Senate Foreign Relations Hearing: Hidden Cost of Oil

[TayTay]

See here for the webcast link: http://foreign.senate.gov/index.html

The Hidden Cost of Oil

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, March 30, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time: 9:30 AM
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Presiding: Senator Lugar

Witnesses:
Milton R. Copulos
President
National Defense Council Foundation
Alexandria, VA

Dr. Hillard Huntington
Executive Director
Energy Modeling Forum
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Dr. Gary W. Yohe
John E. Andrus Professor of Economics
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT

[TayTay]

1. Wow! The estimate is one barrel of oil per day per soldier

That is very steep.

[TayTay]

2. Cost of oil

US Spent $320 Billion dollars on imported oil in 2006.
2003 we were spending $49.1 billion annually to maintain the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.

2006 The real cost of a gallon of oil is $10.85 when you factor in all the hidden costs. OMG!

[Inland]

3. Our "captialist" free market conservatives

only see harmful subsidies when they want. Why doesn't the military presence in the Persian Gulf guarding supply routes count as a part of the price we pay? Clearly alternative fuels look less expensive by comparison if we were to count all the subsidies.

[TayTay]

4. IT did. The specific testimony was that it was adding

about 4-5 dollars to the price of a gallon. (The figures were flying thick and fast with the first witness. I will have to get the transcript to get the specifics. )

[Inland]

6. Excellent. I'll be looking for the figures.

Let's assume he's exagerrating by half. Why not ax it two bucks a gal to make the price reflect the cost, thereby removing the price distortion due to indirect subsidies? The tax would be paid in part by higher prices and part by the distribution chain, returning rational market choices to the entire system!

[MH1]

5. Excellent point.

Another example is the nuclear industry having their catastrophic insurance subsidized by taxpayers - that is not counted in the "price" of nuclear energy either.

But back to today's topic, oil...