Obama Is Lying About The Keystone Pipeline

Shortly after the House of Representative passed a bill that approved the completion of the Keystone Pipeline, President Obama was asked to comment and he said this:

Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices.

Therefore, according to Obama, Canada merely wants to use us as a conduit to send their oil to every place other than the United States.  Additionally, it will not have an impact on our gasoline prices.   Both of these comments are bald-faced lies.

If the only intent was for Canada to sell its oil overseas, then why build a pipeline extending a total of 2,100+ miles from their western province of Alberta to eastern Texas and western Louisiana?  After all, a 2100 mile pipeline is both expensive to build and even more expensive to maintain; greatly adding to the per-gallon cost of the oil moving through it. They had a cheaper alternative. Were they to build a pipeline that was only 850 miles long from their oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta to their largest western seaport: Port Metro Vancouver.  Then, they could ship to some of the largest importers of oil in the world like China, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan.

But, as the President knows, Canada views us as a friendly and reliable trading partner.  This is why they are already our largest importer of foreign oil; accounting for 37% of our imported oil and  helping us to reduce our dependence on potentially unfriendly sources like the Middle East and Venezuela. 

Then, there is the issue as to whether or not Keystone will lower gasoline prices.  Simple economics and the Law of Supply and Demand says yes.  If you haven't noticed, gasoline prices in the U.S. are now at 4-year lows; from prices at the pump that were, in some cases, over $4 a gallon, to today's average price of below $3 and still falling.  The reason for this is the fact that there is an oil glut; primarily due to increased oil production in this country resulting from fracking.  The additional oil from the Keystone will only add to that glut and, as such, further reduce the price of gasoline.

Reduced gasoline prices is the real reason behind Obama's blocking of this project.

He knows that lower prices will undermine his push on climate change measures.  Lower gasoline prices means that people will be tempted to drive more and, at the same time, be less tempted to buy a newer, more fuel efficient car; including electric cars.  Thus, carbon emissions will only go up, not down.

Throughout his Administration, President Obama has done everything possible to keep gasoline prices  as high as possible by limiting oil production in this country.  He's used his Department of the Interior to limit oil leases on federal lands and our coastlines.  He has attempted to stop drilling on private lands bt using the EPA to expand endangered species to include those on prominent oil drilling territories and to file lawsuits over fracking.   Believe me, his intended expansion of the Clean Waters Act to include non-navigable waters will also ultimately be used to restrict drilling and fracking. That's because water is essential to all oil drilling.  In conventional drilling it keeps the drill bits cool.  In the case of fracking, high pressure water and chemicals are used to fracture shale and release the imbedded oil (and/or gas).


References:

Keystone pipeline: Obama bashes project while in Myanmar: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/14/keystone-pipeline-obama-bashes-project-while-in-my/

Keystone Pipeline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

Distance From Hardesty To Port Metro: https://www.google.com/search?q=distance+from+hardisty+to+port+metro&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

Global Oil Glut Sends Prices Plunging - WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/articles/global-oil-glut-sends-prices-plunging-1413334648

Time to Process Oil Leases On Federal Lands: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Time-required-to-drill-1-sm.png

Oil Leases: Bush versus Obama: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/u-s-oil-production-up-but-on-whose-lands-2/

 EPA Backpedals on Fracking Contamination Lawsuits: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303404704577313741463447670

Health Care And The Keystone Kops Of The Senate

Max Sennett created the Keystone Kops of silent film fame. The "Kops" were a bumbling group of imbeciles who expended an excessive amount of energy to accomplish seemingly nothing.

Like Max Sennett, our own U.S. Senate has its Keystone Kops. They're the Democrats who are frantically pulling everything off the shelves to try and come up with some kind of health care reform by Christmas. They have arbitrarily imposed this nonsensical deadline on themselves. Because of that, they are throwing everything at the wall to see if it sticks. If nothing does, they pick something else off the floor and fling that at the wall, again!

In the last two weeks, they have been on again; off again; with the Public Option. Now, we're down to increasing the size of Medicare and Medicaid -- both public health care systems -- and are now trying to convince America that the Public Option is dead. The struggle with abortion is another in, then out, problem. The latest fiasco is that caps will be put on cancer treatment payouts that are in excess of $100,000 annually. Right now, nobody knows who put that into the legislation; but, its there and many people are not too happy about it.

Yes, watching the senate attempt to pass health care reform is very similar to watching a Keystone Kops movie. It has all the attributes of trying to getting something done; even if it doesn't accomplish any of the original goals. Getting something done has become paramount and is clearly overshadowing doing something that is good. Between the Senate and the House, we have come up with the equivalent of a Rube Goldberg invention with all the flavor of the Winchester House of Mystery: A mansion renowned for its size and built with an utter lack of any master building plan.

So, it appears that we have a bunch of Keystone Kops building another Winchester House that will cost you, I, and the heirs of this country trillions of dollars in waste and inefficiency. It will truly be as historic as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi claim. As historic as the Hindenburg or the Titanic.

Look Daddy! Look at the nice big iceberg coming our way!

A Person Who Has Her Facts Straight About Health Care

One of the better reads about the Health Care Reform Bill that was just passed by the House of Representatives is that from Betsy McCaughey, the former Lieutenant Governor of New York under George Pataki (Click to See Full Story).

In the above referenced article that she wrote for the Wall Street Journal, she clearly outlines those parts of this legislation that would impose the heavy handedness of government on almost every American's life. Some of the important things that I took away from her article -- with my own interpretation added -- were:

• Even though you might currently have a health care insurance policy that you are quite happy with, the Federal government could decide that it isn't a "qualified plan" and force you or your employer to provide one that meets the new government standard. This could result in you having to pay a higher cost than you are paying right now.
• 18 months after this Bill becomes law, you will be forced to buy a "qualified" insurance policy if you already don't have insurance. If you're making, say, $44,000 a year; that policy might cost you as much as $7,000 a year. That's $7,000 a year before you pay taxes. So, effectively, if you're a single person and earning $44,000, your new, effective salary will immediately become $37,000. If you have a spouse and kids, I think you can see where the rest of all your money will be going.
• If, when you file your taxes, you can't prove that you are enrolled in a qualified insurance plan, a substantial penalty (probably greater than the cost of having bought insurance for you and your family) will be applied to your tax bill; thus making the IRS the enforcer for not participating in the nation's health care reform insurance program. This means that many Americans will wind up paying the outrageous penalties that the IRS is well known for. In many cases, this could break the backs of people who were probably struggling and who were unable to buy insurance in the first place.
• Employers will have to provide health insurance for every one of their employees. Additionally, each employer will have to pay 72.5% of the cost for that insurance. This part of the bill has a lot of far reaching consequences. First and foremost, the cost of almost everything that we buy in this country is bound to go up. That's because smaller companies, who have never offered health insurance before, will be forced to provide it. Furthermore, the majority of companies who do provide insurance for their employees, usually do so on a 50/50 basis. With this new law, their burden will go up from the current 50% sponsorship to 72.5%; a near 50% increase in their cost to provide health insurance. The money to do all this will either come from higher prices for their products and services or from downsizing their workforce in order to pay for it. Either way, it will be a disaster for our economy. Another consequence of this part of the Bill is the fact that spouses will have to get their insurance individually and from their respective employers. Don't expect that a spouse will be able to "opt out" of their employer's program and sign on to their "significant other's" insurance program; which might actually be a better program. There's no allowance for this. Each employer must provide insurance for their workers or suffer an 8% surcharged tax. I also suspect that if a spouse is a "stay at homer", he or she will not be able to ride off their husband or wife's employer-provided insurance policy because the cost to the employer will be just too high. In that case, the non-working spouse will be forced to get his/her own insurance independently. Similarly, an employee might not be able to cover the children with their employer's insurance and, for that reason, the parent may have to source insurance separately. For some families, this could result in a substantially higher cost for their overall insurance coverage.
• Medicare funding will be slashed by $500 billion dollars through reduced payouts for care. As a consequence, I would expect the trend of doctors refusing to care for Medicare patients will just keep increasing. That means that many Medicare insured patients will be getting their care from "assembly line" health care providers who spend little or no time with their patients. This will not mean better care for many older Americans. For example, hospice patients may no longer get their care from physicians, but solely from physician assistants..
  
• The "medical home" provision of the Bill will restrict the manner in which health care is provided; and, in doing so, it will restrict the payout for every kind of medical procedure that is given. Essentially, this provision of the Bill expands this type of HMO practice to every medical procedure. This is particularly interesting, because this limited kind of health care coverage is the very thing that Democrats have hated about HMO's and have held hearing after hearing about in year's past.
• The payouts for medical care will be limited to the lowest cost of providing similar care throughout the country. So, a doctor in San Francisco -- where the standard of living is quite high and quite expensive -- can only bill as if he or she was living in Little Rock or some other lower cost area of the country. If this won't drive some doctors and other health care providers out of business, I don't know what will.
  
• Medicare Advantage patients will suffer reductions in dental and vision coverage as part of reducing Medicare expenses.

Certainly, there are many more problems in this nearly 2000 page and $1.2 trillion legislation that will be uncovered once people can actually figure out what was voted on last night. The above contains enough things that should worry every American; not just Republicans -- as if Republicans are the only ones who would be screwed by this massive destruction of our health care system.

Shills

My guess is that Republican Senators Collins, Specter, and Snow will realize, at some point, that they were simply being used to get the stimulus package through the Senate. I'll bet money that, after the machinations of the House/Senate conference are completed and reconciled, much of what was removed to satisfy these turncoat Republicans will be back in; and, then some. That's because, what was passed in the House and the Senate are substantially different in scope while they might appear to be the same size in actual spending levels. I have read estimates that the two bills, overlapped together, will equal, on the low side, $1.2 trillion and, on the high side, $1.5 trillion. Neither the House nor the Senate Democrats are going to give up easily and just toss their portions of the bill into the abyss of compromise. Both groups are going to fight hard for their programs. I would not be surprised if the final product isn't over a trillion dollars. Maybe we'll find out later today.

The Real Story of Big Oil Profits

Last week, our major American oil company executives were, once again, marched before the Congressional "verbal firing squad" in hearings that those political morons seem to think will lower oil prices.

Unless someone can prove otherwise, there has never been a Senate or House hearing that has produced lower oil prices in the history of this country. It is all political theater for politicians who need to cover their big asses. It was political show during the Carter administration when the lines of automobiles, waiting to get gasoline, were wrapped around our city blocks. It was political show at the end of the Clinton Administration when, like today, oil prices were rising precipitously. And, it has a been similar, fruitless political carnival over the last 3 years when, in hearing after hearing, the same questions and the same "nothingless" results have taken place.

Sure, the oil company profits are high; but, relative to gross sales, the profits are in line with most other business. The fact is that most of these oil companies had little or no profits following the OPEC embargo during the Carter Administration; and, only in the last few years have they returned to a "good" profit margins. I can't remember a single Congressional hearing that was ever held to find out why our oil companies were making money. Can you?

The liberal Senators and Representatives of this country seem to think it is socially unfair that the oil compani4es should profit from high oil prices while we all suffer at the pump. Maxine Waters, a democrat from Caliifornia, actually hinted that the oil companies should be "nationalized" to keep prices low. How "maxist" is that! Does she really think that adding the inefficiency and wasteful spending of our Federal government will actually lower prices?

It appears that our lawmakers just don't understand the oil business. Just because the oil companies are making billions of dollars in profit, it doesn't mean that they are frivolously tossing dollars out the windows and raising every exec's pay. A single oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico will cost between one-half and three-quarters of "billion" dollars to put into place. It will cost millions of dollars to operate that "rig" over its life. Often, exploratory drilling is a "bust" and millions of dollars are completely lost in this high-risk activity. As these companies drill deeper to find the harder-to-find-oil, the costs go up. It is estimated that the new "rigs" will exceed a billion dollars for any of the deeper drilling activities. Further, most people don't realize that existing oil wells and oil rigs aren't just "forever" money-making machines. Daily, many existing oil rigs and oil wells completely run dray and will no longer produce any oil or profits.

It is true that the oil companies pay their stock holders a dividend. Exxon-Mobil gives a "whopping" 1.8 percent in dividends to its shareholders. By comparison, a bank will give you closer to 3 percent on a high-yield CD (Certificate of Deposit). Most investors in oil companies aren't looking for the return they receive on their dividends. Instead, they are looking for increased business activity which will cause the stock price to go up. Like any other corporation in this country, it all comes down to stock price appreciation. Let's not forget, if a stock price is not maintained or falls significantly, a company can be "taken over" or bought out by another more profitable corporation or investment group. So, stock price appreciation is a required form of self-preservation in the world of corporate business.

The profits that these oil companies take in will ultimately find their way to new oil and gas reserves and other new forms of "marketable" energy. They need to find new oil/gas and alternative energy sources in order to survive and grow as corporations. They are very efficient at what the do so that they maximize their profits. Most of the price of oil is due to factors that even they can't control. They are just as subject to the control of oil prices by the world markets and by OPEC as we are. For example, Exxon-Mobil, while being the largest oil company in the world, only controls less than five percent of the world's oil supply. That hardly puts them in a position to control oil pricing. If they could, they would actually want lower gasoline prices at the pump so that they could "steal business away" from their foreign and domestic competitors like Shell and British Petroleum and Chevron. But, they can't. That's why the concept of "price fixing" is just so absurd.

Oil and gasoline prices are destined to continue to go up as the world demand for this increasingly scarce commodities continues to grow. And, as sure as their is a sunrise, I would expect that Congress will continue to have their useless "get togethers" with the oil execs. There will be no changes and oil prices will continue to go up. That's my prediction.