Posted on 05/09/2008 10:02:08 AM PDT by Hillary'sMoralVoid
We are currently giving $120 of the $123 that we pay for each barrel of oil to Middle East countries and to despotic dictators. We are transferring our dollars to these thugs in the name of protecting the environment.
Why not drill and use a portion of these enormous profits to guarantee that the environment will remain unharmed? This environmental covenant would require oil companies to place a fixed amount of profits from each drilling operation, say 10%, to ensure that the drilling site is maintained within environmental standards during and after the drilling site's useful life.
Another feature would be to protect the oil companies from lawsuits, as the covenant would be a guarantee in advance that the oil companies would address any environmental issues.
This seems to be a concept that Republicans and moderate Democrats might rally to support. If we don't do something soon, all of our dollars will reside in the Middle East, and we will relinquish ownership of our country.
Because oil companies already have to do precisely what you are describing, save for the percentage you propose.
And environmentalists can’t even handle that.
It will need to be a 100% deduction from their Federal taxs.
Listening to Pelosi and Finestien shows that they really don't offer solutions, just problems.
I just returned from a road trip in California. I noticed the wells in the oil patch near Bakersfield were flying after laying dormant for years. Guess the price finally switches them on...
At what price will the public rise up enmass and tell the environmentalists to stuff it and demand drilling on a large scale? $4.50 a gallon? $5? $7?
A breaking point has to exist
It wouldn’t matter. Green is the new Red. The environment is just a front to destroy the US economy and sovereignty and stop progress so world socialism can be brought about.
Or maybe instead of shouting the same slogans and dogmas we have been hearing out the Greenies since the 1970s, they might sit down and actually learn how oil companies work rather then dream up more Neo Socialists nonsense dogmas?
Why just the oil co.s? Who would collect and distribute this money? Why not collect from government agencies that harm the environment? Why would congress ever protect oil co.s from lawsuits? Who dreamed up this nonsense?
What you propose is a 10% tax on drilling. As if the Government does not make enough risk free profit from oil and gas drilling. Most of the area which the government controls, it also has the mineral rights. It gets paid lease money to lease the rights for exploration and gets royalties from production, this would be another added fee, on top of all the rest for permits, etc.
The same government which shifts the blame for our lack of energy security to the oil companies.
As for the environmentalists, A well was drilled near Colonial Beach, Virginia, years ago. The operator took every environmental precaution, and did a great job. They proposed drilling another well on the Maryland side, and were hounded out of the area by all the enviros from D.C. ballyhooing all sorts of nonsense.
I know people who were invited to bring their organization in on the protests, and rather than try to influence them one way or the other, suggested they go look at the old location. (A directional driller I know had worked on the well and had told me of the environmental safeguards in use while they were drilling).
The environmentalists were happy to oblige.
First, they could not find the site. (It had been reclaimed.) Undaunted, they then stopped at a local store and asked directions, and the clerk who was getting off work offered to lead them there.
In the middle of a lush meadow, they found the dry hole marker, an iron pipe set in the ground with all the information about the well welded on it, as required by law.
The folks I know declined the environmentalist's offer to have their organizations join in the protest because it was evident that things were being done right.
Had exploration been allowed to continue, and a major find made, natural gas could be powering electricity generating stations nearby (Morgantown comes to mind) or heating homes, and/or oil could have been pipelined to the refinery at Piney Point, supplying the D.C. Metro area.
Once again, though, knee-jerk reactions and nonsense propaganda carried the day for the ecowhackos, and now everyone suffers just a little more.
Forget bribery, when the evidence won't work. Those people are never satisfied.
NO GREEN FOR THE GREENS!
No, but it makes the produced oil pay for the cost of disposing (reinjecting) of produced salt water.
Exactly. Why don’t people do a little research before proposing their “Save-the-world” ideas?
There is another agenda at work that has nothing to do with the Earth..."Green is today's version of yesterday's Red"
One problem is that there is nothing to encourage efficiency. It's better to set standards and let the companies figure out how to comply with them while minimizing costs. If you set aside a pot of money like that lawyers and other vultures will figure out a way to get it into their pockets. Where do you think most of the Superfund money went? I'll give a hint. It wasn't to the companies actually cleaning anything up. If a company develops innovative, more effective, less costly methods of pollution prevention or remediation, shouldn't that company be rewarded with more profit?
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