We really must come to our senses regarding oil drilling.
Am I the only person in the world who understands that opening restricted U.S. areas to oil exploration and drilling will only accomplish ONE SURE THING?? And here’s what that is. Ready? Here goes:
Multi-national multi-trillion dollar oil companies will make even more obscene amounts of money.
That’s really the “bottom” line on all this silliness about ripping up the environment, risking more offshore drilling, etc. Am I the only one who “gets” this?? Okay, let me explain exactly why my statement above is true: We have not and will not pass any laws or government regulation which requires the oil companies to 1) sell the increased oil from new drilling at any set price that might affect us little old consumers in a good way, and, 2) even guarantee that the oil reaches American markets.
Do you get it now? The oil companies are perfectly free, should they find umpteen-billion barrels of new oil, to pump that stuff out of the ground and sell it to Europeans, South Americans, Asians — any markets where they can get the most money.
I don’t really care about all the bickering about when or how new oil finds and new oil drilling would take to get to the marketplace. That’s irrelevant. THAT’S IRRELEVANT. Sorry for shouting, but folks are passionately convinced that we must open the ANWAR region in Alaska, or do more offshore drilling near Florida, California, whatever, because “we must make ourselves less dependent on foreign oil.”
But that won’t be the result of such new drilling, any new refining, etc. The result will be more product for oil companies to put on the open market and sell to the highest bidders.
After all, never forget, the poor old oil companies only make a tiny percentage of profit, right? That $16-$20 BILLION and more in profits the oil companies make in any given year, well, really, that’s irrelevant. Or, to paraphrase the line from the wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.”
Bear with me before I end my “rant.” This also must be said: Oil is a finite resource which will run out. It may not run out in the next five years, or 10, or 20 — but it WILL run out. If we don’t focus more on developing serious, practical forms of alternate energy, then our children and grandchildren will pay for our stupidity.
Guess I just need to pull myself into line and become a “cut taxes and spend and put the results on the backs of ten generations to come” Republican and get over it!