I flipped when CNN ran a banner a few weeks ago saying that the price of gas was the lowest it has been in years. I KNEW that was not true, because, being on a limited income and living out in the boonies, a few cents a gallon up or down adds up. Politicians, and organizations that represent the oil and gas industry, have been playing fast and loose with the price of gas since forever, but I have been fascinated with the way they are working the public since the price finally began to come down a few years ago.
But going back into the painfully high gas prices of the Bush era (here in SC I remember paying nearly $4/gallon before the price began its drop), the right-wingnut cry was for -- you guessed it -- more freedom for the gas and oil industry: Drill, Baby, Drill. If that had been the most stupid thing Sarah Palin said during the 2008 campaign, I believe history might have been really different, because promising to lower the price of gas by drilling appealed to an awful lot of Americans.
And sadly, from fracking and resultant earthquakes, to pipelines and the leaks and spills caused by poor design and maintenance, to coal mining and its risk to workers due to its inherent danger and abhorrent safety practices, it has been nearly impossible to counter the demand for more and yet more oil. The siren song of more jobs has been magnified by Trump's narcissistic rendition of reality. He promised 28,000 jobs as he signed the executive order allowing the building of the Keystone pipeline. It is actually two to four thousand temporary jobs while it is being built and 35 permanent jobs when finished. The truth comes too late; the industry pockets its profits and we are forced to deal with the environmental and human disasters. And the price of gas doesn't go down.
Newt Gingrich bloviated about the price of gas when he ran his pathetic presidential campaign in 2012, claiming that Obama intended to get the price of gas up to $8 to $9 a gallon, and he alone could get it down to $2.50. And yet, when the price of gas went down as low as $1.50 last year, someone in the crowd at a Hillary rally had to shout out at the President about the low price of gas, because nobody was talking about it. Of course, Dems, unlike republicans, are reluctant to take credit for something they haven't had anything to do with. But Obama's stealth energy policy (again, nobody bragging about accomplishments) had managed to make gas cheaper without trashing the environment. And unemployment declined without all those dirty energy jobs being added; in fact, renewable energy has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US.
So what has been happening to the price of gas, really? A three-year chart shows the plummeting of gas prices in 2014 and 2015, only beginning a steady rise in February of 2016, as tension mounted around the presidential campaign.
After the election which promised to shitcan environmental regulations and give a go-ahead to fuel industry rape and plunder, it seems the Wall Street speculators are ready to party. And just as they did during the Bush years, the media is reporting the gains as though there will be no dark side, ever. But as the price of oil goes up, the price of gas at the pumps goes up.
But here is the thing that really drives me nuts. The price doesn't just go up and up and up. There is a method to the madness of the oil industry.
When I check the price of gas as I leave my Wadmalaw Island home and venture out to Johns Island and civilization, I see that it has gone up TEN CENTS a gallon since the last time I passed, a couple days earlier. The very next day it goes down four or five cents. Well, that feels like a relief, doesn't it? And then it goes up a couple more cents, maybe down a penny. This goes on for a month or two, and then steadies. Until it goes up another ten cents, and the shock is followed by relief which eventually leads to being acclimatized to the big hike and ready for the next wave.
In November, the price of gas by me was $1.59 a gallon. Today it is $2.19. Last week it was $2.09.
At some point, when people start complaining, the oil industry will produce some rationale for the hike. Nobody will be there to debate whatever reason they give. We will have pipelines producing a handful of jobs and drilling destroying our earth, and we will be tightening our belts to buy gas, just like we did in the good old days of the Bush administration.
By the way, here in South Carolina we have been waging the battle of the gas tax for years, until our roads and bridges got so damned bad they finally passed the hike. I am sure that many of our less informed citizens will be quick to point out that the rise in the price of gas is due to the tax hike them damn liberals voted in. Actually, the price of the gas tax in South Carolina did go up in June, by two cents a gallon. So please feel free to poke a hole in that one when it floats by.
Showing posts with label Fracking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fracking. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The Price of Oil
Could I have been the only person in the world who heard about the outrageous hike in gas prices on the West Coast and thought: ENRON???
It wasn't that long ago that the price of gas was dropping and the headlines were predicting low gas prices through the beginning of 2013. Of course, it doesn't matter how little we use, or how much of a surplus is stored, unless the oil and gas companies are allowed to pollute and destroy the environment with old refineries and new fracking sites, there will always be a justification for raising gas and oil prices.
Is anyone else tired of getting yanked around by the fuel companies?
Our media outlets alarmingly spout whatever line the fuel companies pass down about the cause of whatever hike is going on: an exceptionally cold winter, a warm summer, a big hurricane season, a drought, a flood, too much gas guzzling, an unusually warm winter, and my favorite current scapegoat: the refineries.
Yes, the oil industry has made big profits from failing to keep up their refineries, much less investing in improved infrastructure or more efficient (and clean) production methods.
And this go-round, the goal is obvious. This time, the oil companies are going to hold the consumer hostage until every last vestige of clean fuel regulation is gone. It started with Governor Jerry Brown lifting the restriction that does not allow a dirtier "winter grade" fuel to be blended and sold until November 1. Of course, while our media talks about how soon this will lower gas prices, they are also reporting that "it depends."
It depends on "pipeline issues." To me that says that it's time to squeeze the politicians, just before the election, and scare the voters, who will then elect those in favor of the tried-and-true "drill baby, drill" mantra.
It also depends on what kind of winter we have. Except that it doesn't. Because the price of gas will continue to go up until people scream bloody murder, and then will creep down, till we all jump back in our cars in relief, and then it will stabilize at a higher price than the last time we played this game.
Why do we continue to allow the oil industry to make ungodly profits while running down their refineries and passing the cost of their negligence on to us?
This is the hostage situation that big business has thrived on for decades. Politicians pass on the threat to consumers that if we don't ease regulations, cut taxes, increase corporate handouts, the (name-your-industry) will be forced to pass the higher prices on to us.
And when they do that anyway, their politicians and the media report that there are extenuating circumstances that can be fixed with -- that's right -- deregulation, tax cuts and increased corporate handouts.
So my heroes Henry Waxman and Dianne Feinstein are calling for investigations. But those heroes in Congress are few these days. Which means that the funds for regulators, and the clout that they have, continue to be eroded. The investigations will be short and meaningless. Should the cry become too loud and the findings threaten to go public, the price of gas will drop, for a short time. And when we take our eyes off the ball, which we will do, the fuel industry will repeat the cycle, until they've made another healthy profit, and their hostages -- us -- start to squeal again.
It wasn't that long ago that the price of gas was dropping and the headlines were predicting low gas prices through the beginning of 2013. Of course, it doesn't matter how little we use, or how much of a surplus is stored, unless the oil and gas companies are allowed to pollute and destroy the environment with old refineries and new fracking sites, there will always be a justification for raising gas and oil prices.
Is anyone else tired of getting yanked around by the fuel companies?
Our media outlets alarmingly spout whatever line the fuel companies pass down about the cause of whatever hike is going on: an exceptionally cold winter, a warm summer, a big hurricane season, a drought, a flood, too much gas guzzling, an unusually warm winter, and my favorite current scapegoat: the refineries.
Yes, the oil industry has made big profits from failing to keep up their refineries, much less investing in improved infrastructure or more efficient (and clean) production methods.
And this go-round, the goal is obvious. This time, the oil companies are going to hold the consumer hostage until every last vestige of clean fuel regulation is gone. It started with Governor Jerry Brown lifting the restriction that does not allow a dirtier "winter grade" fuel to be blended and sold until November 1. Of course, while our media talks about how soon this will lower gas prices, they are also reporting that "it depends."
It depends on "pipeline issues." To me that says that it's time to squeeze the politicians, just before the election, and scare the voters, who will then elect those in favor of the tried-and-true "drill baby, drill" mantra.
It also depends on what kind of winter we have. Except that it doesn't. Because the price of gas will continue to go up until people scream bloody murder, and then will creep down, till we all jump back in our cars in relief, and then it will stabilize at a higher price than the last time we played this game.
Why do we continue to allow the oil industry to make ungodly profits while running down their refineries and passing the cost of their negligence on to us?
This is the hostage situation that big business has thrived on for decades. Politicians pass on the threat to consumers that if we don't ease regulations, cut taxes, increase corporate handouts, the (name-your-industry) will be forced to pass the higher prices on to us.
And when they do that anyway, their politicians and the media report that there are extenuating circumstances that can be fixed with -- that's right -- deregulation, tax cuts and increased corporate handouts.
So my heroes Henry Waxman and Dianne Feinstein are calling for investigations. But those heroes in Congress are few these days. Which means that the funds for regulators, and the clout that they have, continue to be eroded. The investigations will be short and meaningless. Should the cry become too loud and the findings threaten to go public, the price of gas will drop, for a short time. And when we take our eyes off the ball, which we will do, the fuel industry will repeat the cycle, until they've made another healthy profit, and their hostages -- us -- start to squeal again.
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