Did Clinton do anything about the oil crisis?

[TheFarseer]

Granted it wasn't a crisis back then but repubs did hit us over the head with gas prices in 2000. Also I was an honorary freeper til about 1998 so maybe he did and I wasn't paying attention. I was just curious for information.

[demnan]

1. One thing he did

was not to start unnecessary wars in the Persian Gulf.

[Skink]

2. Well he didn't save the strategic reserves for the next war.

[eallen]

7. Was that wise?

There are two things to keep in mind about the strategic reserve. First, using it to lower prices is a purely temporary move. Second, when you go to refill it, the effect is to raise prices, in the same way that drawing from it lowered them.

In short, it can be used to moderate prices over only short periods of time. In contrast, we have been experiencing a medium- to long-term price trend upwards. To the extent that Clinton used the reserve to moderate a price spike when he was president (to what? $35/bbl?), we are now buying the oil back at $50/bbl and $60/bbl. Oops.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Sorry But That's Inaccurate

The market curve is almost linear to supply & demand. When the reserve was tapped to moderate prices, a lot of oil was taken out all at once. This effectively lowered oil prices. About that, you are correct.

But, the entirety of the reserve depletion was replaced in the next 30 months. Some of that happened after Silverspoon was in office, but at that point, the prices had moderated. The effect was that the oil price was about the same for the refilling of the reserve than it would have been after the price spike and subsequent spring drop-offs. So, we aren't replacing the reserve oil with high priced crude. The tapping of the strategic reserve was based upon a plan to gradually refill over a fairly short period of time. Exactly as it should have been.

The plan worked nearly perfectly. There's no oops.
The Professor

[eallen]

11. Well, good then. But now there has been a steady price rise over years....

I don't see how it would do much good to tap the strategic reserve now, unless you're fairly confident that the current price rise is just a spike caused by temporary conditions.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. It Won't

We're on the same page here. The problem isn't so much oil supply right now, as refining capacity. The fires and maintenance shutdowns (badly planned, btw) have created a shortage of refining capability both here and in Europe. With demand for crude in China and India on the rise, the oil prices are spiking, but the current price spike is about half actual oil and half caused by GASOLINE (as opposed to oil) shortfalls. The speculators are betting up the oil because the market gas prices are more predictable. So, people won't bite on high futures the way they will with oil.

This latter phenomenon has been well documented by microeconomists. I'm a macro theorist, so i don't have that type of data handy, but i know that oil prices being affected by downstream effects as much as overall upstream supply is more or less accepted as fact.

So, i don't think the reserve will help a lot, as long as the refining shortfalls are truly short term. If they're not, it would be almost useless.
The Professor

[Yavin4]

18. Folks, Globalization = Higher Energy Prices

In the mad rush to the $1 an hour Asian laborer, everyone forgot about the effect on gas prices. Well, now we're seeing it.

[jhawk_tim]

20. Actually

The strategic reserves were "topped off" (the first time they had ever been at 100% of quota) back when oil was around $25 per barrel.

I agree, releasing any of the reserves only creates a very short downturn and results in an eventual, permanent uptick in the price.

The strategic reserves should be reserved for exactly what the original intent was - support of mainland defense in the event some form of naval blockade or other foreign action prevents us from receiving oil needed to maintain mainland defense.

[bryant69]

3. What do you mean do something about it?

What do you think he ought to have done?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[htuttle]

4. He tried to raise CAFE standards...sort of

Though if you ask me, his effort was half-hearted. He 'compromised' with Detroit way too easily.

Here's an article from 2000:
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=4247

Gore was much more aggressive in his plans regarding gas mileage, but never got the chance to implement them.

[johnnie]

5. Well, if you were a freeper back then

I would bet that you didn't pay much attention to anything but blowjobs. Good to see you on our side now.
I guess since he didn't cause some cluster-fuck in the Middle East, he did more for the "oil crisis" than the shit for brains that is ruining the country now. As for specifics on Clinton, I don't have them at hand, but I'm sure that many people here will provide some.

[TheFarseer]

23. Actually Monica-gate did alot to turn me off

of the repubs. I saw them as petty, mean spirited and hypocrital in light of that whole thing. Later I realized their only interst is in making money for themselves and their rich friends.

[gratuitous]

6. In September 2000 he ordered a release from the SPR

Story here:

http://money.cnn.com/2000/09/22/news/oil_spr/

U.S. taps oil reserve

September 22, 2000: 3:49 p.m. ET

Energy Secretary Richardson says U.S. to release 30 million barrels


NEW YORK (CNNfn) - President Clinton Friday authorized the release of 30 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, marking the first time the U.S. has dipped into its reserves in nine years.

The move is aimed at lowering crude oil prices, which currently are at a 10-year high, and assuring Americans they will have enough energy to heat their homes.

__________________________

gratuitous again: Naturally, for this bit of compassion, Clinton was vilified by the Right Wing Hate Machine, it was claimed that the release was a political ploy, and that it wouldn't work anyway.

The results, however, were to moderate prices that had hit a 10-year high and blunt Big Oil's money grab. Nothing of the sort, of course, is happening now that oil prices are at all-time highs. The major difference between now and then is that we had a human being in the White House in 2000 and in 2005 we have a greedy, bloodthirsty robber baron squatting in the White House.

[happyslug]

8. WIth the GOP controlling Congress???

What Could Clinton have done? I do believe the Rails to Trails movement is part of a plan to have some sort of alternative transportation system (i.e. have people bicycle to work instead of driving their cars) but remember LBJ's famous observation "Nothing gets done in Washington unless it is lobbied for". Right now the big lobbyists are for Automobile use and Oil use. The Bike and mass transit lobbies are weak in comparison. Thus while I believe the Rails to Tails (and the expansion of Light Rail) is part of a plan to help the US in a Future Energy Crisis, the big money is pro-Automobile. Thus until we have a Real crisis, where the price of Gas goes through the roof, the problem of oil will NOT be addressed. This was even more true Under Clinton, there was no way the GOP controlled Congress would address oil given the massive lobbying by the Auto Industry and the oil industry.

[TomClash]

9. Oil was $12 a barrel

And he had a Repuke Congress. What COULD he do?

[endarkenment]

12. Lowering the price of crude made the problem worse.

It helped Detroit convince us we all needed big fat suvs.

I guess it depends on what you mean by the 'oil crisis'. If you mean you are upset about the price of gas, then yes Clinton lowered the price by dumping out of the SPR. If you mean did Clinton do anything to mitigate the looming peak oil crisis that is now here, no he did nothing that I am aware of.

In a cynical machiavellian fashion, the neoclown imperialists are doing 'something' about the oil crisis: they are squatting on the biggest source of cheap oil on the planet with their imperial expeditionary force.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

13. There was actually an oil glut while he was in office...

North Shore and all the other drilling projects we and the Soviet Union had started working on after the OPEC oil embargo of the 70's came online. Hence the $12 a barrel.

I'm reading the Long Emergency now...
Over the last 100 years we have consumed over half of the known fossil fuels in the world. Most of the remainder will be to expensive to get to.

Tighten your seat belts, it's gonna get really bumpy. :(

[DS1]

15. Freepers don't pay attention?

I'm SHOCKED!

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Well, of course!

He agreed to give oil to N Korea, drastically affecting world oil supplies, causing his successor to take corrective action by cutting off Korea's oil and invading Iraq.

Besides, he got a blow job.

[Gabi Hayes]

17. congress has been one of the worst culprits, from Carter on.

they went against him during his admin, when his chief legislative plan was to reform energy consumption....see Walter Karp, Liberty Under Siege

He had no chance against the energy/auto lobby/both parties acting against him

then came Reagan/Bush, who gutted the CAFE standards established under Carter

then, under Clinton, this snip typifies what congress did to undermine ANY sort of rational response to the eventual depletion of fossil fuels:

"Towards that end, I wish to focus today on a rider that has been attached to the Transportation Appropriations bill for the last several years. This rider prevents the preparation, proposal, or promulgation of higher standards of Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE). It thus prevents the significant potential benefit that might appear should these standards be scrutinized and raised. According to the 1999 EPA document "Inside the Greenhouse," CAFE standards have not been revised since the Carter Administration. We believe it is time to consider revising them now."

very interesting speech by a Rabbi, who details all the things we should have done/should be doing WRT energy

excellent encapsulation, with statistics that have surely worsened since he said all this in 1999!
http://rac.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=918&pge_prg_id=4368

well worth a read

[IrateCitizen]

19. No.

I tend to agree with James Kunstler on his assessment of Clinton and the oil situation. A lot of it has to do with where Clinton came from.

Bill Clinton is a southerner. Prior to the 1960's or so, a lot of the South was still stuck in a kind of semi-feudalism, and much of their economies were still well behind the industrialized Northeast, Upper Midwest and West Coast. Then, all of a sudden, the former serfs in the South rubbed their eyes and emerged into a culture that was built upon explosive growth. An influx of northerners seeking more open land helped provide the capital for this growth, and much of it was based upon the need for rapid expansion of housing.

Now, none of this growth was what could be called "planned". Rather, it was the classic Charlie Foxtrot of suburban single-family tract homes in cul-de-sac developments, connected by 4-lane highways riddled with strip malls, fry joints and the like. In short, it was the export of the New Jersey and LA models to the South, and the South gobbled it up because it provided the immediate economic growth that had been lacking for so long. While the already industrialized areas of the country experienced suburban sprawl as an effect of "white flight" from the inner cities, sprawl was different in the South. There was no real development of the inner cities first -- there was simply a rapid expansion of suburban rings around those cities, such as what has happened in the Atlanta region, which is now an absolute nightmare of unbridled sprawl resulting in Potemkin villages surrounding the city.

Bill Clinton did nothing about the oil problem because there was an oil glut during his terms, due to the North Sea and Alaskan fields still pumping at amazing rates, and also because he was completely unable to recognize the SOURCE of any impending oil crises, which was the horrible practice of suburban sprawl. He was unable to recognize it because he came of age during its ascendancy, and he was completely unable to imagine another possible model of growth.

At least that's my take on it. Clinton hardly gave CAFE increases a halfhearted try, but in the end they wouldn't have even done that much without addressing the deeper root cause of poor planning becoming unmanagable sprawl -- and he was either completely unwilling or innately unable to do so.

[leetrisck]

21. Has bush done anything about it? The crisis is now

not then.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. He opened the strategic oil reserves I believe when prices rose.

http://money.cnn.com/2000/09/21/economy/gore_oil/

Clinton considers tapping oil reserve; Bush opposes move; Gore supports idea