The Oil Drum proves its worth yet again. Robert Rapier sat in on another American Petroleum Institute (API) conference call, this time focusing on gasoline prices. Lots of good info and the usual interesting (and not-so) comments from the gallery.
One of the topics was the low inventory of gasoline stocks, which remains below the levels usually expected. Translation, higher prices will remain, and Robert thinks it will be mid-June before any softening occurs. I saw $3.79 for regular at the Broadway/Hollywood Shell this evening on my way home.
It's not for lack of crude, and I have read elsewhere that 2 of BP's 5 refineries are off line or enduring production constraints. But a good politician, or for that matter good sockpuppets, never lets the facts get in the way of a good sound bite, or an opportunity to show some spine.
But the Mother of All Displays of Political Pandering goes to the US House and its decision to enable the government to sue OPEC. (Washington Post free subscription) This bill is a rare display of bipartisanship (345 yeas, 72 nays w/Schakowsky in the former group) that refuses to be cowed by the facts:
Separtely at a House hearing, lawmakers were told that crude oil prices have played a relatively minor role in the sharp increase in gasoline costs over the last three months, putting the blame on lower gasoline imports, refinery outages and continuing growth in demand from motorists.
Gasoline prices "may ease somewhat," Guy Caruso, chief of the Energy Department's statistical agency, told the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. But he said pressure on gas prices will remain strong "with the hurricane season approaching, continued tight refinery conditions, low gas inventories and increased demand for summer travel."
A copy of the bill can be found here. By golly we'll show those pesky Middle East potentates what's what!
1 comment:
Yeah, we'll show'em, won't we?
I mean, what a croc, suing the OPEC. And what court will adjucate such a suit?
Just like we've been showing them in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in Iran, and every other Middle Eastern country where we have: a)failed to accomplish the mission we set out to accomplish, which is to pacify the region and make it apt to Western control, and B)most of all, take a stand in defense of human rights and even basic decency, by our failure to lobby for the rights of half the population of region we have so enriched by our demand for its oil.
We really have no effective government left, that can effectively perform the proper functions of a government, which are to defend the nation and its population within and beyond its borders, and organize to cope with dire emergencies such as a steep, rapid drawdown in critical resource supplies, or rapidly spreading systems failure and social disorder.
Expect more debacles like New Orleans in the coming years, and expect the response to them to be even more ineffectual and disorganized than what followed that disaster.
We are in trouble.
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