Judge blocks Obama oil moratorium

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Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
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I've known about the sources of our oil for a long time, which is why I don't buy into the hype that the only reason we go to war in the ME is for oil. I fail to see logic to the point you are trying to make. It's almost as if YOU believe that we can replace the 2 million barrels we are taking in from the ME by expanding drilling overnight, or in any reasonably short period of time. Minimum, it would take five years, and I'd be willing to bet its closer to ten. Even if we could get the petroleum, we don't have the capacity to actually refine it domestically into gasoline or anything else we need.

What other reason do you have for us to have such a huge .mil presence in the ME? Do you really think we like them or something? How about this, if Israel gets froggy with Iran and Iran shuts down the straight exactly what do you think we are going to do? I will tell you, we are going to bomb the ever loving shit out of Iran for the sole purpose of getting the lifeblood of our economy flowing again. That one incident alone could potentially plunge us into a deep depression and there is no "plan B".

As far as domestic production, we just had 250K BBLs a day come online in the Gulf from a single field (7 wells). A serious push for domestic production could easily replace those 2M bbls a day (1M a day gets us out of the largest part of our "bind"). Refining the oil is the least of our problems, we actually refine some of Mexico's oil for them (one of the reasons that we "export" petroleum products like gas). Existing refinaries can be expanded if needed and worst case scenario we play the same game that Mexico does BUT we aren't beholden on an unstable region that could go up in smoke any minute. There is a huge difference there.

In order to be able to do so, we'd need to spend a lot of money and resources. I for one believe that the time and resources would be better spent on working towards a sustainable long term solution. We could spend the next 20 years actually fixing the problem long term, or we can pursue a course which does little to address our long term needs.

"We" as in Exxon? Thats the beauty of this, private industry not only pays the lions share of the costs but the Government (local state and Feds) all profit from it. While we allow private industry to help solve our short term problems we can be working towards our long term problems. Hell, increase the royalties and dedicate them towards fixing the grid.

I have no problem with the federal government preparing itself for and assisting when natural disasters occur. Venezuela's government controls it's oil industry, it makes sense for them to be able to fix an oil disaster. I do have a problem when the expectation is that the government will step in to save the country from a disaster caused by a private enterprise.

If you hire someone to build you a house and that company fucks up time and time again to the point that it is plainly evident that you are going to end up with a house that will fall apart in a few years would you let them continue building it? Or would you hire a competent contractor to fix their mistakes and send the first company the bill? The only "asset" you need to have is the ability to hire another company to come in and fix it and once that is done you recoup it from the liable company. There is no need for you to have your own general contracting company.

You have not said a word about the continuing obstruction from the Feds either. The states are willing to do it themselves but the Feds obstruct them every step of the way.
I'm not talking about a "bail out" in a financial sense, but one in terms of responsibility. The federal government stepping in every time something like this occurs gives companies an incentive to NOT be safe, since they know big brother will come fix everything. It's a waste of taxpayer resources, those companies should be expected to be safe and follow proper procedures, as well as have methods to respond in case of an emergency disaster situation. Pardon me, but I believe this is the responsibility that I constantly hear a certain political party blabbering about.

The Federal government has the best asset in the world already, a credit card with no limit. They should not have assets on hand to deal with every potential industrial accident but they can damn sure hire someone else to handle the screwups if the original company is not doing a good enough job. If BP just says "fuck it" right now do you think we should just let the oil keep flowing or do you think we should hire another company to come in and fix the fuckup and then send BP the bill? At the end of the day I do not think the government should be out a single penny, it should all be repaid by BP. The best part is the Feds have a really big stick to get that money back.
It's not just the oil industry I'm talking about either, you could drain the entire federal budget "preparing" for these types of incidents and at the end of the day the one thing you didn't prepare for would happen. Which then allows individuals such as yourself blame the federal government, instead of the true culprit, which is 100% BP and it's partners.

Smarter energy consumption and an updated grid would hardly be a "drop" in the bucket, but I agree that getting it to happen is hard. I just don't agree that it's really any harder than producing more energy. Last time I checked, we lost around 8% of our energy through poor transmission alone. Not to mention an updated grid makes renewable sources like wind/solar much more viable.

I am in renewables, an updated grid is exactly what we need to make them viable. I agreed with you that an updated grid would significantly reduce losses but again we are back to reality. The reality is we ain't gonna get an updated grid for quite a while now. It is simply to expensive and I am not sure if you have checked the national check book but I don't see how you pay for it in any reasonable period of time. The "smarter consumption" part will be just a drop in the bucket. You won't get enough people to do it in any meaningful way and you still aren't accounting for increased demand as economy and population grows. Even if we pretend that smarter consumption will lead to significant gains it is all wiped out by economic and pop. growth. The grid, otoh, will make a huge difference but when do YOU think that will happen?

As for the stimulus bill, there is a reason a lot of liberals are pissed that it didn't include more infrastructure spending. Instead Congress and the President decided to try and win a few Republican votes by spending over 40% of it on "tax credits," money that could have utilized on much more important long term projects.

Bah, the libs and reps are both full of it. There was still a whole lotta money that could have been spent on the grid which is our main infrastructure need by far. How much WAS spent on it? Most of the infrastructure spending I have seen from the stimulus bill has been a complete joke.
For what it's worth, I know a little about power transmission, as I had planned to be a power engineer prior to getting my diagnosis with cancer. I've got four years of electrical engineering education, so even though most of it fluttered away in a chemo-induced haze, I know a small bit of what I'm talking about (very small).

I am very sorry to hear about your cancer. I hope that most of that is behind you now, such a horrible treatment to endure. Perhaps you will realize your dreams one day after all, hope is a powerful thing. As I said earlier, I work in renewables (solar to be specific) and I know where we need to go. The question is how do we get there in a realistic way that won't nuke the economy and is politically feasible (those two are not mutually exclusive). Hell, until we fix the grid the entire premise of significantly reducing our oil usage is impossible. We simply can't transfer that much of our energy usage to our existing infrastructure and as far as I know we don't even have a realistic plan or even a goal to get there.

We still come back to the same reality. We will continue to need just as much oil as we use today if not more and the competition for that oil is going to continue to increase as well. I personally don't think it is a good idea to roll the dice on the ME not blowing up in the next 20-30 years or even losing a large supplier to the increasing competition. The cost of a bad roll is a depression that will make our current situation look like the good ole days.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
If it's so easy why are you not there shutting it off?

If it's so easy how come they haven't been able to shut it down?

I am busy actually doing something about the oil that is washing up on our shores on my own dime. I haven't collected one red cent from BP for the 3 days a week, every week, I go out on the boats and help fight the oil coming onto our shores. A fight that has been and is being slowed down by bureaucratic red tape and cover your ass bullshit mentality by the Feds.

What are YOU doing about it? I can get you on a boat tomorrow if you got your ass down here but you won't. I actually put my money where my mouth is, how about you?

And I said it would be easier to contain the oil coming from it. It is arguable that fixing the actual well would be easier as well because you aren't working in a location that man has no access to but that wasn't my point.
 

Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
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I was referring to liberals outside of Congress being pissed, not the ones in Congress per se.

I was trying to make a point about the slippery slope it is when we rely on the federal government to solve all these problems. Of course I don't want to just let a disaster keep going, but to default to the logic that the federal government will come save us if a private company screws up creates issues. I think that leads to a slippery slope and provides the company with at least a partial disincentive to treat safety as a secondary priority. I may be mistaken, but I believe oil companies are only accountable for around $75 million in fines right now.So I'm not sure how much legal power the federal government really has to smack BP around, remember, a lot of these politicians get elected due to money provided by big oil.

I believe BP agreed to a much larger relief fund in part of their own volition, which is commendable, but it is still a reactionary response. I don't know if that fund has the force of law behind it either.

Getting people to consume energy properly would be difficult, but so was getting to wear seat belts. We can make enact policies that make conserving energy desirable with a fiscal incentive. For example, instead of a punitive tax, we could provide a tax credit if you use <x amount of power per year or if install some solar panels. You could also instill taxes on those who use excess energy. Maybe others have better ideas, but I'm confident we could figure something out...

Honestly, I'd be fine with a cap and trade type of system where revenues are reinvested into the grid. It's just a necessity, hell, if done properly it could probably be sold to the public as a national security issue. There are ways to bring both political sides together on this issue, but it requires the hyper-partisan nature of our politics to end.

I've been in remission for four years, only reason I brought that up was to tell you that I have some limited understanding of electrical engineering. I've decided to take my life down a different path (mental health counseling) and honestly I'm a lot happier with it.