White House: Oil reserves eyed as oil prices rise

[IDemo]

Source: Associated Press

(AP) – 13 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's chief of staff says the administration is looking at the nation's oil reserves as it considers options for dealing with the spike in gas prices.

The price of a barrel of oil has passed $100. In the U.S., gasoline is averaging $3.50 a gallon.

Those increases come amid unrest in the oil-producing Middle East, particularly as rebellion rages in Libya.

White House chief of staff William Daley tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that all options are being considered for a short-term response to rising oil prices.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gm4igOYr--vJ_464MQdtRymsH1Og?docId=ac72ad55b8cc40aab606f47863708392

[Angry Dragon]

1. Nothing short term about it

Oil prices are going to go up further and further
it will increase the cost of everything
the people at the bottom will get squeezed more
tax revenues will go down
corps will ask for more tax cuts because profits are going to be less

[jwirr]

8. I am afraid you are correct. It is now time to consider those lifestyle

changes. And this time they need to be real changes. Most likely coming from the necessity at the local level.

[SugarShack]

43. Come on...we have over 4,300 oil wells out in the Gulf of Mexico in operation

Keep it here in the U.S.

Canada has offered for us to buy it cheaper from them as well...I read a tidbit about that today in the Canada Report in the St. Petersburg Times, Sunday.

[NickB79]

52. The vast majority of those wells produce from small oil reserves

Those 4300 oil wells only account for 29% of US oil production, according to the EIA.

The US produces approximately 9 million barrels of oil per day (we burn 20 million barrels per day total, however).

That means the GOM oil wells produce 3 million barrels per day total, with an average of only 700 barrels per day per oil well!

Gulf of Mexico oil production has been overhyped just as badly as Alaska's oil reserves have been.

[Steerpike]

51. You are absolutely right!

But, like so many pathetics here...I just can't do it.
The logistics here in Alaska (Anchorage) are just daunting. The houses in the area where I work are 250k plus! Way above my price range...way above...and the area where I do live has only low wage jobs that would not support my family. So I feel trapped. I would love to buy an electric car but I can't afford 40 thousand dollars. The bus system here is barely adequate and the muni seems to cut service a little bit every year. If I tried to take the bus I would be into the job up to 13 hours a day...

sure I agree with you...but being independant of the system is not just a state of mind...

[russspeakeasy]

31. It's the EASY way out, so let's take it.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Really, everything is on the table?

Why do I not believe you. What is on the table other then maybe cutting more taxes for the oil corps to drill? Right now BP is sitting on their asses and not drilling "in field", what are they going to do to make them drill?

Are they going to do an all out blitz of alternative energies? It would be nice if this was on the table but I won't hold my breath.

[bhikkhu]

7. How about asking people to use less?

I know there is a great fear of following Carter on this one, and probably it wouldn't matter anyway.

People are free to use less if they want to without making it a political point at all, and being asked to do things differently often seems to bring out the worst in people.

In my case, our family's income has shrunk a bit over the years with all the economic mess, and something had to give three years ago when gas got expensive then. Nobody asked us to, but we went down to one car, and I started biking it to work. I think the savings have been $100-200 a month since then in fuel and vehicle costs. For the past three years instead of suffering along we are actually doing well money-wise, and good health is a significant by-product.

[cowcommander]

10. That just isn't an option for most people, cars are necessary

I live in the Central Valley in California, and the only job I could find is 30 miles away. Biking is simply impossible, and I did look into the local bus system, but it would take me two hours to get there.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. Unfortunately for those people, it needs to become an option

work closer to home, live closer to work, get a smaller and more fuel-efficient car. Or learn to put up with taking mass transit. I know people who live and work in Greater London who have 2-hour commutes every morning. I know people who live in Cardiff and work in London, 150 miles away, who have 2-hour commutes every morning. Sorry, but it's simply not reasonable to live in a way predicated on a limited resource like oil remaining cheap with the expectation that you'll always be able to do it. This is what "lifestyle change" means, and this is what's going to be necessary for most people, especially in the US, in the face of rising oil prices...and like it or not you'll have to adjust to it one way or another.

[Carni]

32. Can you write my government and tell them...

About that mass transit thing? (I'm sure they'll get right on it)

I'm 70 miles from DC and yet they don't seem to get it, even near our nation's capitol --oh yeah, and most of the people I know in the area...have at least an hour plus commute to the DC area just to HAVE A JOB and they have to go by car because there is no rail service/mass transit out this far.

"Work closer to home" Hmmmmm....I work AT HOME (because I had to create my own job) but that work just happens to include hauling product around.

[Ghost Dog]

20. "$100-200 a month" - You were driving around needlessly

(and unhealthily) that much, previously?

Huge savings to be made.

[bhikkhu]

38. That's definitely less than average

The standard cost for motor vehicles is about 50 cents a mile. That includes fuel and maintenance, and maybe insurance (I'm not sure). We started out by saving $30 a month on insurance, then $240 by not reregistering one vehicle. Fuel savings were immediately $40 a month. Miscellaneous brakes and tires and oil changes that the second car was in need of simply didn't have to be done.

Needless to say, if we had owed money on a car and had sold it or gotten out of that somehow, the savings would have been much greater.

[uppityperson]

21. Food costs are raising rapidly due to increased transportation costs. Should we just eat less?

[Carni]

33. I guess

Maybe we should just STFU and graze on our rural grasses, or something....

[JoeyT]

34. No, we're supposed to grow our own food.

While somehow living close enough to a major population center that we can ride a bike or walk to work.
I'm not sure how we're supposed to do that, since most people couldn't afford to live near where they worked before the economy crashed, and they certainly couldn't afford enough land to grow food there.

[Carni]

36. No kidding!

I'm getting a little sick of the "all people who don't live in a city" are schmucks vibe...

[NickB79]

53. Yes, to an extent. Americans need to eat less of the foods that require the most oil

Meat production is highly oil-intensive. A switch to a more vegetarian diet would go a long way to reduce oil use in the US. Ironically, part of the booming demand for oil in recent years has come as Asian countries develop a middle class that has enough disposable income to buy more meat for their diets.

[uppityperson]

55. Let's take an example, say a Boca burger.

It is grown with petrochemical fertilizers, machinery, etc. Then transported by truck or maybe train, to the storage place, then to the processing plant. Where it is cooked, smushed, processed a lot and made into patties. Then packages, shipped via frozen food truck to stores to be placed in their freezer and sold. Vegetarian, yes, but it takes a lot of oil to get that food to you also.

Eat less processed, more local food when you can. I say as I sit eating some potato chips. However, dinner is local beef, beans and spuds from my garden. We do what we can, but just saying "go veggie" isn't enough as my local cow has taken less oil than the boca burger my friend ate for lunch.

[Arctic Dave]

23. Not the dreaded third rail of energy!

This is merika where it is patriotic to be gluttonous. ;)

[Carni]

30. UNFORTUNATELY

Some of us live in the sticks (yeah there are liberals in the sticks too, trust me on this one)

We're ten miles from the nearest town and I have a 15 year old active in sports, who also has a job on the weekends-what can we do? Tell the kid you can't participate in sports, or have a job because gas prices are high?

I agree with consuming less, but for a lot of people we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We have a small old truck (which we legitimately need for our business) and we have a compact car, in fact it's so small our daughter barely fits in the back seat of our car.

If I could afford to go out and buy a new hybrid, I would be all over it, but the reality of it is, many cannot and they're (we're) the ones suffering for it! :(

[bhikkhu]

39. Many can't, but many could if they decided to

and then consumption would decline and the price of fuel should (in theory) decrease to a level affordable by people who had no choice. I would have no problem with that, and would still happily bike to work for the sake of good health, affordability, and conserving to help other's out.

Saudi Arabia has long been called the "Swing Producer" - the one country with a big reserve capacity who could flood the market with oil if it so chose, and thereby save us all from high fuel prices. Its a good bet that that's not the case anymore, and whether its choice or geology is immaterial - the cavalry simply isn't coming.

On the other hand, the US has been called the one major "Swing Consumer" on the planet - we consume so much more than any other country at or near our standard of living, that if we chose to conserve the effect would be to so reduce demand that the market would be flooded with oil, and we would all be saved from high fuel prices.

[madmax]

40. Carni - you're dancing as fast as you can.

With the shit we all have to deal with more or less. This didn't happen overnight and it's not going to be resolved in at least my life time.

Hang in there and do what you gotta do for yourself and your family. :fistbump: :hug:

[Carni]

41. Thanks madmax!

I'm doing the best that I can and thanks for the understanding.

[high density]

3. We have no plan to escape the clutches of oil

OPEC, the speculators, and the oil companies will squeeze us every time the economy shows glimmers of recovery. It's so easy, so why would they not? We consume 20+ million barrels of oil a day. Tapping the "strategic" oil reserve isn't going to do crap.

[skepticscott]

28. Well, we did...sort of

last time gas prices spiked to over $4 a gallon, sales of big trucks and SUVs dropped and people started conserving and buying more fuel-efficient vehicles. But as soon as prices dropped again, people forgot all that and started buying the big guns again.

[primavera]

4. Kind of makes one wish...

... we had been a bit more proactive earlier about conservation, huh, Mr. President?

[Lorien]

35. +1.000. Many of us have been saying for decades that we need a new Apollo

project; one that focuses on weaning us off oil by making the development of massive green energy projects, affordable electric and hybrid cars, and a National high speed MagLev monorail system with light rail connectors a National priority. But Obama believes in the miraculous invisible hand of the free market, that will sort it all out, because he's strongly opposed to the idea of government being in the business of job creation (when was the last time that the POTUS talked about JOBS?? Oh yeah, when he told us that tax breaks for billionaires would create them. :eyes: ). But the uber rich love the status quo. They'll do nothing to push innovation; in fact, they'll try to stop "disruptive technologies" at every opportunity.

[northernlights]

5. looking for a "short term response" to a long term, escalating problem.

I feel so warm and fuzzy now.

[Avant Guardian]

6. Try eyeing some alternatives to foxxil fuel while you are eyeing stuff Obama

[Delphinus]

44. Now

*THAT* would be the better choice. Let us use this as a catalyst for better modes of transportation. I think many would say we've reached Peak Oil anyway - what better time than now?

[jwirr]

9. Using our reserves up is the last thing we should be doing. They

are going to be needed for more than keeping the status quo going for another 2-3 years.

[skepticscott]

27. Yes, they are not meant to be used

as a tool for small and short-term price control. Even GWB was smart enough to realize that.

[JanDutchy]

11. Prices should rise: until men reaches knowing what they are doing: ABUSE!

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Tapping the oil reserves isn't going to bring the prices down at all.

But it will bring some tidy profits.

[Thor_MN]

24. Profits? Not when Chenney was buying for the reserves at these same prices...

[AtheistCrusader]

42. Well, I didn't mean for the public (who technically own those oil reserves).

[lucky leftie]

13. When Bill Clinton did this

the price of oil went down. I think it was a popular decision at the time; I remember my father praising Clinton for standing up for working people.

Cenk Uygur talked about the price of gas last week, and claims that the rise in prices is largly due to Wall Street speculators. He also implied that the speculators are doing it on purpose, to cause our economy to slow down at a critical time. In that light, perhaps Daley is telling Wall Street that the administration is going to fight back.

[katnapped]

48. Same thought I had

He also implied that the speculators are doing it on purpose, to cause our economy to slow down at a critical time

On the GOP's side, desperately trying to get the black man (/"Democrat") out of office one way or the other. Same thought I'd been having.

[South End Liberal]

14. What about the 800 pound speculator gorilla in the room?

Matt Taibbi wrote this for Rolling Stone in 2010:

And what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical-commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino.

Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.

[Ghost Dog]

22. Yes, exactly. But most people don't want to know this. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. Arrghh..I had missed that piece by Taibbi

[katnapped]

49. Hell, I'll bet the Koch Klan has money in it too

Rake in the bucks + get the evul Democrat to be blamed and kicked out of office = WIN WIN

[madrchsod]

15. the housing market is a bust so where else are they going to speculate

oil is the one commodity that is a safe investment.

[Gregorian]

16. How about changing our habits?

Oh I forgot, that's heretical talk. How about addressing the other half of the equation just once in a while. Even Bush said the truth. He said we aren't just dependent on oil, we're addicted to it. Not bad for an ignorant twat.

[No Elephants]

19. He said it, but what did he do about it? When Carter said it, he was sincere.

Methinks Dummya was only covering his ass.

And using "ignorant twat" to describe a male President--or anyone--is offensive.

[Lucky 13]

17. Short sited idiocy

It's all smoke and mirrors. Whatever justifies more drilling, more raping of the environment, more money to be made. I'm sick of the corporate dick sucking.

[lib2DaBone]

25. Ohio and Fla Repuke Govs just killed high speed rail projects...

I wonder how much Big Oil contributed to those decisions?

Repukes WANT us tethered to oil... and that is what we will get.

Mr. Obama is not a leader... and can't stand up to these Repuke decisions.

[Vinee]

50. I really don't see how high speed rail is going to solve any of Ohio's problems

I think a San Fran style trolley system would be more useful to the folks living in our larger cities at least.

[thelordofhell]

29. Have they check to see if they're still there?

I wouldn't be surprised if * didn't sell it all off and pocketed the cash before they left office.

[louis-t]

37. So, we have to tap into our reserves because speculators are

driving the price up?

[dipsydoodle]

47. They speculate

because the price of oil is rising. The speculators are not the cause : they are an effect.

[louis-t]

54. No, the price of oil is rising because

speculators are guessing what the price will be in 2 months. They trade oil futures.

[eringer]

45. How about the "option" of building 10 Million Chevy Volts?

How shocking would that be to the naysayers like that jerk Robert J. Samuelson who writes garbage for Newsweek (which I just cancelled my subscription for because of the other idiot at Newsweek -- Niall Ferguson).

Build it and they will come.

[Steerpike]

46. so how much are electric or hybrid cars costing these days?

30,000 dollars? 45,000 dollars...hey prez where's my vouchers!?

[sofa king]

56. Waving it around might be a good idea. Doing it could be very bad.

It's a strategic reserve. It's going to be the only thing between millions of Americans and starvation for months, if the poo really hits the fan.

As I recall, it was bought at top dollar by those financial aces in the Bush Administration, so until it hits around $5.00 a gallon we'd probably be selling it back to ourselves at an even worse loss.

[Vinee]

57. That will just "fuel" further speculation.nt

[Imagevision]

58. gas price hikes solely from "speculation" like when there's a possible hurricane about to hit the US

then it doesn't - but it takes 90 days for speculation prices to calm down. BS!!!