Why Punish Oil Companies Just When We Need More Energy?

Why Punish Oil Companies Just When We Need More Energy?
Written by Dennis Avery
Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Gasoline at $3 per gallon tells us vehicle fuel is scarce in America right now. Some U.S. politicians propose to “fix” the high prices with an “excess profits tax” on the oil companies.

If you want less of something, tax it. If you want less fuel at higher prices, just raise the taxes on the energy companies.

If you want more of something, raise its price. Willing suppliers then find ways to provide it. Over time, competition and investment bring down prices.

The excess profits tax is a political diversion to help you forget that it’s America’s own voters and politicians who have created our current pain at the gas pump: Many of the “excess profits taxers” have voted consistently against more energy.

· Bill Clinton vetoed drilling for the oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, which could boost U.S. domestic reserves by 50 percent. The oil drilling would impact about 20 acres of the 1.5 million in the wildlife preserve.

· The Feds have banned drilling for America’s rich offshore oil deposits, except in the western Gulf of Mexico. Even Hurricane Katrina failed to cause any leakage from the big oil wells there.

· America’s oil refining capacity is strained to the limit, and governments won’t license more because people don’t want oil refineries in their communities.

· The EPA now mandates that our gasoline be blended with scarce and expensive ethanol, even though cars built since 1988 don’t need an “oxygenate.” Supplying 10 percent of our auto fuel as ethanol would force us to clear 100 million acres of forests for fuel crops.

· The Greens shut down safe, economic nuclear power plants with endless lawsuits. The rest of us let them.

· Even the Greens are now backing away from costly, ugly wind farms, and solar is going nowhere.

More @ http://tinyurl.com/pr7gv chronwatch

Lets pull the headline apart and answer that question.

Why Punish Oil Companies Just When We Need More Energy?

1. The oil companies have a de-facto monopoly.
2. The oil companies can charge whatever they like and get away with it.
3. The reason hydrogen fuel and solar power have made no headway is because the oil companies haven't pumped the last quart of oil from the earth and they don't own all the new energy technology.
4. The oil companies are making huge profits on a manipulated shortfall in supplies.
5. The oil companies have governments in their pockets worldwide.
6. Above are five major reasons the oil companies don't just need punished, they need taken to the woodshed and have their profit driven hides whipped bloody!