gunnut

Not quite true. One major supply bottleneck in the US is our refining capacity. Eco-whackos absolutely refuse to allow more refineries to be built. Our last brand new refinery was built in the 70s. So for 30 years our gasoline usage has increased at a fairly high rate but our refining capacity really has not kept up.

One other thing the environmentalists did was to force cleaner gasoline standards. That also increases the cost of refining gas. There are 12 different blends of gasoline for southern California. The refineries also have to switch back and forth between summer formula and winter formula, to control pollution.

The high cost of gasoline is due in large part from our clean air regulations and environmental impacts of drilling and refining. We all say we're willing to pay more for a cleaner environment. But when the bill collectors come, we all b*tch moan and whine about it.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

7thsfsniper

Keep turning food into fuel and pretty soon the air will be nice and clean and no people around to breath it. Bet the greenies would love that. I think the whole pollution thing is overated anyway. Global warming is a bunch of bull and humans make such a small amount of so called greenhouse gases that it is negligible.

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The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten

Gun Grape

I cannot speak for the other States but Floridas deficit is a self inflicted wound. Our Gov decided that the Counties and the State would roll the
budget back to 2004 levels. And we just passed a Constitutional Amendment
that takes over half of the counties present source of revenue from property tax.

I went to a county commission meeting the other week and when they were
discussing State mandates for the county's budget and the Gov Crist's requirements for budget cuts this year it was truly a joke.

The budget limits that the Gov imposed on my county and the max taxes that can be raised by those restrictions will not cover Federal and State Mandates that the county is required to either pay or maintain in a trust fund.
Haven't even got to the operating budget and already no money. The State is in the same predicament.

So what is the answer? Statewide sales taxes, telephone taxes, usages fees, gas taxes. If you don't have them now, you soon will. And the impact fees and building fee schedules are going through the roof.

I'm not big on taxes but the people of Florida went way overboard in the tax rebellion. There was room to cut taxes. But not with a hatchet like was done.

So now your property taxes will be lower (maybe) but they can raise them more every year now than they could in the past, and everything else you enjoy will get more expensive in Oct.

ba1025

So, the price of a barrel of oil doubling due to supply constraints isn't to blame for the price of gas doubling it is instead libs who don't want poisonous air...you have an interesting dogmatic point but I think you can see it's BS
During hurricanes or after some other event that shuts down one of our refining centers your point is correct but those price rises are temporary. Now can we build that new refinery in your back yard....because that's the issue. Refineries have to go in someone's backyard

ba1025

You are either ignorant or a forum troll

Shek

You hit on NIMBY, which is part of the problem.

Various states legislation a la the Clean Air Act is also an issue - when California mandates more eco-friendly blends, you have to switch what the refineries are brewing and you lose some economies of scale. Gas prices go up. So, it is not BS, and the NIMBY effect is also partly an eco-effect.

You also neglect drilling in the ANWR, which while not a panacea, would relieve some pressure on the supply side.

So, while oil prices increasing absolutely has an impact, you cannot simply dismiss the eco explanation as a big factor, either.

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Shek

Stop the ad hominem attacks.

7thsfsniper

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!No really!!! That's my honest, obviously uneducated, dumb hillbilly opinion.

I was discussing this with my brother-in-law the other day. He worships Al Gore as a genius. He thinks because Al won the peace prize that puts him one step below Einstien. Fact IS GW(global warming) has not been proven and I supported my argument well. After a few minutes He just had a spin-out and started attacking my own intelligence and calling me names. Not the first time and won't be the last. It really doesn't bother me because there are a lot of people reading this forum and posts like that only reflect upon the poster when others know better.

I hop I wuz abill to speel everthang rite, it ownlee tuke me 2 owers to tipe it!!!

Shek, I apologize if my response was innappropriate but I just can't help but laugh.

rj1

Your statement in a nutshell shows why this country is f***ed up: the right blames the left for everything wrong and the left blames the right for everything wrong. And neither accepts they ever did anything wrong themselves.

As far as refineries, we do need to build more I agree. The enviros however are joined by the NIMBYs on this, and NIMBYs are right-leaning from my previous experience. (The one thing that has been helping the country in the near past is that the existing refineries continue to be made bigger.)

Your argument on a whole though is a bit miniscule. Let's say we have all the refineries we need and no environmental standards, in other words let's say we ran our country like China. How much cheaper would gasoline be? Gasoline is $3.70 now, would it be more than 5% of the cost, or 18.5 cents? I know we have Indian posters here and I imagine their environmental policy with 1 billion people is similar to China, how much is a liter of gasoline there in rupees (if it is not government-subsidized)? We can then do a conversion.

ba1025

I believe i was responding to a post that was meant to illicit an emotional response and i provided one.

Ignorance is not stupidity. Ignorance refers to a lack of pertinent knowledge. I in no way was trying to or tried to impugn the posters intelligence by that statement. Anyone who would argue we aren't experiencing global warming is lacking knowledge. As to the cause of global warming that would be open to endless opinion and debate but temperature measurements over time are empirical data and as such you either know the data or you are ignorant of it. The cause would be open to debate/opinion not the fact of it. If a poster posted the world is flat and I posted they were ignorant or trolling it wouldn't be a personal attack and neither was my post. Since in truth i do not believe the poster is ignorant i really believe the board was being trolled. i responded but truthfully it was the board that was attacked..

By that I mean a post meant solely to infuriate or bait someone else not to further a POV is trolling and the desired result is to lower the level of discourse. I find tact in dealing with troll posts to be tedious and the only way to end a troll exchange is to be direct and to the point. If I think i am being trolled i will say it rather than respond. If you believe that post was an honest pov and the poster is just ignorant please just give me the standard punishment for violating the rules. If you believe it was a post meant to inflame I will gladly accept my lumps if trolling is tolerated here and calling someone on it isn't. I apologize when i believe i am out of line. I have np admitting I am wrong when i realize it. I think it is an exercise in humility. I stand by my original post here. I know I have a quick temper and sometimes over react. my one sentence post in this case was well thought out. Someone who posts in order to bait is making a personal attack they just lack the courage to be direct.

Shek

Take a 24 hour time out. Your response was flamebaiting and is not allowed as per the forum rules, Forum Guidelines (revised 2/15/07).

If you have an issue in the future with what you believe is trolling, either PM a mod/admin or use the report post function (the "!" at the bottom left of every post) to bring it to the attention of a mod/admin. The staff will then handle the issue, either in public or in private, as per their judgement.

Shek

I'm with BA that it is clear that humans have added a whole bunch of "greenhouse" gases, that it is not negligible.

However, I'm with you in the sense that the timing of the correlation between some of these "greenhouse" gases is off and that the causal mechanism linking them to global warming hasn't been scientifically proven. Thus, I'm leery of AGW as an explanation.

7thsfsniper

This is kind of getting off subject with AGW. Perhaps a new thread would be appropriate?

7thsfsniper

New thread made. Now we can get back to talking about how cutting taxes is the best way to solve the problem.

Please check out "global warming......fact or fiction?"

gunnut

You're right. That's why we make compromises and come up with solutions that satisfy no one.

The left is equaly NIMBY, just not in the way you typically think. They want to protect the environment by stopping all development. That's a form of NIMBY.

You're right. Gas won't be too much cheaper because crude accounts for something like 65% of the cost of gasoline. Don't know about now. That figure was from a long, long time ago when the crude was $80 a barrel. However more refining capacity would minimize price spikes due to temperary supply disruptions, like Katrina knocking out refineries or a refinery malfunction (accidents) or even just taking them offline for routine maintenance.

We need to drill our own oil if we want to get that price down. More oil from continental US would discourage speculators from bidding up oil. What is the most stable region in the entire world? Right here. Our supply would be guaranteed, unlike the oil from unstable regions of the world.