bama needs an education in drilling oil
By GERALD H. STARNES
Monday, July 7, 2008
Speaking from Jacksonville's waterfront park last month in an evening fundraiser, Barack Obama vowed to stop any offshore drilling from behind his huge Change sign attacking McCain for changing his position on drilling. Senator McCain, Governor Crist and U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown Waite have "changed" simply because the dependency on foreign oil has become unreliable and excessively priced; an admirable characteristic in anyone. We are not aware of U.S. Rep. John Mica ever opposing offshore drilling.
B. Hussein Obama is a south Chicago rhetorician and academic-turned-politician with no experience in the oil business or much of anything else. We don't need him to tell us that the best approach for the Sunshine State to offset the rising cost of fuel is his proposed economic stimulus package of investigating potential market manipulation of gas prices and a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.
The price of a gallon of gasoline or a barrel of crude oil is set by the traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange and other exchanges in the world, not the oil companies. The traders are manipulating the market to some degree and the oil companies are reporting very high revenues for their stockholders. This run up can only occur when demand exceeds supply and this difference appears to be increasing without end.
Obama says drilling will not immediately bring gas prices down. Neither will any of the alternative fuels under development. His windfall profit tax will surely bring the prices up on every pump in the land. And the mere news that the 27-year idiotic ban on offshore drilling was lifted would likely lower the prices somewhat as the traders respond to the thoughts of increasing supply.
Verbal eloquence doesn't substitute for common horse sense. State, county and municipal governments are experiencing serious financial problems and reduction of services. Unemployment is rising and tourism declining due to fuel costs to reach our beaches. For years, giant drilling rigs off the Texas and Louisiana coasts have taken vast oil and gas riches while creating jobs, bolstering state revenues and providing vibrant social structures. OPEC and the other oil-producing nations are not going to increase production for American consumption. Forty percent of the world's oil comes from the Persian Gulf and most of it comes to the United States. The latest threat from Iran is that they will blockade the Strait of Hormuz if their nuclear sites are attacked by the Israelis. In my much earlier years, I passed through that miserable straight on a tanker shuttle 20 times.
We can no longer listen to the spill-frightened, global warming environmentalists and the tree-hugging greenies while Obamanomics leads us into another "great depression." There are many of us that recall the unpreparedness for war of our country when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
We all went into a wartime effort together and did everything possible to support our armed forces and take care of our citizens at home.
We're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and our dollar is at an all-time low against other major currencies. Is it any wonder we have a president with a 22 percent approval rating and a Congress with a 10-12 percent rating?
If Obama is our best choice of president and commander-in-chief, we are likely to become a second or third-world country by 2020.
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Gerald H. Starnes earned a bachelor of science and a master's degree in business administration. His career of almost 40 years was in the energy industry as an engineer and manager with Citgo and General Electric.
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