Residual Forces

Not all of you, but those of you who are pushing renewables. It is your reckless crusade that is now to blame for high gas prices.

WASHINGTON - A push from Congress and the White House for huge increases in biofuels, such as ethanol, is prompting the oil industry to scale back its plans for refinery expansions. That could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come.

Let’s not forget Democrats and many Republicans now think Oil is the only industry that shouldn’t have any profits. And they are also forcing Oil to pay for its replacement. Would you tax DVDs to pay for Bluerays, or whatever?

With President Bush calling for a 20 percent drop in gasoline use and the Senate debating legislation for huge increases in ethanol production, oil companies say they are uncertain about future gasoline demand and see little need to expand refineries or build new ones.

Why should they bother fighting through the environazis’ mandates by throwing money away on refineries that will be obsolete if these politicians get their way, when Congress is clearly stating that they will not allow us to use gasoline for much longer, no matter how much desire there is for it, or how it is actually better for the environment …. oh and how it is cheaper.

Only last year, the Energy Department was told that refiners, reaping big profits and anticipating growing demand, were looking at boosting their refining capacity by more than 1.6 million barrels a day, a roughly 10 percent increase. That would be enough to produce an additional 37 million gallons of gasoline daily.

Bet you didn’t know that most of the spikes in gas prices of late were due to refinery bottlenecks. Yep, the Oil industry was going to help us consumers, but Congress and power hungry politicians of both sides of the spectrum have decided their careers are more important than our own pocketbooks.

But oil companies already have scaled those expansion plans back nearly 40 percent. More cancellations are expected if Congress passes legislation now before the Senate calling for 15 billion gallons of ethanol use by 2015 and more than double that by 2022, industry and government officials said.

Now this must make aspiring politicians like Gov. Pawlenty giddy as he is one of them greeneyed ethanol pushers. Yeah, he lectured the MNGOP State Central Committee last weekend about how wrong we were for supporting domestic oil exploration and opposition to ethanol and other designer fuels. In a way I felt he was trying to say we were stupid for our opposition, and I wish I had yelled out ‘but what about all the farm subsidies and increases in food costs, not to mention the pollution from the farming of corn? But I didn’t’.

Nope, we the traditional energy coalition are free market folks who know better than the polls and special interests. Good old gasoline helped our country get to where it is. These little pet projects like ethanol and bio-fuels are a potential replacements for gasoline, when we run out of oil. But it is far from ready to be the replacement immediately, and just plain stupid to mainstream when oil is still readily available.

Bio-fuels are very expensive and pretty bad for the environment. They consume large portions of energy just to be created and are not compatible with many vehicles. So why the big push?

Because politicians like Pawlenty and Sen. Norm Coleman are more interested in looking hip to the special interest groups than they are taking a stand for the little guys. That’s us, the people being forced to pay for gas at the pump while the politicians keep sticking it to oil.

Yep, we’re paying the price for the politician’s pet projects.

Shame on you for making gas so expensive!