Oilslick Willie to the rescue

The jobs are not a claim, they are easily looked up, just type in North Dakota Oil Boom on google or the search engine of your choice. I'm sure people have moved to North Dakota for work, and I'm sure many people would move to states along the route of the pipeline at least temporarily, because the construction will be complete at some point, and the pipeline jobs would disappear. I read that the max number of jobs the pipeline would produce was approximately 2,000 jobs, if I remember correctly. Once it is built, the jobs will dwindle down to very few full time jobs.
Obama told the Republicans that if they put a deadline on the start of the pipeline, he would not approve the permit. They knew that going in, but they did it anyway so they would have a talking point to focus on lost jobs, etc. It was all politics. Obama's objection was the route of the pipeline through the water aquafer in Nebraska. He told them that geologists needed more time to find an alternate route around the aquafer in Nebraska. Oil sand production is a strip proceedure. The end product is not as clean as drilled oil and even if it were, any kind of oil leak into a water aquafer is disasterous. Oil and water just do not mix, if you get my meaning. So Clinton was actually trying to smooth the waters, so to speak. I don't think his intention was to pressure Obama. It will take time to plot an alternate route, get permits, etc. so not much can be done in a short time. Things done in a hurry usually end up in a mess. Build in a rush, and repent at leisure. I don't know about others, but if I were out of work with no promise of anything soon, I would move to wherever the jobs are. Food, shelter, clothing and security for the family should be the number one priority.

I don't recall the total number of direct jobs (that's the 2K you refer to) that the pipeline would have created but I think it might be somewhere close to the number you mentioned. You are correct that once the pipeline is completed, some jobs would end. One thing it seems you didn't take into account are the additional spin-off jobs that will be either created or filled due to the increased business and demands on local businesses. There is a ripple affect that takes place with such a project.

As I've stated prior, in Southeast TX, several jobs have already been created in anticipation of the piptline being approved and built. This has been happening for 3+ years. These "preporation jobs", for lack of a better term, are not counted in those numbers but they are an example of some of the spin-off jobs created. I know of at least 3 hotels that were built recently with the increased jobs (and expectred future increased number of jobs) at the local plants being cited as one of the major factors in the decision to build and open them. The owner of 2 of them has another 2 under construction in this area right now. They are scheduled to be completed within 6-8 months. Construction as well as staff for each of the new hotels are also jobs that can be at least particially, if not mostly, attributed to the pipeline project.

Obama had the request for nearly a year before the Repubs forced a deadline for an answer one way or another. Now that Obama finally gave his answer, the concerns can be addressed and a new proposal can be submitted. Until they had an answer from Obama, they could not submit a new proposal to him.

1. You can thank Bush for that since it takes 4-5 years, according to most estimates, to start seeing results from allowing or increasing domestic drilling.

2. I haven't researched this out (the cost) so I'm not going to say that you are correct or incorrect on this one. I can say that the expectation of the pipeline has created work in my area (Southeast TX) for at least the last 3 years. Had they not agreed to proceed with the OK to TX portion of the pipeline recently, a lot of jobs would have been lost.

3. Obama has shut down a lot of areas for drilling that were opened under Bush. He also caused several businesses to go out of business along the Gulf Coast thanks to the lengthy moratorium on drilling. Not only did people in the oil industry loos jobs but also many business that depended on the workers to spend their money also went under and those employees lost their jobs.

4. The subsidies for the oil industry as well as the "green" energy companies should stop. Both Dems and Repubs are against this, not jut one party. Obama can't even get his own party to go along with him when it comes to actually voting to stop the subsidies for the oil industry alone. They talk a good game but when it comes time to actually act, they don't.

5. Wrong -- Not the "only" one that has failed. In January 2012 CBS counted 11 other companies that are having trouble with 5 already declaring bankruptcy. http://tinyurl.com/7u92dcp

6.
And that was at the same time we were more involved in 2 wars in the Middle East than today.

Doesn't look like her advice worked --

Gas today is around $6 in some areas. The graph is not deceptive it is fact. It is a graph of the "average price" of gas not the day to day price in every part of the country. Obama would look worse today if we used a graph and numbers that you seem to want to use.

One of the largest NG fields was recently discovered in Beaumont, TX area last year or so as well as in northern LA in recent yrs. That's a good thing. It is a fact that the US has much more untapped NG and oil than the government is willing to allow to be drilled for. Some of the estimates say that the US could actually have oil fields that would rival several Middle Eastern countries, individually and combined. I would be interested in seeing your source that backs up your "less than 25%" claim.

For 40 years our government (BOTH Dems and Repubs) have refused to do what should have been started years ago so that we would be in a better position today because there fall back answer is "it will take 3-5 years before that option would help". If some of those options were acted on with any conviction within the last 30 years we would be well past the "3-5 yrs" period that they said was the issue for not doing them.

"Obama did not shut down any operating drilling rigs and he did suspend drilling in sensitive areas. " -- YES HE DID. He stopped ALL deep water drilling in the Gulf and took his time allowing the companies to get back to work. Personally, I would have been on his side had he said he wanted to suspend deep water drilling int he Gulf for 30 to 45 days (max) to give time for the rigs to be inspected and once each rig passed inspection they could go back to work. He didn't do that.

Bush also opened up offshore areas for drilling that Obama shut down.

Subsidies - not a matter of "being fair" it is a matter of is it something that, under the Constitution, the federal government should be doing in the first place. Also, just to be clear, there is a difference between a government subsidy and allowable tax deductions that are available to all businesses. They are not the same thing as most people believe.

Had you actually checked out the link I provided you would have seen the list of at least four (4) other companies that have filed bankruptcy after receiving government (i.e. tax-payer) backed loans. One of them, Beacon, filed in Oct. 2011 so the fact that Solyndra is NOT the only one should not be "news" to anyone that is attempting to defend Obama and the administration on this issue.

NO your graph is only the first 26 months Bush was in office. Gas price hit $4.21 in the last months he was in office and was above $3 most of his last two years. YOU were being deceptive!

Only oil companies estimate that kind of oil in the US and geologists say no way,

Oil companies rely on profits and will only drill when gas prices are high. They have been sitting on thousand of oil leases they could have drilled on at any time.

Obama put a moratorium on off shore drilling after the BP spill that caused over $7 billion in environmental damages and damages to local businesses. Obama has now opened off shore drilling Alaska and other areas to allow those sensitive areas to recover.

Again- Solyndra is the only MAJOR alternative energy plant to file bankruptcy.

Look- we need drilling in the US but more drilling will not lower prices when we already have a surplus and Saudi is going to increase production. we have lots of drilling going on in the US and the oil companies will stop drilling if prices drop so a medium to high price means more drilling and more jobs but too high a price kills the economy. It is a fine balancing act and all the people pushing more drilling do not understand that.

you seem intelligent so you should understand that!

We also MUST get off foreign oil to be safe as a country and the US can not do that without alternative energy and all energy sources must be developed and pushing only for oil and subsidizing oil is not helping that to happen.

Oil is NOT an inexhaustible resource and depleting it at a faster rate without alternative energy developed will destroy our country and the world!

The graph clearly states that it is a comparison of the "FIRST 26 MONTHS IN OFFICE" for both of them. I don't know how much clearer that can be. The avg. price of a gallon of gas on January 20, 2009, the day Obama took office was ....(drum roll) ....$1.849 (there were some that showed a lower amount but I pulled out the high #). Here is a link so that you can be more accurate in the future. http://tinyurl.com/7ad7xch

BTW, I have never said that gas prices were not high under Bush, I just don't like the fact that the left blamed President Bush while now, when the same thing is happening they attempt to defend President Obama with lies. And I voted for Obama in '08. I am voting to fire him this time around but I tell you that to inform you that I am not someone that will defend anyone just because they belong to one party or another. The President, regardless of who he is or what party he belongs to, cannot directly control the price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. He can, however, put in place policies that can either negatively or positively effect the price over time. Either way, he is responsible for his own actions and policies.

"geologists say no way" - again, please cite your source so that we may be able to discuss it with facts. You may be right, but then again, you may be wrong.

Obama kept the moratorium in place longer than he should have and ended up destroying many additional jobs and businesses that may have been able to survive had he lifted it in 30-45 days or less. In my own business, I have even felt the ripple effects of his decision to shut down drilling for as long as he did and my business is not tied to the oil industry in any way. I live in the Gulf Coast region of TX. Just because there is drilling now dose not change the facts of what he did and his decisions that caused more harm than was necessary.

Give me a break -- You think a company that received $39 million in loan guarantees (Beacon) is not a "major" company? Either you do not understand business at all (which does not seem to be the case) or you are purposely distorting the truth.

I can't recall the name of another one that received around $500 million in loan guarantees that recently filed for bankruptcy. The tax-payers are on the hook for all those that have failed because the government guaranteed the loans. Before it is all over, we will be paying billions (if not more) for loans that should our government should not have been guaranteeing. Facts are facts and no matter how much Obama and his supporters would like them to change, they are not going to.

On the need for drilling inside the US, we are not that far apart and actually seem to agree on more than we disagree on. The process of starting to drill for a company is not a decision that can be made without a lot of planning. It takes time to get started and therefore, just because gas is high/low today a company will not decide to start or stop drilling based on today's price of gas alone. You are correct that it is a balancing act, just as in any business is. If the supply in the market greatly exceeds the demand then the price for the product will go down and eventually, if it goes down too far, some companies may go out of business or change in order to stay profitable and in business.

Again, I agree with your point that we must reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Currently, the alternative energy industry has not shown to be profitable enough for large scale private funding. Several countries in Europe are currently in the process of changing their green energy policies because they have become too expensive and are helping destroying their economies.

Our economy cannot afford to throw billions of dollars away on these companies in the hopes that one day they will become profitable and affordable for the average person to use. Private money should be used to develop the technology, if investors are willing to risk their money. If they do and it is successful, those same investors deserve the rewards for the risks they took. That's how the free market works. Not to mention that there is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to back loans for or to give money to private companies.

Here u go.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economic...


In an August 27th, 2011 article of the Wall Street Journal, It states that there are "1,069: The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. this week."

"The figure reflects a huge surge in U.S. oil drilling, up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987,"

"The U.S. pumped 3.9 million barrels a day from onshore fields in March, up 5.9% from a year earlier and the most in nearly a decade."

"Rising production—along with other factors such as increased use of alternative fuels and reduced consumption due to more fuel-efficient cars—is helping to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. U.S. crude oil imports last week were down 11% from a year ago; on a percentage basis, the U.S. imported less of its oil last year than any year since 2003."

Now there is a difference between oil rigs on private land and federally owned land. So let's look at Obama's record on oil rigs and leases according to the Bureau of Land Management,

Here is the bureau of land management stats on NEW LEASES for drilling on federal land. In 2011, 2,188 new leases were given out by Obama. In comparison, George Bush gave out only 2,022 in 2003. While the numbers do not mean much to me because leases increase and decrease due to the price of a barrel of oil. When prices increase, oil companies want to drill, when prices decrease, it is not as profitable and they do not want to drill.

*** In an August 27th, 2011 article of the Wall Street Journal, It states that there are "1,069: The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. this week."

"The figure reflects a huge surge in U.S. oil drilling, up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987," ***

Is it possible that the year over year increase (2010/2011) could have anything to do with the fact that the deepwater moratorium was in place in August of 2010 (one year prior to the article) and was not lifted until October of 2010 with the first new permit being issued March 1, 2011? The rigs may have been there but if they were not operating they may not have been counted in the "drilling for oil" numbers for 2010. -- I don't know, I'm just asking because it seems to make sense that they would not be counted.


The following is from a January 2012 report -
Report: Employment, Government Revenue, and Energy Security Impacts of Current Federal Lands Policy in the Western U.S. The Report analyzes oil and natural gas leasing, permitting, and drilling trends on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the energy-producing western states of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The balance of the evidence suggests a systematic decline of energy production activities on the nation’s federal lands in the last two years.
http://tinyurl.com/6vqgcy6

"... according to BLM data, the number of new federal oil and gas leases issued by the BLM is down 44% from an average of 1,874 leases in 2007/2008 to 1,053 in 2009/2010; the number of new permits to drill issued by the BLM is down 39%, from an average of 6,444 permits to an average of 3,962; and the number of new wells drilled on federal land have declined, 39%, from an average of 4,890 wells to 2,973 (Table E-1)."

(Table E-1 is on page 5 of the report, use the link above to view the entire report - my comments).

Also from the report --
"The BLM released new fiscal year 2011 oil and natural gas statistics on January 10, 2012. The trend in reduced leasing, permitting, and drilling on western lands appears to be continuing. Although the 2011 total of 1,461 federal leases issued for western states appears to be higher than the 2009/2010 average of 1,053, closer review of the BLM data shows that the majority of leases that the BLM characterizes as “issued” in 2011 were actually backlog leases that were sold in previous years but had been mired in challenges since. An estimated 860 of the 1,461 leases issued in
2011 were not new leases at all; they are leases secured in previous years that were stranded, in most cases, pending resolution of legal challenges in court. In 2011, only 601 new leases were actually sold, which is an all-time low (since 1984) when backlogged leases are accounted for. New drilling permits and wells drilled issued in 2011 were 3,851 and 2,783 respectively, both below the 2009/2010 averages and significantly below the 2007/2008 averages."

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The number of "backlogged" leases "issued" in 2011 that this report refers to (which does not include the total number either backlogged or issued overall) seems, to me, to be enough to question some of the administration's claims on this issue.

If the BLM is not accurately reporting the numbers and the information, then when the administration uses the information they are presenting a picture that is not accurate. The problem for the administration is that even if it is an oversight on their part, they, just like any other administration, are still responsible for promoting the inaccurate information. Especially if the information being presented is more positive than in reality it is.

Thank you Mich52. Your post made me dig a little deeper and over the next week or so I will find some time to do a little more research.