http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSWAT00953020080520
From recent legislation:

Quote :

"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act,” declared the House of Representatives, “to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product… or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas, or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price, or distribution of oil, natural gas, or other petroleum product in the United States."

Well, OPEC nations may or may not be in violation of this law. My guess is that if incompetence and general third-world type fraud is actionable, then they are guilty. It may be tougher to prove outright conspiracy.

BUT, there is one nation that has, right there on the public record, clear government legislation that substantially limits development of some of the largest potential new oil reserves in the World. That country is the United States, and by passage of this law, the entire Congress has made itself outlaws.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2008/05/congressmen-mak.html

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 9:51 AM. Reason : lnk]

5/28/2008 9:36:41 AM

That's really tenuous at best. You know, and I know, that this is referring to collusion to control active oil, not oil that is protected in a national reserve that wouldn't even help us for ~10 years, by which time we should hope to be as far away from oil as possible anyway.

5/28/2008 9:39:55 AM

^^That is the most strained reasoning I've ever seen.

5/28/2008 9:44:19 AM

Well, SkankinMonky, if we indeed all know that then should we not expect them to phrase the law that way? And being as far away from oil as possible in 10 years would still leave us immensely dependent upon high oil prices. But, if you are right that we will magically be oil free in 10 years, we could still export it, bringing wealth and prosperity to the American people.

nutsmackr, how is it strained? They specifically wrote the law as vague and open ended as possible, clearly praying whatever judge gets ahold of it would find it unusable, but the definition still fits.

To put it another way, if you believe this law is sufficiently phrased to not apply to the U.S. government then it does not apply to the OPEC regimes either, since their restraints are primarily due to incompetence and socialism, not the statutorial restriction we find in America.

5/28/2008 9:59:42 AM

For one thing, members of congress cannot be held civilly liable for the legislation they pass or vote on. It's called Legislative immunity. Furthermore, the devil is in the details, specifically the ajoining documents that come with the bill and the parts of the US Code it ammends.

You are grasping at really, really, really tiny straws.

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 10:04 AM. Reason : .]

5/28/2008 10:03:21 AM

Things like this won't happen when LoneSnark's in charge!!!

5/28/2008 10:03:45 AM

If it doesn't exactly indict Congress, it sure makes them a hypocrite. We're basically mandating what other nations should do with their oil all the while not willing to even drill for our own.

In the 90s, Bill Clinton said "oh it will be 10 years before we see any of that oil." Guess what. It's 10 years later and my God we could surely use it.

We need to quit dicking around with OPEC and drill our own oil.

5/28/2008 10:42:18 AM

Quote :

"For one thing, members of congress cannot be held civilly liable for the legislation they pass or vote on. It's called Legislative immunity. Furthermore, the devil is in the details, specifically the ajoining documents that come with the bill and the parts of the US Code it ammends."

Such are the reasons I posted this on TWW instead of calling the police.

5/28/2008 4:12:06 PM

Quote :

"For one thing, members of congress cannot be held civilly liable for the legislation they pass or vote on. It's called Legislative immunity."

Explain to me what sort of "representative" can not be held accountable by his principles for the actions he commits in their name?

If these assholes can do whatever they want once elected and there's jack-all anyone can do about it for two years, then they aren't really "representatives" they're naked usurpers acting entirely on their own authority and on nobody else's.

5/28/2008 4:18:16 PM

you cant sue a specific us rep for the law they voted to pass

you can sue the us government about that law

5/28/2008 5:25:34 PM

you can vote them out of office, but you cannot sue them.

5/28/2008 5:33:51 PM

we dont really have that much oil in the US to drill...the place in alaska has enough to supply the world for about 6 months at current demand

5/28/2008 5:39:32 PM

I call bullshit. You mean to tell me there is no oil off the east and west coasts? Friggin' Cuba is getting big oil off the coast of Florida, but not the U.S., because people like you proclaim there is not much oil there. Well, how the hell do you know that when no one has bothered to drill any test wells? If there is not much oil there then why make it off-limits? Today's drilling technology inflicts almost no environmental impact, especially if the test wells come up dry, then you don't even have drilling platforms to distract the fish.

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 6:17 PM. Reason : .,.]

5/28/2008 6:15:09 PM

i dont know if that was directed toward me but if it was, reread my post...all i said is that alaska only has a 6 month world supply of oil...as far as i know thats the biggest concentration of oil in the united states

5/28/2008 6:30:19 PM

You don't measure an oil field by how long it can fuel the world's demands. That's ridiculous. Oil fields are considered "Giant" if they have more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil. ANWR has an estimated 10 billion, or 20 times that measure. It is one of the largest known untapped fields in the world.

But besides ANWR, there are several giant untapped fields in the US. "Jack 2" in the Gulf of Mexico is similar in size. The Bakken fields under Montana and South Dakota have about 4 billion barrels. Another 10-20 billion barrels are estimated off the pacific coast, where drilling has been outlawed since the 70's. And those are just some of the big ones. Actually, the majority of the oil produced in the world comes from fields not considered giant.

Also, the US has the largest oil shale and coal reserves in the world. We're like the Saudi Arabia of oil shale and coal. If the shit ever really hits the fan and oil shoots up to ridiculous prices, we can convert kerogen to oil and/or liquify coal without too much trouble. Likewise, our friendly nieghbor Canada has more oil than any other country besides Saudi Arabia. As prices escalate, their oil sands become economical and we'll get more oil from them. As it stands right now, we import the majority of our oil from Mexico and Canada, not the persian gulf.

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 6:43 PM. Reason : 2]

5/28/2008 6:38:51 PM

canada doesnt have the same kind of oil as saudi arabia

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 6:47 PM. Reason : i was told canada is in second place if you count natural gas]

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 6:48 PM. Reason : and lol at the coal/saudi arabia comment...yeah i saw that commercial too]

i'm not trying to say i dont want to drill in the US...i just dont think its gonna be as helpful as you do...personally i'd like to do what russia did(cash in on the oil when prices are sky high)

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 6:50 PM. Reason : .]

5/28/2008 6:46:39 PM

I haven't seen the commercial. But the US has a shit-ton of coal, and South Africa proved that you can liquify it and substitute it for oil without crippling an economy.

Canada is producing more than 1 million barrels of oil per day from oil sands up in Alberta. They have demonstrated that it's economical at current conditions.

Quote :

"Including the portion of oil sands reserves considered by government regulators to be producible at current prices using current technology, Canada's proven oil reserves were estimated at 179 billion barrels (28×109 m3) as of 2007, placing it second only to Saudi Arabia. Total Canadian oil production was about 1.2 billion barrels (190×106 m3) in 2006, giving Canada about 150 years of reserves at current production rates."

DNL:

Quote :

"i'm not trying to say i dont want to drill in the US...i just dont think its gonna be as helpful as you do"

Our dependency on foreign oil is a huge problem, as are the escalating prices. Right now the majority of our military expenditures are related to energy security, directly or indirectly. Increasing domestic oil production (even a small amount) would do a lot to help out the situation.

The next big thing will probably be oil shale development. It was getting off the ground in the 80's before a flood of cheap oil killed the market. I doubt that we'll ever see a return to oil being less than $40 per barrel, which is an estimated cost of extracting oil from oil shales once the initial investment is paid. And to reiterate, the US has a shit-ton of oil shale.

[Edited on May 28, 2008 at 7:08 PM. Reason : 2]

5/28/2008 6:55:57 PM

hey this is kinda unrelated but if 1 euro was still like $.82 would gas pretty much be like half of what it is now?

5/28/2008 7:41:49 PM