-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! CONGRESS ACTION: October 1, 2000 ================= ENERGY CZAR BILL: The nation is in a state of high anxiety over the rising price of oil, and that anxiety could have dire consequences for Al Gore in the election. Bill Clinton to the rescue! After much soul-searching (that is, after much analysis about how the decision would play in public opinion polls), Energy Czar Bill has decided to release 30 million barrels of oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). You didn't know that the election of Al Gore was a national security necessity? It must be, because the purpose of the SPR, created following the Arab oil embargo of 1974-74, is to protect the nation from disruptions of oil supplies that might harm our national security, such as might occur from a Middle East war. Thirty million barrels of oil sounds like a lot, but abstract numbers can be deceiving, so some perspective is needed. According to the International Energy Agency, the total current world production of oil is about 76.5 million barrels per day (b/d). The U.S. uses about 19 million b/d. Clinton's SPR gambit therefore represents about 9.4 hours of the world's current oil production, and will supply the nation with 37.9 hours worth of oil. Will this make any difference? The consensus of opinion is that such a small amount will have a negligible practical effect in reducing oil prices. But pundit opinion also claims that release of oil from the SPR will have a large psychological effect, because it demonstrates this administration's willingness to intervene; that is, this administration's willingness to try to manipulate prices and distort free markets for political gain. According to Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, he and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan believe that using the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in this way is ".a major and substantial policy mistake." Clinton, Gore, and Energy Secretary Richardson adamantly deny that this decision was in any way politically motivated. The new oil should be refined and available to consumers about a week or two before the November election. In defense of the oil release from the SPR, it has been said that this is not really a manipulation of a free market, because there really isn't a free world market in oil, since the amount of oil drilled and pumped is regularly expanded and contracted -- ie: manipulated -- by OPEC. If this is the Clinton/Gore administration's definition, then it could equally be said that this administration has been manipulating the oil market since they came into office. But their manipulation has consistently been toward the downside, restricting the supply. This administration and its environmentalist friends have waged a constant campaign to close down existing off-shore oil drilling (and Gore has made a campaign promise of more of the same); and in the largest single restriction of supply, has refused to allow oil exploration or drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The U.S. Department of Interior estimates that ANWR contains between 4 and 12 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and less than 2000 acres out of the 17.5 million acres of ANWR would eventually be affected by drilling. But that exploration and drilling has been blocked by the Clinton/Gore administration because of their professed concern over the impact on the local caribou (Arctic caribou herds in the Prudhoe Bay area have increased between 300% and 400% since the opening of the Alaska pipeline), despite the advocacy of drilling by the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, an Alaskan company that was formed to represent the native Inupiat of the North Slope. One has to wonder just how stupid Gore thinks the American voters are. The Clinton/Gore administration has pared back our own sources of oil (domestic production has fallen 17% since 1992), and we have grown increasingly dependent on foreign imports (since Clinton/Gore took office, our oil imports have increased 34%; today we import 56% of our oil, compared to 35% during the 1973-74 oil embargo). Then he has the gall to proclaim that if elected, "I will work toward the day when we are free forever of the dominance of big oil and foreign oil." Even his friends at the Washington Post called that sort of demagoguery "a sleazy tactic". And despite his pledge to reduce dependence on foreign oil, Gore attacked Bush's proposal on Friday to do exactly that by opening up the ANWR, calling it "bad energy policy". All of the foreign oil that Clinton and Gore have forced us to depend upon comes to us by oil tanker, which Gore apparently considers "good" energy policy. Does anyone remember the Exxon Valdez? There is a far greater risk of environmental disaster from an oil tanker spill than from domestic oil drilling and shipping the oil to refineries over land via pipelines. The politicians, and the voters who keep electing them, now complaining about the high price of oil, the lack of heating oil, and our dependence on foreign oil -- especially the complainers from the ultra-leftist Northeast who are now whining about how cold they'll be this winter (whatever happened to global warming?) -- are the same people who have done everything they could to restrict our own domestic oil production and refining, who cheered as Clinton put vast amounts of our clean-burning coal off limits inside national monuments, who oppose oil drilling in ANWR, and who violently oppose nuclear power. They (and we) are now experiencing the consequences of their own short-sighted policies. The vast amount of energy required for advanced industrial and high technology societies has to come from somewhere -- unless the radical enviros want to return us to the stone age -- and hydroelectric power (environmentalists want to tear down hydropower dams anyway), windmills, and solar panels, despite leftist fantasies and Al Gore's wishful thinking, are wholly inadequate to the job. Gore's solution is to increase tax credits for windmills, and to push his agenda to combat "urban sprawl" by forcing people to live in massive Soviet-style urban apartment blocks so they will be closer to mass transit. There is, however, a quicker and easier way to drive down the price of gasoline and home heating oil, beside impairing America's strategic cushion by releasing oil from the SPR, or by initiating new drilling in the ANWR. Despite all the talk in the media and among democrats -- particularly the demagoguery from Al Gore -- about oil company "price gouging", the largest profiteers from the price of oil and gasoline are governments. A Heritage Foundation analysis found that taxes make up the largest component of the retail price of gasoline beyond the cost of the crude oil itself, with federal taxes alone amounting to 18.4 cents on every gallon of gasoline. Total taxes comprise an average of 28% of what consumers pay for a gallon of gasoline, an average of 42 cents on every gallon. In some states with particularly greedy state governments, the total tax exceeds 50 cents per gallon. Americans spend about $53 billion each year in gas taxes. And for the governments, because they spend not a dime in exploring, drilling, transporting, or refining oil, that $53 billion represents pure profits. In Europe, taxes make up as much as 80% of the cost of gas, and Europeans are now starting to realize that it is the big spending politicians who, because they refuse to reduce their taxes, should be accused of "price gouging." How long will it take for Americans to wake up and understand that the real "price gouger" in the oil market is government? In addition, there has been much recent anguish over "record increases" in profits and "unconscionable profits" in the oil industry. What, exactly, are those profit margins? In August, the publication Business Week compared the profit margins of various industries. The electrical and electronics industry topped the list with a 12.7% profit margin, and the nine industries analyzed by Business Week had an average profit margin of 7%. The profit margins of the oil industry during the first two quarters of this year did indeed nearly double over the same quarters last year -- from 3.6% all the way up to 6.8%. Lower than the average of the other eight industries. As a side-note, annual financial disclosure form filed by Al Gore with the Federal Election Commission, dated May 15, 2000, lists an amount of Occidental Petroleum stock held by the "Albert Gore, Sr. Estate; Vice President, Executor of Estate" listed in the value category of between $500,001 -- $1,000,000. But while Gore and his media friends attack Bush and Cheney for their former ties to oil companies, somehow Gore's current ties to "big oil" are ignored. Gore's FEC report also lists annual royalty income from his book "Earth in the Balance" at $16,457, and annual royalty income from Gore's Pasminco Gordonsville Mine mineral lease (valued at between $100,001 -- $250,000) is listed at $20,000. That would be the same Pasminco zinc mine that, according to the Wall Street Journal, received its most recent "Notice of Violations" from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation in May, 2000, because it's Elmwood Zinc Mine facility, located almost literally in the back yard of Gore's Tennessee homestead, infringed the Tennessee Water Quality Control Act due to high levels of zinc detected in the adjacent Caney Fork River. For Al "Mr. Environment" Gore, it appears that what Gore's environmental friends would call "raping the earth" is more profitable than pontificating about how to "save" it. The pollution of the Caney Fork River by Gore's zinc mine raises justified accusations of hypocrisy, but the hypocrisy of Al Gore in particular, and of the left in general, is nothing new. A more troubling picture of legal double standards is presented, however, when the consequences of Gore's environmental damage is compared to another instance of river pollution, in Virginia. In March, 1994, Benjamin Lacy was arrested by an army of federal and state agents from the FBI, the EPA, the Virginia State Police, and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Lacy had two family businesses, selling sparkling apple cider and running a country store. His crimes? Improperly filed reports regarding the runoff from his apple cider processing into a local stream. No dangerous chemicals were involved -- no dangerous zinc, for instance -- just treated bathroom waste water and apple juice runoff. And Lacy was not accused of harming the environment, just allowing harmless runoff into a stream, and more importantly, messing up 8 pages of the huge pile of environmental reports that he filed with government regulators. The Virginia DEQ required multi-page monthly reports measuring the content of the runoff, and a few mistakes were made in reporting some of the numbers. The "Justice" Department decided to make an example out of Lacy as a warning to other "corporate" polluters; in September, 1995, he was convicted of 8 felony counts of violating the Clean Water Act, and faced 24 years in prison and a $5 million fine. On appeal, the judge ordered a new trial on the basis of a technicality. At his new trial, Lacy was convicted of one count of polluting a stream, seven counts of falsifying environmental records, and was fined $10,000. Gore still earns $20,000 a year from his zinc mine, with no prospect of him being brought to trial for environmental crimes, pollution violations notwithstanding. As was said during Clinton's so-called impeachment "trial", an America with two standards of law -- one for powerful politicians and another for everyone else -- is an America with no standards of law. It is no longer a Constitutional republic with equality before the law, but a monarchy ruled by an elite political aristocracy. Aristocrat Gore would like the same people that his administration has been abusing for 8 years with its environmental policies to anoint him king for the next 4 years, so he can implement even more of his extreme environmental ideology. Are we all really that stupid? Gore thinks that we are. The fact that he isn't booed off stage every time he begins his "big oil" rant shows that he just might be right. GOP CONTRIBUTES TO DNC: One of the most reliable contributor groups to the Democratic Party are trial lawyers. Republicans in Congress apparently believe that, despite the enormous fees raked in by trial lawyers from the tobacco lawsuit settlements, those democrat contributors still don't have enough money to fill DNC coffers. Hence H.R.4543 sponsored in the House by Henry Hyde, and companion S.2955 sponsored in the Senate by Michael DeWine. These bills amend the tax code to allow companies held liable in asbestos-related lawsuits to write off their liabilities far back beyond the normal loss carry-back periods. Those companies would get refunds from the U.S. Treasury of past taxes (paid sometimes 40 or 50 years ago), and that money would then be used to pay off asbestos lawsuit judgments -- and plaintiff's lawyers' fees. Care to guess where those millions in legal fees will then go in this election year? Maybe Hyde, DeWine, and the myriad republicans supporting these bills will get nice engraved big-contributor "Thank You" plaques from the Democratic National Committee. The GOP isn't called the "Stupid Party" for nothing. FOR MORE INFORMATION. ======================== Arctic Slope Regional Corporation: http://www.asrc.com/public/ Heritage Foundation Backgrounder "Overtaxed at the Pump" (# 1386, July 19, 2000): http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1386.html Business Week Corporate Scorecard (August 14, 2000): http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2000/0033scrbrd.pdf Legislative Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c106query.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Kim Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? 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