President Obama is obviously planning to nationalize the oil industry

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Since finding more oil here is going to make the United States more energy independent, as argued, then obviously the United States will be controlling the disposition of that oil.

Otherwise it doesn't make at that much much difference whether it is pumped here or pumped somewhere else.

So that's cool.

Go socialism! (We will have to hope the Brits don't replace Obama with the Shah.)

De facto nationalization is probably not without precedent. I would guess that the US government controlled the disposition of oil pumped in America during WWII. And WWII was a war about oil... except in that case we had the oil and Japan didn't. (Our oil embargo of Japan was what precipitated Pearl Harbor. That sounds odd today, but on the eve of WWII the US produced more than half the world's oil!)

(I am not very riled up on either side of this one but I dislike the adoption of arguments that were so easy to demolish when the other side was offering them.)

[KansDem]

1. It's about time! The American people should control their oil...

Not some group of investors!

Energy is a national security issue and should not be left in the hands of private concerns. They have shown repeatedly they do not have the good of the American people at heart.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. People were pointing out this flaw in the Drill Baby Drill thing back in 2008.

You'd have been laughed off of DU for making the assertion back then.

[emulatorloo]

3. Obviously Obama is trying to destroy GM's new Chevrolet Volt electric car

He wants GM to fail so he can take it over.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. The U.S. nationalized the railroads in WWI "USRA"...

But me things you forgot "April Fools" on this post.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. No April fooling at all

The claim that pumping more oil here makes us less energy dependent only makes sense if the entity that is supposed to be more independent (The United States of America) controls the disposition of the oil.

The OP is wry, not literal. But it is not an April Fool post.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. Then you should suggest a method where he will legally nationalize anything...

It would need an iron clad majority in the Senate and the House willing to support nationalizing the petroleum industry, He could only do that with some sort of legislation, and the President can not legislate.

Wilson was able to effectively nationalize the railroads because they were so poorly run that they could not function to meet the needs of WWI in 1917 with an executive order. Their control was nationalize, not the individual railroads. The railroads were returned to civilian control 1920.

Now, the U.S. did not fully nationalize the railroads. They took control of them, but left them in the ownership of their civilian owners.

I suppose he could use something similar to what Wilson did in WWI, but I see no indication he is going to do that. It seems to me all he wants to do is to increase U.S. production.