I Keep Hearing On Cable News Shows That Americans Don't Want New Refineries In Their Back Yards.....

[global1]

and that's why we have high gas prices and no new refineries being built.

Is there proof of this? When was the last time a oil company said they would build a refinery and it was shot down?

If this happened - where did the oil company want to build the refinery?

I could see an oil company purposely saying that they wanted to build a refinery near a community so they knew it would get shot down and they could use this as an excuse.

Come on. Drive around this country and there are literally tens of thousands of places where refineries can be built where they would not infringe on communities. There are countless industrial areas or former industrial areas (near shut down steel mills) that refineries could be built.

The bottom line is that the oil companies don't want increased refinery production - so they could artificially keep the prices of gas high. They are just using this as an excuse. We need to call them on this.

[annabanana]

1. I'VE never heard that statement backed up either...

I think it's just an excuse they use to avoid the expense of building refineries, while they can continue to (endlessly, apparently) jack up the prices.

Keep in mind that they want to control the mideast supplies not to make the oil over there available to us, but to keep it off the market until they can sell that too at grossly inflated prices.

[rucky]

2. Fucking welfare queens want the state to pay for their refineries.

and we're saying HELL NO.

[prole_for_peace]

24. ....

:spray:

[C_U_L8R]

3. Those "experts" are oil flaks

it's all bullshit.

[Atman]

4. They want the government to pay to build them

Depending upon which estimates you read, a new refinery costs $2-3 BILLION dollars. The oil companies are complaining that building new refineries would be too expensive and want government (read: you and I) to underwrite the cost, cuz, you know, it will be you and me who will benefit, right? Yeah, right...look at the PROFITS earned by any of the major oil companies for any one QUARTER of the last year. They could build two new refineries each with the money in their petty cash drawers. It is greed, nothing but greed. If they spend the meager $2 billion out of their own pockets, the end result will just be more supply in the market which will lower prices. Why on earth would they want to do that?

.

[notadmblnd]

8. I don;t have a problem with the government building them

if we nationalize the oil companies and the profits are divided among he people. I think it could pay for a lot of things, health care, reduce taxes, support social security, plus the jobs it would create.

[annabanana]

13. Yup! If more people start talking like this, it might motivate

those profit bloated companies to pony up a little more, if only for PR purposes. . .

[Mist]

9. Not to mention that the cost of new refineries that can handle the cruder

grade of oil that's now being pumped is much higher than the cost of refineries that refine light crude. Hell no, they don't want to pay for the new refineries--why should they pay to upgrade their business like everyone else?

[wakeme2008]

5. The thing you GOT to remember is Bush was Gov of Texas

and had the Oil companies WANTED to build, he would have made it happen. They didn't!!!!!!!!!

[Warpy]

6. There are plenty of refineries

Big oil just mothballed them during the 90s. They still own the land. If they wanted more refineries, they'd demolish any outmoded ones and build new ones on the same site.

Gas prices are the way they are because a lot of the refineries they have left were shut down en masse at the beginning of the peak driving season (for maintenance, of course), thus creating an artificial shortage.

This is Enron all over again, folks, and how they raped California by shutting down power generating stations en masse.

Just as the Enron execs were taped laughing about elderly people going hungry to pay the light bill, it's probably the same damned men doing this one, laughing at the children going hungry so Mom and Dad can afford to get to work.

Please point out to every libertarian you know that this is how monopolies and even near monopolies (which is what we have) behave.

This is why we have all those anti trust laws that are being ignored by conservatives.

[conscious evolution]

21. 30 + refineries shut down in the last 10 or so years

Surely some could be brought back on line with a minimum of fuss.
But that would make sense,and if it makes sense forget about it.

[gravity]

7. Do you want a refinery in your backyard?

[liberal renegade]

16. yep.......

[Orsino]

10. Who needs *new* refineries?

Reopen and maintain the ones already in place.

[annabanana]

15. It is interesting that they are often taken "offline" for maintenance

at strategic times.. ("that's the sound of California breaking")

[Kansas Wyatt]

11. Oh Bullshit!

Knight Ridder did a story a few years back on how Big Oil made a collective effort to close down refineries and prevent any expansion of refinery capacity. The townspeople and workers of some of the closed refineries tried to purchase the refineries to keep jobs in the community, but Big Oil squashed it, because it would have hurt their goals for reducing the supply of gasoline.

[Atman]

19. Of course! More refining capacity means LOWER PRICES.

It's pretty simple to see why they don't want to build more.

.

[gravity]

20. More refining capacity means greater profits to individual companies

less profit for the industry as a whole

[Individualist]

23. Senator Ron Wyden did an investigation in 2001 which confirms

that.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:lBQo44REtQ0J:wyden.senate.gov/leg_issues/reports/wyden_oil_report.pdf+Senator+Wyden,+investigation+report,+oil+companies&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

[ChazII]

12. Arizona needs one and

needs it now!

[IDemo]

14. They claim expansion of existing refineries is doing the job,

"equivalent to one new refinery per year". I couldn't copy the video link (javascript), but look for "Video: Debunking the great gas-gouging conspiracy" on msnbc.com

[Strelnikov_]

17. There are 'Brownfields', abandoned refinery sites, all over the Country

that could be placed back into service with minimal additional environmental impact.

[Atman]

18. I have to admit, I don't want MY coastline looking like LA.

The New Haven/Long Island sound area is already nasty enough, but man...LA weirds me out...oil derricks right on the beach, those massive terminals everywhere. Whatever the hell they are. We just dodged the LNG super-terminal bullet up here. I'd rather keep all that nasty stuff down in 'Jersey where no one would notice anyway.

.

[On the Road]

22. It's True That Most Towns Don't Want a Refinery Nearby

but it's irrelevant. All you need are a few.

Is anyone willing to claim that in northern NJ people object to dirty industry? Somehow, I don't Flint, Michigan would have a problem with them either. Or hundreds of backwater counties desperate for jobs and any type of economic development.