Gasoline prices
If gasoline prices of $2.00/gal, refined from $40.00/bbl crude oil, are making consumers angry, they should. Consumers need to understand that it may get worse as refineries have been processing heating oil during this cold winter for people on the East Coast and there has not been time to build up gasoline inventories for the driving season. A bulletin from the Department of Energy announcing the possible shortage of gasoline is not what consumers need at this time.
What is needed is more domestic supply. In the late 1970s there was a tremendous supply of crude oil on the West Coast, as Prudhoe Bay production from Alaska was delivered to refineries in the states of Washington and California. There was also 500,000 b/d shipped through the Panama Canal to refineries on the Gulf Coast where refined products were distributed to markets in the East and Midwest. The cost of gasoline was $0.65/gal (incl. tax). That is what a supply of crude oil will do for the consumer.
The Trans Alaska pipeline has pumped over 14 billion bbl of oil to Valdez for shipment to the Lower 48 states. It is now at less than one-half capacity, which is why the exploration of the Coastal Plain, part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), is necessary. Geologists believe it contains hydrocarbons that could greatly increase domestic supply. It has been sparsely explored to date; it has only 10,000 residents, and is larger than the state of Colorado, with one road and one pipeline.
Environmentalists have taken control of energy policy in the Senate by their political contributions, and some of these lawmakers are calling the Coastal Plain an "ecological disaster area." It actually is a flat, snow-covered area with wind-chill factors far below zero for 9 months of the year. The sun doesn't shine for 3 months, and it is a mosquito-infested wetland for 3 months. Pristine, it isn't.
Most Alaskans, their governor, legislature, senators, and congressmen are strongly in favor of the development of ANWR, which would provide thousands of jobs, royalties, and taxes to the state and federal governments. This could be part of the supply consumers need which would also make us less dependent on OPEC. To pay foreign countries over $120 billion for crude oil and products, as we will do this year, so that royal families can live in a lavish lifestyle, is not in the consumers' interest. Nor is it in the interest of the consumers for presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry to become so indebted to environmentalists that he will filibuster any attempt by his colleagues to increase domestic supply by exploring ANWR.
Our nation has had an energy crisis for years because of the energy illiteracy in our congress and it has been very costly for the American people.
Doyle T. Grogan
Denver