Op-Ed: White House on Thursday threatens veto, again

The White House on Thursday threatened to veto legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives that would force oil companies to give up undrilled federal leases and ban the export of crude drilled in Alaska.

The bill, which the House was to vote on later on Thursday, has a "use it or lose it" provision that requires oil companies to diligently develop their existing federal leases or turn them back to the government before they could obtain new acres to drill.

"By blocking some firms from competing for new leases, this legislation would further increase gasoline prices that already exceed $4 per gallon and result in unintended consequences due to litigation," the White House said in a statement.

"Even though new leases will take years to develop, oil markets are forward-looking, and an expected decline in future supply will raise prices today," the White House said.

The White House also said it opposed the bill's language banning the export of crude oil produced in Alaska. The Congress allowed exports of Alaskan oil in 1995, but virtually none of the state's crude has been shipped to other countries in the past eight years.

"Such a ban would make virtually no additional oil available to U.S. consumers, and would not lower oil prices that are set in a world market," the White House said. "At the same time, such export restrictions are detrimental to the efficient operation of global energy markets and would send the wrong signal to our trading partners who may face pressure to impose similar trade restrictions."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080717/us/politics_congress_bush_oil_dc

They want to complain that they cannot drill on the coast, but they won’t even drill the land they already have? What is worse is that these companies, which have grossed record profits, are not willing to give the unused land back. This sounds kind of like land accumulation rather than smart energy policy.

The “use it or lose it” policy seems to make perfect sense. It is federally leased land, meaning the Americans have a stake in it, too. If they do not want to use the land for commercial or industrial purpose it should be returned.

Bush’s threat that prices will exceed the current $4 a gallon is a baseless threat, considering three months ago when he was asked about $4 a gallon gas, he said “I haven’t heard of that.” Something that was so evident then, he didn’t know, and something so unclear now, he knows. Amazing!

The Alaskan oil is for American use and reserves, but Bush wants to export it to the global market. How does this exactly guarantee energy independence? I don’t understand the logic here. Send it on to the global market so it can be purchased at a higher price, thus exposing Americans to more volatility.

And this won’t even prevent oil prices to fall for another few years, which would make null the argument concerning gas prices climbing higher in the immediate future. That is unless Bush is referring to speculators dropping the price based on the news of new oil being drilled for future use; which would then be proof positive that the markets are being influenced heavily by speculators. Economists have already said crack downs on speculation would cut prices in half, so maybe President Bush and his parrot McCain should focus on that first.

Working on the immediate problem first and then the long term solution is the way to operate a business. Considering Bush has been the CEO of two failed businesses, this would be too much to expect. Two failed businesses, and two failing wars; failed chief executive, failed Commander in Chief…see a correlation here?