This pic really explains what happens to oil once it's drilled:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. Let's not forget

That the oh-so-dangerous Keystone Pipeline will take that toxic sludge to Port Arthur, TX , a duty free port, to be refined and shipped overseas.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Good point.

So not only do we realize any income from that dangerous sludge, but we could very well suffer from any spillage. It is an unacceptable risk.

Why do you suppose the Canadians oppose running that pipeline through Canada to the western port of Vancouver?

Yup.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

9. Canadian citizens are too smart to allow it?

[ThomThom]

16. and we get to keep the left over nasty waste

we can use it to build roads, buildings,schools and houses contaminating our space for no gain...
a really bad deal

[2on2u]

31. Exxon Mobil and the rest have billions to burn, but they can't put a refinery in Canada, OR just

this side of the border. This probably doesn't make sense but then neither does sending sludge thousands of miles across pristeen (sp) countryside.

[The Magistrate]

3. And Will Actually Increase Gasoline Prices In The Mid-West, Ma'am

By 'relieving' refineries there of 'excess' product....

[Sekhmets Daughter]

8. I was going to mention that, but wasn't certain...

thanks for the confirmation.

[SDjack]

4. We can have all the oil we want -- just be willing to pay the high prices

at the pump. When we pay those prices, the refineries increase their rate of production by bidding up the price of crude oil in the commodity futures markets to increase their supply. So, all we have to do is outbid other countries for the crude and pay increasing high prices at the pump. (The POTUS has no influence on this process.)

[Raster]

5. Thanks, Peggy for posting this! The Petroleum Mafia pimps their drilling efforts every chance....

...they get, insinuating that their efforts help alleviate America's dependence on foreign oil. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! It does not matter if oil is drilled off American coastlines or in American National Parks. The Petroleum Mafia will sell the oil to the highest bidder, even artificially inflating prices to increase their profits at the expense of the American citizen.

We, the American citizens, subsidize the Petroleum Mafia to the tune of BILLIONS PER YEAR. BILLIONS! This does NOT guarantee America preferential access to petroleum. It just guarantees that the Petroleum Mafia will make record profits year-after-year. So in essence, we subsidize their exploration efforts, we subsidize their drilling and then we pay top-dollar for their product.

[7wo7rees]

6. Good find, CP.

I need these bullets for the Palinites I run across.
In addition to the President not controlling prices, the speculators affect domestic drilling this way:
The newly refined oil that is drilled in this country is sold on the open market for cash as one of the only exports the country can make a buck on, instead of driving costs down here, or storing dwindling national supply, and keeping us addicted to the foreign oil dynamic. Short term supply is sold out for even shorter term liquid cash.

[freshwest]

11. The other way is with their paid shills pushing war. Always the same crowd. Coincidence? No...

[Cha]

7. Thanks Peggy! make it VIRAL!

I have a friend who was saying the other day that she saw people raging on fb that Obama was keeping gas prices high! Which makes no sense..if he could control it he would lower them NOW!

bush seemed to be another story because he was way deep in with the oil men.

[abumbyanyothername]

10. Gas prices going up regardless of who is elected for the next century

[link:][/link]

[RC]

12. Actually we are on the downward side, about a quarter of the way.

Why does anyone think Canada is even working on getting that low grade road tar out of the ground in the first place?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. That chart is not really accurate as demand is ever increasing....

The drop off side will be much, MUCH steeper.

Also, Saudi Arabia may well be LYING about their reserves.

[abumbyanyothername]

25. Well the flip side of broadening demand

is a drastically slowing world economy.

Also, there is a lot of fat that can be trimmed here and when the prices go North of $10/gal at the pump the trimming will start in earnest.

We are not really living all that much better than we were in the 60s despite tremendous technological advances. We do waste more, much more, however. And as charts show, nearly all of that has gone to the top 1% of society. So if you are the 1%, then yeah . . . really tough times are coming. If you are not, then your life may be re-ordered a bit, but your quality of life may actually go up.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. A lot of macro-economic people are thinking this is why they are hoarding wealth now.

[53tammy]

13. the story gets even better

[/blockquote

]If you transport petroleum products through a pipeline in the U.S.A. you have to pay 8-cent per barrel excise tax to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
If the Keystone XL goes through and they transport about 700,000 barrels a day, TransCanada would have to pay about $56,000 into the fund every day. That would be about $20 million a year.
But here’s some breaking news. The Internal Revenue Service, the agency who has to collect these taxes, has ruled that TransCanada’s Keystone XL won’t have to pay the tax.
What? These high pressure tar sand pipelines are spilling all over the place and they don’t have to pay into the Oil Spill Trust Fund? Yes, you read it right. That is correct.

http://www.yorknewstimes.com/editorial/this-just-in-it-s-not-even-oil/article_4fc4c748-e5bd-11e1-95e5-001a4bcf887a.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. Oh yeah, even better.........NOT.

Thank you for this.

I am horrified, but not really surprised.

It's just business as usual.

[eppur_se_muova]

24. Thanks for that detail, and welcome to DU! nt

[12AngryBorneoWildmen]

15. Nationalize OUR natural resources!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. I can hear the Right-wingers now screaming, "Communism!!!!"

Even though it could lower gas prices to a dollar a gallon.

Bush spent most of his Presidency filling the reserves. Pumping oil back into the ground at taxpayer expense.

[Zalatix]

27. A dollar a gallon gasoline? You realize what that'll do to food prices.

It's not the transportation costs I'm talking about. It's the global warming effect. See: this summer's drought.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. Oh sure. Decreased price would speed up consumption and increase pollution.

Better to motivate people to want an alternative to burning ANYTHING.

[porphyrian]

17. . n/t

[NYC_SKP]

19. Spot on, CaliforniaPeggy! Everyone thinks they're an expert...

...very few really understand energy.

Thank you for posting this, sweety!

[GeorgeGist]

21. Information-wise it's sophomoric.

Which is over the head of 47% of Republicans.

[ashling]

22. DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW will have no effect on energy independence until

ALL oil & gas production in the United States is nationalized.

including BP, Swell, Citgo, Exxon. et al.,

So, when is this going to happen?


NEVER

[demwing]

23. So let's Nationalize our Energy

Oil and Coal, Solar, Fusion, Fission, Wind, Hydro - the whole damn bag.

It's required for our national economic security.

[abumbyanyothername]

26. And it still won't help.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uou-bm9102603.php

See the linked article: "Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon."

[demwing]

35. Sure it will help

it wont solve the fact that the world is dependent on a non-renewable resource, but it will absolutely affect the issue raised in the OP -- that under corporate control of our oil resources, domestic oil production increases will not reduce our cost on a gallon of gas.

[abumbyanyothername]

36. When you are using something like 50 times what is being produced

nationalization is even less effective than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[demwing]

37. That number is not accurate

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=32&t=6

" In 2011, about 45% of the petroleum consumed by the United States was imported from foreign countries.1 This was the lowest level since 1995.

Petroleum includes crude oil and petroleum products. Petroleum products include gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, jet fuel, chemical feedstocks, asphalt, biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel), and other products. In 2011, about 60% of the crude oil processed in U.S. refineries was imported."

[abumbyanyothername]

39. To use petroleum at all is

to use something like 50 times the energy that is being captured by all plant life on Earth from the current solar inputs (not 50 times all solar energy input -- but 50 times that which nature, evolving over 4.5 billion years on Earth, has been able to figure out how to capture).

The number has nothing to do with oil imports vs. domestically produced oil.

[demwing]

40. In that case, your number is both inaccurate, and off-topic

[NickB79]

28. The only oil left to extract is the expensive stuff anyway

It costs Saudi Arabia something like $10/barrel to pump oil; it costs upwards of $60-$75/barrel for North Dakota, deepwater or Canadian oil production. When you have to go so far as to drill thousands of feet down and inject BILLIONS of gallons of fracking fluid to crack rocks just to get the oil out, you know your days of cheap oil and gas are done for.

[Hugabear]

32. We need a BAN on oil and other non-renewable energy sources

We are KILLING the planet with our never-ending need and desire for non-renewable energy. Unless radical steps are taken, many scientists are predicting a very grim existence within the next several decades.

The best thing we could do would be to impose a BAN on all domestic non-renewable energy production, as well as importing the same. Now I understand that it would be lunacy to impose such a ban overnight - it just wouldn't work - but we should set ourselves a deadline to be completely free. For sake of argument, let's just arbitrarily set 2025 as the year in which the United States stops all use of non-renewable energy resources. In the meantime, we would set ourselves a series of goals to accomplish. Instead of spending billions upon billions on needless wars, we could pour that money into new research and development for renewable energy sources.

Yes, I may be idealistic - but I do feel that we need to take very drastic measures if we're going to ensure the survival of the planet.

[coldwaterintheface]

33. Nationalize the Oil and the Oil companies, problem solved

[AsahinaKimi]

34. I totally agree with this...

US Companies have no reason what so ever to share their products with the United States. There is no such thing as being Loyal to this country. Whoever has the most cash, will win the prize. If Argentina outbids every other country, the oil will go there. There is no longer AMERICAN PRIDE anymore. The only loyalty is to who has the most cash!

[reusrename]

38. I have friends who thought that gas prices should have gone down after we invaded Iraq.

Seriously, they were saying to me: "See, the war isn't about oil after all! Gas prices have gone up!"

I'm like: "What the hell did you expect? Did you really think that those greedy bastards would just give us all that oil after they went the trouble of stealing it?"

Some people....