You are not going to be able to create an energy policy without significant input form existing energy companies, bit oil companies, electric companies, or companies that handle energy distribution. I don't think a plan has to be put together in public to be valid, if its not, vote it down and have the experts come up with a better plan.

2) Pie in the sky is in reference to timing. I'm all for alt fuel development, and don't really care at this point if its green or not, as long as breaks our dependence on the middle east. The fact is that no matter what technologies eventually come to fruition, they are a decade or more away, not only from the development standpoint, but the distribution and conversion requirments as well. There is only thing that will bring energy prices down in the short term, and this is drilling our own oil domestically.

 

[Three Monkeys]

I've heard that for every dollar the oil companies make, the government makes up to $2.50. You're right -- it's just more BS posturing in an election year.

Hardly. The highest, combined state/federal is about .64c.

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/Jan08MFTNotes.pdf

As was mentioned earlier, you buy a gallon of milk you pay sales tax on each dollar

Gasoline is based on the gallon. So the tax you are paying on a gallon of gas is no higher today than it was since the mid 90's.

 

[Superfan]

Woah, I only have a 3,000 sq ft home and 1.5 acre lawn-non irrigated, lol. I also use pops-in-laws 60" cut zero degree mower that does 11MPH. Plus driving a paid for 1998 dodge that I swear sometimes gets 3 light poles to the gallon
Guess I need to buy some carbon credits.

 

[Superfan]

Hardly. The highest, combined state/federal is about .53c.

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/Jan08MFTNotes.pdf

As was mentioned earlier, you buy a gallon of milk you pay sales tax on each dollar

Gasoline is based on the gallon. So the tax you are paying on a gallon of gas is no higher today than it was since the mid 90's.

I wonder if congress can decrease some of the taxes at the pump? Anyone know the taxes on the dollar are at the pump?

California
As of March 10, the California Energy Commission provided this breakdown for a gallon of gas priced at $3.53 at the pump: About $2.57 is for the crude oil; 9 cents is for distribution and marketing costs and profits; 24 cents is for refinery cost and profits and 1 cent for state underground storage tank fees. The remaining 62 cents is all taxes: 26 cents for state and local sales tax; 18 cents for state excise tax; and 18 cents for federal excise tax.

It is more than $0.59. If the government gave us a tax break and also gave a tax break to the oil companies we would pay less at the pump. It is a win win.


I think we need a bullet train in the usa. This would clear up La traffic as well as other places.

 

[Three Monkeys]

It is more than $0.59. If the government gave us a tax break and also gave a tax break to the oil companies we would pay less at the pump. It is a win win.


I think we need a bullet train in the usa. This would clear up La traffic as well as other places.

I should have read my own post better; the rate is in California at 64c.

But the fact of the matter is that the total tax you pay on a gallon of gas is no where close to what people assume when they say taxes on gas should be cut. Even if you cut out all taxes, you'd still be paying $3 a gallon in Louisiana.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

the "2.5x" tax figure is based upon the total taxes generated by oil companies, not just the per gallon tax.

From last year's OMG Big Oil SuX!!1 debate:

Today, ExxonMobil reported the largest corporate profits in U.S. History. From Yahoo Finance:

"Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company -- $39.5 billion -- even as earnings for the last quarter of 2006 declined 4 percent. The 2006 profit topped the previous record, also by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion set in 2005." [Full story]

While they were recording record profits last year, they were also writing checks to Uncle Sam to the tune of $100.7 billion -- two and a half times what they made in net profit.

The Tax Foundation - ExxonMobil's Record Profits -- And Record Taxes

This year's story is about the same:

Exxon's 2007 Tax Bill: $30 Billion - Seeking Alpha

According to that guy, Exxon pays as much in taxes each year as the bottom 50% of individuals do.

 

[saintmdterps]

This really is the overall point. As consumers, we have to own our part of the solution -- which is for each of us to do our own small part in terms of conservation. In addition, it is our government's responsibility to recognize that this (meaning ending petroleum dependency NOT lowering gasoline prices) is a national security issue that it must lead the charge on. And as individual citizens, we need to push our representative form of government for a comprehensive and long-term solution even if it is painful to us in the short term. I am as anti-big government as you can get, but this is a national security issue and that is the first, best responsibility of government.

To expect the oil companies themselves to divert investment from their primary business in order to somehow deliver a technological solution that will erode the viability of their own product is patently ridiculous and contrary to human nature, business fundamentals and the free market system.

I agree. This would be like pharmaceutical companies promoting alternative medicine which may actually treat causes as opposed to symptoms, thereby depriving curing people and themselves of their revenue stream.

Doctors and healthcare companies profit handsomly from the overprescription of medications from antibiotics to viagra. Why poop on the golden goose and actually attempt to cure people of what ails them?

Of course, just as in the oil example, society at large bears much of the responsibility for the state of healthcare. We consistenly burn the candle at both ends in our neverending pursuit of the crap with which we fill our lives, all the while deluding ourselves this crap is important. Then, when we invevitably break from the strain, we demand that doctors fix us asap so we can return to the lifestyle which broke us in the first place.

Sigh!!! OK, rant off.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Hardly. The highest, combined state/federal is about .64c.

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/Jan08MFTNotes.pdf

As was mentioned earlier, you buy a gallon of milk you pay sales tax on each dollar

Gasoline is based on the gallon. So the tax you are paying on a gallon of gas is no higher today than it was since the mid 90's.

Assuming the state has not increase the tax or has not changed the tax to a % of the sale. Two years ago Washington state raised the tax per gallon on gasoline by 9 cents to fund road construction.

Of course the state immedately went out and got loans to fund the construction immediately. The funny thing is the price of gas (washington has one of the highest in the country now) is causing people to use less. Consumption reductions are down enough that the state is projecting millions in short falls to repay the loans they took out for the road improvements.

Last I saw (memory a little fuzzy) oil companies made approximatley 30 cents a gallon profit on each gallon of gas sold.

oh and washington state also made it illegal for any gasoline retailer to display on its pumps how much of the price of a gallon of gas consists of tax.

 

[helofixer]

I know Ive seen stickers on pumps here in Louisiana that showed something like .38 (or xx) cents a gallon went to federal and state taxes.

Nuke power can work safely, as seen by the 2007 year end numbers of reactors in Europe (197 in operation and 13 under construction). Problems are of course waste disposal, plant safety, the stigma that Nuke power has attached to it, nations using the guise of nuke power/research as a cover for a weapons program and the possibility of persons trying to obtain materials to make a "dirty bomb".

I feel that the lack of refining capability is the biggest problem we face. This has been debated by people with more expertise than me and I have heard both that it wont make a difference or will make a bit of a difference, but I feel this could help if we had more refineries to up our production. Of course you have the NIMBY people who do not want a smelly and semi dangerous refinery built in their backyard (can you blame them), and you have big earl not wanting to build them because the existence of new refineries will cut into their bottom line, are expensive and have to build them in an era of much tighter environmental regulation.

 

[Jeff Miller]

I feel that the lack of refining capability is the biggest problem we face. This has been debated by people with more expertise than me and I have heard both that it wont make a difference or will make a bit of a difference, but I feel this could help if we had more refineries to up our production. Of course you have the NIMBY people who do not want a smelly and semi dangerous refinery built in their backyard (can you blame them), and you have big earl not wanting to build them because the existence of new refineries will cut into their bottom line, are expensive and have to build them in an era of much tighter environmental regulation.

We got some really big deserts out here in the west with no people living in them.

 

[helofixer]

I realize that and on the surface it seems like a good idea, but their will always be groups that will fight any and all attempts to build any oil infrastructure anywhere, because they feel that it isn't a viable option in their opinion. Then you have to factor in the prices of transporting the crude from where it originates from and sending it thru huge pipelines to the middle of nowhere and then having to move the refined product back to the consumers. And you know who they will pass that cost on to.
Back in 1998 there was a project proposal to store used fuel/waste from nuclear reactors deep inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Well 10 years later and there is still fighting going on that topic.

I have no solutions to offer, but I agree that something needs to be done now, and this is coming from someone would not be considered an environmentalist and who has worked in the offshore oil and gas support sector for almost 20 years. More solar, more hydro, wind turbines, anything has got to be better than where we are heading now.

 

[saintmdterps]

Eventually we have to face up to the reality that continued reliance on oil is detrimental to most of the country, and therefore we need to develop alternative sources such as geothermal, solar, wind, and tidal (along the coasts).

The oil reserves in this country are getting more difficult to reach, and as a result, won't do much as far as lowering costs at the pump. No, I'm not in favor of drilling in ANWR. We're like a crackhead who's best dealer went to the pokey, we scratch and claw to maintain our addiction and will do anything to ensure a steady supply up to and including invading sovereign nations. Change our lifestyles minimally and affect big oil's bottom line maximally.

 

[Jeff Miller]

I realize that and on the surface it seems like a good idea, but their will always be groups that will fight any and all attempts to build any oil infrastructure anywhere, because they feel that it isn't a viable option in their opinion. Then you have to factor in the prices of transporting the crude from where it originates from and sending it thru huge pipelines to the middle of nowhere and then having to move the refined product back to the consumers. And you know who they will pass that cost on to.
Back in 1998 there was a project proposal to store used fuel/waste from nuclear reactors deep inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Well 10 years later and there is still fighting going on that topic.

I have no solutions to offer, but I agree that something needs to be done now, and this is coming from someone would not be considered an environmentalist and who has worked in the offshore oil and gas support sector for almost 20 years. More solar, more hydro, wind turbines, anything has got to be better than where we are heading now.

Its actually worst than that. The groups out here will attempt to block anything that changes the environment in any way. If these people were around 80 years ago, there would be Bonaville Power Dams, no Hoover dams, no hanford reservation, nothing.

You won't get anymore hydro. They won't build any more dams for the sake of fish and the landscape changes created by the back resivors created. Solar is hit and miss, unless they develope ways to store the energy for extended periods of time. They have wind turnbines going in all over the place here, but they will always be banned in certain area's as eyesores.

it is a complex system with no easy answers, thats for sure.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

The oil reserves in this country are getting more difficult to reach, and as a result, won't do much as far as lowering costs at the pump. No, I'm not in favor of drilling in ANWR. We're like a crackhead who's best dealer went to the pokey, we scratch and claw to maintain our addiction and will do anything to ensure a steady supply up to and including invading sovereign nations. Change our lifestyles minimally and affect big oil's bottom line maximally.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I work for an oil company and am very well compensated for it. But, given a choice, I would put myself out of a job and make this country energy independent if i could -- there are just too many young men and women dying out there because we're not. Everyone wants to blame it on someone other than themselves -- Congress, the oil companies, the Arabs -- but as you point out, we are all culpable because of our individual addiction to the stuff.

Plus, it doesn't help that 85% of the US coast line is off-limits to drilling.

 

[jimrip]

I found it interesting that the senate defeated the bill that would have allowed drilling in a tiny portion of the ANWR preserve that would have allowed us to eliminate the final 12% of oil that we get from unstable middle east countries. The biggest block opposed to the drilling? Right here in the northeast. Almost every New England senator voted against. Voting for? The 2 senators from Alaska. It's a good thing we're here to tell them what's good for them and how to run their state, huh?