The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill (Ron Paul Co-Sponsors Taxpayer Boondoggle)

Globalwarming.or ^

[meatloaf]

A glad there’s a couple of folks here that get it.

[mnehring]

Well, if you believe this is such a good idea here is what you should do. Take every single credit card offer you get in the mail, max out every single one with cash advances. Take out two or three mortgages on your home, and invest in it.

Why not, that is what this bill is having the government do to the American people.

If you aren’t willing to do this yourself, why do you think it is OK for the government to do this to everyone?

[grundle]

When asked about this, Ron Paul said that he has always supported tax credits, because he opposes the income tax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m1J32wABiI#t=2m40s

[mnehring]

I guess he is fine using tax money for social engineering like this. The government telling people what is best for them to do by bribing them to do it.

At that, this pretty much covers his excuses for all his earmarks as well.

[Brandonmark]

Ping for future

[Mike Darancette]

Having your picture taken with ManBearPig disqualifies you from everything.

[NeoCaveman]

Natural gas fueling stations? Sounds awesome.

Energy independence.

[BipolarBob]

Yiipppeeee!! Ol’ T. Boone is going to get rich. Oh wait . . . .

[meatloaf]

Depends on how you look at it.

[NoLibZone]

Ron Paul supports using the IRS for government programs.

[NoLibZone]

Paul double speak.

He must then author many more tax credits ranging from grocery shopping to seeing movies.

[dusttoyou]

100% on the money!

NG is easy to find and relatively easy to produce, its already piped dang near everywhere.

I’ll sure change to NG.

[yadent]

It all sounds good. Questions—What is the present proven reserves for NG in the US? I know as of 2008 it was around 290 trillion cubic feet. I have read that the US uses around 20 trillion cubic feet of NG a year now. If all cars, trains and trucks are converted to NG could that not double the US’s present usage(to 37 trillion cu/ft/yr)given NG requires 126 cu/ft per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent, US consumes 370 million gallons of fuel per day which would be 48 billion cu/ft/day of NG or 17 trillion cu/ft/yr just for said cars,trains, and trucks, how long would our present known reserves last? Would we be able to drill for more given the present political climate? How long would today's ‘low ‘ price for NG remain and what could it ramp up to? NG futures were nearly triple in 2005/2006 of what they are today. Before we give any more taxpayer monies we should have some answers.

[pointsal]

check out Mrs.Boone and her wild horse fantasies.

[mnehring]

Finding some interesting stuff reading through the bill. Not only is it using taxpayer money for social engineering (by using credits to drive behavior) but it actually grants the EPA more power by having them certify these vehicles and even gives them the power to say how long a vehicle remains on the road. It also pretty much gives a blank check to the EPA to provide grants for R&D. Also, section 45S gives provision to fund foreign corporations for this. There goes the ‘Independence’ part.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.1380:

[PA Engineer]

The elephant in the room is distribution, for whatever fuel is used.

Agreed, but in the Northeast not so much. Here we will be looking at serious transmission issues with the Marcellus wells. These are monster producers. The standard vertical wells (traditional non-shale) tend to be tied into the distribution system. I don't see this as an ongoing solution for the shale wells. They have been doing vertical shale drilling locally and are producing an average production rate of 300 - 500 Mcf per day. The horizontal wells have had far greater outputs.

The problem is going to be gathering and transmission. FERC has earned a reputation for being one of our major hurdles to energy independence because of their slow and heavy handed regulatory aproach to pipeline construction. We have the natural gas in Western PA to supply the country if we can just get rid of the government and luddite environmentalists. This is just one shale layer. There are more (not just Marcellus) and distributed over a far greater area.

Frankly, I’d have bought one of the Honda LNG cars that were tested. The technology itself is exciting.

I think this is where the US needs to go. We have ample natural gas to take a NG and Gasoline hybrid approach to our energy needs. There are kits on the internet for about $3.5K that modify existing vehicles to a dual fuel, switch on the fly as necessary. One of the nice things about NG is it does not require refining and then distribution. NG can go strait to distribution with minimal processing. Home fill stations are available, but tend to be a bit pricey and require rebuilds after a couple years. This is something that should be left to the gas distribution companies as just another supplied and serviced appliance.

Service station retrofits will take time, but I see no resource or technical limitation to adopting NG as the nations primary source of transportation fuel over imported oil within the next decade. The problem is our government. Period. They are not just holding up oil production, they have and are in the process of throttling NG growth. Grassroots will have their work cut out for them to overcome this.

There are viable, seamless and economic alternatives to our energy problems right now here today. First we have to get rid of all the "hope and change" if we have any hope of getting out of this mess.

[PA Engineer]

This is a national security issue. We can be energy independent, or almost so, by using natural gas to power our vehicles. I would much rather have the money for our fuel spent here at home, creating jobs here and putting royalty payments in the hands of American landowners, rather than sending billions of petrodollars to middle eastern ragheads who recycle part of it to the terrorist network.

Ditto. Especially since most of the "new" gas is under the economically depressed "rust belt".

[nkycincinnatikid]

Although I recognise the point of this post is to demonize one Rand Paul, did I read in the small print that this is just a effort to NOT RAISE taxes on NG?

[mnehring]

This article has nothing to do with Rand and the point is that it uses tax credits(sic) as a social engineering tool to manipulate the market to move the way the government wants. It also provides a blank check for grants for R&D so it is a financial T-Boondogle.

[PA Engineer]

The goverment will drive up the cost of gasoline until we are begging for natural gas and hybrid cars.

You do know there are hybrids that are NG and gasoline? You can switch and run on either. You knew that, right? NG futures are running at about $.50 per equivalent gallon of gasoline. You knew that, right?

If there was an option for my next vehicle purchase to be a non-subsidized NG-Gasoline vehicle, I would buy it. The economic justification is readily apparent. You can keep your bridge. I already own it.