Oil Cost Stokes Push For Policy

[chlamor]

Oil cost stokes push for policy

WASHINGTON – For a generation Americans have commuted, heated their homes, manufactured goods, and expanded foreign trade without any major overhaul of energy policy. Proponents of oil exploration and conservation never went away, but their urgings were muffled by an era of relatively cheap oil.

Now the momentum is finally shifting. With crude oil topping $55 a barrel and 55 Republicans in the US Senate - up from 50 before the November elections - major energy legislation now appears much more likely to pass than it did even a year ago.

Monday oil traded briefly above a new high of $58 a barrel. Prospects ranging from terrorist attacks on critical oil facilities in the Middle East to soaring prices at US gas pumps this summer have rattled Wall Street and are giving new urgency to efforts backed by President Bush and key lawmakers.

<snip>

At the same time, the possibility that some crisis could push petroleum prices still higher, even to $100 a barrel, is fueling pressure for more serious conservation proposals to curb petroleum use.

The real cost of oil isn't just the prices paid at the pump, but also some $400 billion to support US military presence in the Middle East - and the constant threat of disruptions in that region, critics say.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0405/p01s01-usec.html

[Lindacooks]

1. What the hell do Repukes have to do with it??

"55 Republicans in the US Senate - up from 50 before the November elections - major energy legislation now appears much more likely to pass than it did even a year ago."

Please. From Reagan onwards, all Repukes have ever done is side with automakers, energy companies and polluters. They are NOT interested in conservation, the environment, OR alternative sources. Their answers, if you can call them that, are for drilling ANWR, invading oil-rich countries, and re-starting nuclear.

[applegrove]

2. Made non-democratic elites in ME so rich they bought up the US and

if any capital flight happens of American Rich..then the Saudis will actually own the USA. Why the low interest rates on the rich.

We need basic norms for tax rates on the rich throughout the world. If they can do it with GATT, they can normalize universal health care and taxes on the rich across the world.

It was Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield and all at the helm when these Oil policies were continued. They likely saw the chance to for taxes on the rich down as 'way fun'.

They are all monsters.