25 February 2012

Half-Truths About Rising Gasoline Prices

The Heritage Foundation has a great article about what's going on with the rising cost of gas.

Excerpt:
Half-truth #1: Oil production is the highest it has been in eight years. 
 
Increased oil and gas production in the U.S. is a great development, but this is a result of increased production on private lands in North Dakota, Texas, and Alaska. On federal lands and offshore, the story is much grimmer. Production on federal lands and offshore could have yielded more output, increasing supply and therefore putting downward pressure on oil prices. Poor administrative decisions—such as refusing to open areas to exploration and production, cancelling or delaying lease sales, and the offshore drilling moratorium and subsequent “permitorium”—significantly reduced oil production, destroying jobs and reducing economic activity in the process.

Click the link to read the whole thing.

4 comments:

SiGraybeard said...

Good link - thanks for pointing it out.

I had an email from one of my senate-critters telling me he wants to outlaw those "eebil debil speculators" who are making oil expensive and actually had a "what do you think?" link in it.

It was limited to 256 characters so I just told him historically speculators do more good than harm, and maybe if he wasn't actively destroying the dollar they might actually have some value and could buy something.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

More production is meaningless without refinery capacity. Probably easier to build a nuclear reactor now than a refinery.

Anonymous said...

Haven't read the link yet. Does it say why gas costs more up here than elsewhere? Since it's pumped out of the ground here, refined here and taxed so little here? I've also wondered why gas is $.30 more (or more) in Kenai when it's refined right down the road in Nikiski.

JihadGene said...

I want some hope for a change. Even Jimmy Carter is looking better than Obama right about now.