Fed energy chief: Drilling no quick fix

The head of the government's Energy Information Administration said opening more of the U.S. coast to oil and natural gas exploration won't affect prices at the pump.

President Bush and the Republican campaigning to succeed him, Sen. John McCain, recently called for lifting the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling that protects much of the U.S. coast, including Florida's. They want states to decide whether to allow drilling, and Gov. Charlie Crist says he's on board.

Democrats have countered that opening more the ocean to drilling isn't worth the environmental risk. A 2007 report for the agency found that the effect on prices would likely be minimal.

"It does take a long time to develop those resources,'' Gary Caruso, head of the EIA, said, according to Bloomberg News. "Therefore the price impact is muted by that."

Read the full story here.

Comments

let the wingnut denial commence......

I guess not all wingnuts dance to the McBush/McSame/McCheney tune.

[Donald Lance]

It might not affect pump prices, but it'll sure keep us from sending $600 Billion a year to unsavory nations. That alone is worth it!

What the Left overlooks is that while it may take this specific proposal years to implement, the psychological effect on the oil market cannot be understated.

The idea that America finally came together to say enough of the OPEC nonsense and decided to unify and start taking steps to drill on its own soil or off its own coast would send a big message to the OPEC nations that we've had enough of their prices. The reaction from that is likely to force them to re-evaluate their price schedule because they realize we are taking big steps to avoid buying their oil.

It's in their interest to keep us buying their oil and as soon as they see us taking steps (albeit several years following any legislation to allow such drilling) to avoid doing that, they will have to find ways to keep us buying their product, ie, lowering the price.

This free lesson in Economics 101 was paid for and approved by a Conservative.

[Rockabilly]

Yes, it takes a long time to develop those resources. That is why we should have started in 1992. But the Clinton administration was as short sighted about energy as they were about terrorism.

damn those qualified professionals!!

just DAMN them!!!!

if the DRUNK and johnnie mcAiNUS say, "DRILL", what is an educated professional's opinion to us?

DAMN them!!!!

in the meantime, since it would take ALL THAT TIME to develop new "awl fields", why not devote time and energy to both conservation and developing NEW SOURCES of energy?

DAMN them!!!!

or do yo want to keep giving $$$$ to prik cheney and KBR?

Like the Jay Leno joke: the Democrats say it will be 10 years before we get oil out of ANWR if we started drilling now. Of course, they said that 10 years ago.

3:41 LOL Yeah, they'll just be shaking in their sandals at the imminent threat of all those dozens of barrels of US crude hitting the market.

This free lesson in Economics 101 was paid for and approved by a non-Kool-Aid drinking, lying-neocon-hating realistic American citizen.

[david mica]

clearly his comments didn't reflect the ability to go and quickly get the up to 3 trillion cubic feet of clean burning lower carbon natural gas that lies ready to bring to market in short order just 25 miles south of the panhandle! not a cure all but a step in the right direction! 3tcf is enough gas to provide 2007 levels for about 140 years for a city the size of Tallahassee...
david mica
director
florida petroleum council

Duuhhhh...

Of COURSE it will take time...it won't be tomorrow that we will have lower prices.

Of COURSE we need new energy sources...we need DIVERSIFICATION of energy to become independent. Coal, oil, natural gas, ethanol, wind, solar, wood, water...use it all.

Celebrate DIVERSITY people!

Add Donny Boy to the Flip-Flop box of bozos!

WHAT! Do you mean to tell me that Lil’ Johnny McSame was just towing the “Party” line of “Drill or die”… and Chuck “I dig the coco hole” Crist was pandering to the Party Puppet Masters?

Why… I never heard of such a thing!

Expect Gary Caruso to be labeled as an ‘Enemy Combatant” and sent to Gitmo any day now.

from AMERICAblog:

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Bush approval at new low, 23%

And that includes his dog. He also has a 73% disapproval. This explains why a GOP Senate candidate is trying to tie himself to Obama, in the hopes of winning his re-election. It's also why John McCain is terribly confused about what to do this fall. Does he abandon Bush and alienate the conservative Republicans who already don't trust him? Or does he embrace Bush and alienate 73% of the country? Or does he split the baby in half and come across as a flip-flopper, or worse, confused?

as tho johnnie mcAiNUS werent "confused' already...

how many troops are in vietraq?

is iran training or NOT training vietraqis?

drill or not drill?

fishsticks or ...damn, p'ed myse'f agi'n!

mommie!!!!

[Get a Clue]

None of you pro-drillers get it. Your economics is bogus. The reason for high oil prices today is 1) demand by China, India and other third world countries, 2) devaluation of the US dollar because of our super low interest rates. Did anyone say anything about supply? No!!! Drilling will solve nothing. In 10 years, more countries will be demanding a lot more oil. The little extra we make won't affect squat, price-wise. And good luck trying to get our Federal government to offer a better deal to foreign investors on interest rates. Check the Euro, it's more than $1.55 to buy one Euro, down 50% in value for the trashed dollar.

3:41 - Exactly how does pumping an extra 200K barrels in 2030 going to send a message to OPEC? OPEC itself can't even send a message to the world by pumping an extra 200k barrel in 2008!!!

Further, you are going to have a hard time explaining to the good people of this forum why we pay essentially the same price for oil that we get from Canada and Mexico as we do from OPEC countries.

Read the EIA report.....Consider this a lesson from someone who does not confuse geological realities with political labels.

Yeah and the one thing worse than Bush's approval rating is the Democratic Congress' approval rating.

Suck it libs.

Yeah and the one thing worse than Bush's approval rating is the Democratic Congress' approval rating.

Suck it libs.

[How Can They Disapprove of This Beauty?]

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080530/capt.4dca9bcd268249b6b62c974583442d12.pelosi_delegates_caps105.jpg?x=400&y=266&sig=PC0NpFzkrcNfZZgIqQNxEw--

"Suck it libs."...?

I thought you Republipervs paid $20 for a chance to do that in public bathrooms.

Wait a minute; it this whole "Drill for oil" thing some kind of Republiperv code for boy-spooning?

[Donald Lance]

4:26, I saw her on an interview last night. All my questions were answered after watching that. She wouldn't answer any questions and instead babbled answers that had nothing to do with the question. If anybody thinks she is the answer, I have a used country I'd like to sell you 1

$20? You dhimmicrats can get it for free in San Francisco during any Gay Pride parade. And here's a panorama of photos of people the libs want to be able to marry:

http://www.zombietime.com/folsom_sf_2007_part_1/

4:21 - good one. leave it to a moron to try to justify a pathetic performance.

Leave it to a bunch of moron Democrats to squander a golden opportunity.

It would have been nice if he would have spoken up when he was in a position to do something about it ... oh, wait. We're not bashing Scott McClellan in this one. Oops. Wrong post. Got the wrong talking points. Nevermind.

That sounds like exactly what Scott McClellan said about Paul O'Neill.

Hard to blame Dem congress when there is still a Presidential moratorium on drilling in OCS that could be eliminated at any time by GW.

The Congressional moratorium could have been lifted during any year that the Republicans were in the majority.

Too many hacks on this forum. No wonder you sheep fall for populist garbage.

My issue isn't whether it'll immediately affect prices at the pump.

My issue is the long-term health of the nation. An energy policy should include all viable sources of which oil will be a large part for a long time to come.

Times, read this report so you can write a little more objectively:

http://www.mms.gov/eppd/sciences/osmp/pdfs/AndersonAndLaBelle/AndersonAndLaBelle2000.pdf

Did you hear Charlie has changed his position on drilling? He's marrying a woman.

[raymond]

8:33 you and all you idiots that want to drill are smoking crack. Let’s get some facts straight, has any one bothered to actually look at the rev. wrights sermon on YouTube? You will find that he did not lie he actually was quoting someone else when he did the chicken thing. So your speaking on a dead issue. Second if you actually do some research and pay attention to what’s going on, and not to a bunch of quick witted comments on a blog, you might have seen on c-span Monday that they had the head of the oil market group, the head of the stock traders department and the head of the speculators market in front of a congressional hearing ( sorry I’m not sure of their exact titles or names). It went as such to the best of my recollection

Speaker to the head of oil market: How many barrels do we need a day verses what we are actually making?

head of oil market: we currently use 20,000,000 per day, and our daily average is 25,000,000

long pause

Speaker: so we are going over what we need a day?

head of oil market: that’s correct, it’s not actually the amount of oil is the refining of the oil. It is next to impossible to build a new plant.

Speaker to the head of the speculators: Now I understand that we have the falling dollar and all of that, can you help me understand where we get the price from? How much of the $135 a barrel is for the weakening dollar, and what is the percentage of the speculators mark up?

Head of speculators: it is true on the weakening dollar, the amount for that is about $15.00.

Speaker: and how much is speculation?

Head of speculators: about 50 percent?

Head of oil market: chuckle, speaker I would say it’s about 35 percent.

Head of stock traders: I would agree

Speaker: so MR speculator if we were to cap Profit margins on oil speculation in your opinion what could we expect to see? How soon would we see relief if any?

Head of speculators: I would have to say within a couple of months, they are there to make money if you were to cap then they would just go to another area ( sorry I forgot the exact words he used) It would be a lot like what we have seen in the housing market.

Head of oil market and stock traders were silent and did not oppose this comment.

NEED I GO ON?

This is just a small glimpse of what I seen Monday, People wake up Obama is right. He said we need a little more nuke, a little more fossil, and a whole lot of alternate fuels, but bottom line is we need to stop the speculation market. For the record I’m not a Dem or Rep. OR an environmentalist. I am a free thinker.

Oil spot prices have been generally HIGHER than futures prices despite rising futures.

HALF of all speculators in a futures market are betting on a price decrease.

All futures contracts are speculative. Speculators in fact include commercial end-users or sellers of oil.

If you are a non-commercial oil trader and you bid up a futures contract over the physical market price, you will find yourself with tankers full of oil that you do don't want and you will be on the side of a very UNPROFITABLE trade.

You cannot blame speculation for the rise in oil prices unless lest you ignore the immutable laws of mathematics.

Stop with the populist garbage.