Now let me get this straight; we're "addicted to oil" so Congress takes action to make in EASIER to get...?!! Let's insert the word "crack" for oil and see if we can understand this better:
1- President says "We're addicted to (crack)...";
2- Congress proposes to offer tax break to help us buy our (crack);
3- Congress proposes price controls on (crack) dealers, so we can continue to be able to afford to buy our (crack);
4- Congress proposes to stop government stockpiling of (crack), to leave more available to us, and;
5- Congress proposes giving (crack) dealers access to Wildlife Refuge so they can use it to produce more (crack).

My conclusion: CONGRESS is smoking crack! (Or at least, DEALING it...)

"FYI you're on a site about sustainability"

What is your point? I must be for a gas tax or else I'm against sustainability? God forbid we actually work to make alternative fuels competitive instead of artificially raising the price of gasoline.

"Don't forget your cronies in big oil have been receiving huge subsidies from us to add to their profits. And it's the year over year % gains in oil corp. that upset many."

My cronies? Huh? What are you talking about? Their gains are high because the price of oil is high. It's really that simple. In case you hadn't noticed oil hit a record high recently.

"Adding a $1/gal tax is in effect a windfall tax and encourages conservation and sustainable alternatives to your status quo. You must be one of them sophisticated folk who would re-elect your politician friend because he gave you $100."

Adding a $1 per gallon tax would increase the price of gas by $1. Why you would think that the oil companies would pick up any of the tab instead of passing it to the consumer is beyond me. Good luck getting that passed though, as 95% of the country would more likely vote to hang you.

If you actually bothered to read my post you would have noticed that I agreed that the $100 rebate wouldn't do anything. I just don't see the point of blaming a corporation that follows the laws and makes a profit. Oh the horror.

If we would would have invested 10 billion per year in alternative fuels we wouldn't be in this mess and we wouldn't have people upset with exxon for simply making a profit.

artificially raising the price of gasoline

I like how you can say that with a straight face. Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, ourselves... stoking demand in India and China... resrticting supply... these are not the "free hand" at work, so it's laughable to speak of what is "artificial".

I just don't see the point of blaming a corporation that follows the laws and makes a profit.

They follow the law? Also laughable.

"I like how you can say that with a straight face. Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, ourselves... stoking demand in India and China... resrticting supply... these are not the 'free hand' at work, so it's laughable to speak of what is 'artificial'."

Taxing anything artificially raises the price. That's the point. It's not laughable at all if you are talking about raising the price of something by 33%. The ramifications are real even if the price has already been manipulated.

"They follow the law? Also laughable."
Really? What U.S. law are they currently breaking?

dc makes a point. There is NO federal price gouging law that currently exist. Senators that want to "investigate" price gouging are wasting not only their time, but insult the intelligence of americans. They waste time and pander rather then try to convince America to use less fuel, something that is obviously in our own best interests.

Peace,
Cosmo

dc, I'm not segregating the blame on corporations, they're lobbying the gov./admin., and together when they aren't breaking the law, their seriously bending it,
e.g. subsidies: buried in the Interior Department's 2006 plan, the gov will let oil co.s pump about $65 billion worth of oil and nat gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties.
Based on the admin. figures, we will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011 to corp. cronies/lobbyists' benefit.

"the $100 proposal won't do much it is still better than the solutions proposed by the anti-corporate crowd"
> the $100 proposal only benefits the oil (crack) companies
> a $1/gal addtl. tax would reduce consumption of oil/gas non-sustainable energy and this addtl. revenue (whatever trickles through) could be directed to promoting alternative sustainable/clean technologies

Taxing anything artificially raises the price. That's the point. It's not laughable at all if you are talking about raising the price of something by 33%. The ramifications are real even if the price has already been manipulated.

So you're willing to let the system be gained and have money lost to manipulators, as opposed to being intelligent and taxing oneself, reaping the benefits of those taxes, and getting the same result in terms of price signals? I don't know a single individual in the world who would rather toss away their money to someone than keep it for himself.

Really? What U.S. law are they currently breaking?

Gee, let me check my Omniscience Machine and check.

You didn't restrict the dicussion to US law, nor the present, and you obviously missed my inference that Exxon writes the laws via their puppets in government.

I'm still trying to figure out what decent American would rather we toss away an extra $400 billion per year on petroleum rather than use that money wisely. But I guess all that money pays for a lot of people to go off and give cover and excuses for why people are being reamed.

the system be gained

I meant "gamed".

"So you're willing to let the system be gained and have money lost to manipulators, as opposed to being intelligent and taxing oneself, reaping the benefits of those taxes, and getting the same result in terms of price signals?"

We don't have any control over OPEC and I don't see anything intelligent in raising the price of gas by $1. Such a drastic change could easily cause a recession and at the very least consumer spending would take a nosedive.

"You didn't restrict the dicussion to US law, nor the present, and you obviously missed my inference that Exxon writes the laws via their puppets in government."

So you admit you don't know of any U.S. laws they are breaking, and yes I guess I missed that inference hidden in your laugh.

"I'm still trying to figure out what decent American would rather we toss away an extra $400 billion per year on petroleum rather than use that money wisely. But I guess all that money pays for a lot of people to go off and give cover and excuses for why people are being reamed."

People would be reamed even more if you passed a $1 gas tax. We can have alternative fuel research without using a tax that hits the poor the most and has a severely negative impact on the economy.

We don't have any control over OPEC

Of course we do.

and I don't see anything intelligent in raising the price of gas by $1.

I don't recall proposing to raise taxes and certainly didn't mention an amount it should be raised. If it were raised $1, price could easuly stay the same if demand slacked off.

Such a drastic change could easily cause a recession and at the very least consumer spending would take a nosedive.

And when one creates a strawman argument, it's easy to then create disaster scenarios. No one proposed an immediate increase in the gas tax by $1. But it's interesting to see your doomsday notions, even though the price of gas has risen by almost $1 without any new taxes. Has a recession been caused? Has consumer spending taken a nosedive?

So you admit you don't know of any U.S. laws they are breaking, and yes I guess I missed that inference hidden in your laugh.

It's a red herring. They write the laws. They have also broken laws in the past (Valdez ring a bell?). And there's no earthly way I could know what laws they have broken (and gotten away with) or are breaking this very moment. But base don their track record, I'd bet they are.

People would be reamed even more if you passed a $1 gas tax. We can have alternative fuel research without using a tax that hits the poor the most and has a severely negative impact on the economy.

Again with the foolish strawman.

It takes about 5 minutes to find all this with a basic search.

---------------

Judge Gives Final OK to $1.075 Billion Exxon Settlement

"A federal judge granted final approval Wednesday of a $1.075 billion agreement between Exxon Mobil Corp. and thousands of gasoline dealers who sued the company, settling a 14-year fight that went to the U.S. Supreme Court....

The case against the Irving, Texas-based company began in 1991 when the service stations accused the company of failing to provide promised discounts for wholesale motor fuel and fraudulently hiding its failure to pay."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1144330163968&rss=newswire

Did a Group Financed by Exxon Prompt IRS to Audit Greenpeace?

"Two and a half years ago, Public Interest Watch, a self-described watchdog of nonprofit groups, wrote to the Internal Revenue Service urging the agency to audit Greenpeace and accusing the environmental group of money laundering and other crimes.

Last September, the IRS began a months-long audit of the U.S. arm of Greenpeace, known for steering its boats in the way of whaling ships and oil tankers. This month, Greenpeace says, it received notice from the IRS that the group "continues to qualify for exemption from federal income tax" as a nonprofit entity.

Greenpeace says an IRS auditor told it that the PIW letter triggered the audit. The IRS won't say how it decided to audit Greenpeace.

What is clear is where PIW has gotten a lot of its funding: Exxon Mobil Corp., the giant oil company that has long been a target of Greenpeace protests....

PIW's most recent federal tax filing, covering August 2003 to July 2004, states that $120,000 of the $124,094 the group received in contributions during that period came from Exxon Mobil."
link to WSJ article here

ExxonMobil: How the Company is Linked with Indonesian Military Killings, Torture and other Severe Abuse in Aceh, Indonesia

"In the past decade alone, ExxonMobil has extracted some $40 billion from its operations in Aceh, Indonesia, leaving in its wake a legacy of death, destruction and environmental damage.

There have been credible reports dating back several years that Exxon Mobil Corporation, along with its predecessor companies, Mobil Oil Corporation and Mobil Oil Indonesia (collectively 'Exxon Mobil'), hired military units of the Indonesian national army to provide 'security' for their gas extraction and liquification project in Aceh, Indonesia. Members of these military units regularly have perpetrated ongoing and severe human rights abuses against local villagers, including murder, rape, torture, destruction of property and other acts of terror. ExxonMobil apparently has taken no action to stop this violence, and instead, reportedly has continued to finance the military and to provide company equipment and facilities that have been used by the Indonesian military to perpetrate and literally cover up (in the form of mass graves) these criminal acts."
http://www.laborrights.org/projects/corporate/exxon/

You can also go to exxonsecrets.org to see the long list of organizations it funds to try and deny climate change science etc. You see the results of that in countless media with the so-called "experts" never disclosing where they get their money.

Also, in case you're wondering who the industry owns in DC, here's recipient data for the 2004 election cycle:
link here

I would like to see discussion/comments begin regarding the increase of oil refineries in the US. Based on what I've read recently, BIG OIL keeps the price up on the street by limiting their refining capacity. And of course, Washington, having received all that PAC money, never pushes them or initiates environmental help with permits etc. Just what are all these oil companies doing with their record Q1 2006 profits? Surely Exxon can build a new refinery for $8 billion.

Why aren't we reading about oil shale in the media? I have to find this information on the web. "The US holds significant oil shale resources underlying a total area of 16,000 square miles. This represents the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world and holds an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil-enough to meet US demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. More than 70 percent of American oil shale is on Federal land, primarily in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming".(Source-Bureau of Land Management News dated Jan 17, 2006
http://www.blm.gov/nhp/news/releases/pages/2006/pr060117_oilshale.htm

I for one would like to read more about the future of oil shale in the media. Unless the public pressures BIG OIL and Washington for action, development of a viable process to remove the oil and a relaxed BLM policy will never come to fruition.

you say BIG OIL keeps the price of gas high by not building more refineries in the US. Ok try to imagine if tomorrow someone built the worlds largest oil refinary in the US now please tell me where the crude will come from for this
will it come from oil fields in the US, no every year the us produces less oil than the year before
will it come from russia no the russians are pumping as much as possible and will soon decline
will it come from venezuela prob not since Hugo Chavez hates the US and Bush, not without good reason because bush was behind a coup to remove him from power
will it come from Mexico or Canada, no because they are pumping as much as
possible allready oil is at 70$ anyone who has oil is pumping as fast as possible and making billions
the reason gas is expensive is simple we are getting closer to the oil peek and when it hits you will look back to the good old days when oil was cheep at 3$
i would like to see a discussion or comments on peek oil which is the real reason for todays high prices and tomorrows rising prices