Interesting Concept for New Refineries

Here is one I haven't heard before.

Hey folks,

One of the main arguments that the LWL and the far Left Envionuts love to use when talking about drilling, is what do we do with the oil once we get it. We cannot possibly refine it, because we do not have the capability to do so with current refineries. Of course the reason we have no new refineries is because of them standing in the way for the past thirty years. However, that aside, the answer is simple. Build new ones WHILE we are drilling. They will be ready when we are.

So then we have a question of where do we put these new refineries. Well, President Bush answered that question while giving a speak at the2008 Annual Meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association in Greenbrier July 31

"I asked the Congress to lift the legislative ban in June to allow there to be offshore exploration. Tomorrow is the 1st of August. That is now six weeks since I made the request, and Democratic leaders there haven't done anything. I -- members are fixing to go home on their August break; they get to explain to their citizens why nothing positive has happened. Looking forward to listening to the explanations. It's -- there's legislation pending in Congress to lift the restrictions. My call is, before you go home for an extended period of time, you ought to bring these bills to the floor. The leaders ought to be giving these members a vote -- a chance to say yes or no as to whether or not we ought to be finding more domestic oil to take the pressure off gasoline prices." (Applause.)

"There were executive restrictions on OCS exploration. I've taken them off. I've done my part. And now the Congress needs to do its part."

Which as we all know Pelosi and the TIC did not do.

"Secondly, we ought to expand oil production by tapping into oil shale. Oil shale is out west in the Rocky Mountain West, and that alone, if fully recovered, equals more than a century's worth of imports at current levels -- in other words, there's huge potential. And there's new technologies that may make this become economically viable.

The problem is, is that there's a provision inserted into law that blocks oil shale leasing on federal lands. In other words, the federal lands that contain the oil shale, you can't lease them. And if you can't lease them, obviously you can't explore. The provision was slipped in; it can be slipped out." (Laughter and applause.)

"We ought to be drilling in Alaska. I told you about the new exploration techniques, the new drilling techniques. You can have a drilling site that protects the flora and the fauna, and explore in ways to get -- to be -- doesn't deplete your reservoir unnecessarily. In other words, we get oil and gas to the pipeline. We can drill on a tiny footprint relative to the vast tract of land, and it's estimated that that would produce about 10 billion barrels of oil. Now, some of the critics say that's not much oil. Well, that's ten billion barrels times current price -- less money going overseas and staying here in the United States of America." (Applause.)

So I know some of you out there are now going to say, OK what then. What do we do with all this oil AFTER we drill it. Here is a possibility I have not heard before today.

"One of the real problems we have is that we haven't built a refinery in the United States in 30 years. Isn't that an interesting statistic? It's kind of a sad statistic, because -- you probably don't know this, but much of the gasoline that we use here in America is imported from overseas. We haven't built a refinery because there's typically a lot of regulatory burdens and costly litigation. And Congress can fix it, and they ought to fix it. I actually asked Congress a couple of times to allow for refineries to be built on abandoned military bases and expedite the regulatory process so we can get these refineries up so we can get more gasoline, U.S.-produced gasoline into the pumps for U.S. consumers."

Well, there you go. A simple solution to a SIMPLE problem. The Military bases are already there. Renovating them into refineries will not effect the environment anymore than they do now. No new land cleared. No need of surveys to see the impact. It's truly a brilliant plan. They are there, just refine the bases to refine oil, problem solved.

"Supply and demand works. And if you got a pinched supply relative to increasing demand, you're going to have higher prices. We can send a signal to the world that the United States is going to get after these reserves here in the United States of America; that we're going to have an aggressive policy that respects our environment to take the pressure off international price; and we can also relieve pressure on our own gasoline stocks by producing it right here in the United States of America.

So I'm talking about a comprehensive plan. But it starts with being wise about our own resources and having confidence that technology will enable us to extract those resources that accomplishes several objectives: one, an efficient way to get the product to market; two, keeping our money here at home; and three, protecting the environment. And I'm confident we can do all three."

See the Video here.

We CAN do all three. I bet we can even be investing and looking into alternative sources of energy at the same time. All that has to happen is the Democrats and Pelosi in particular, need to get out of the way.

Be right back.
Peter