Gas prices surge

[DuctapeFatwa]

The average U.S. price of gasoline jumped nearly 7 cents per gallon over the past two weeks, the result of higher prices for crude oil and the cost to refiners of meeting new environmental regulations, a survey said Sunday.

California experienced the biggest rise, with a 28-cent increase in the price paid by Los Angeles drivers for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline sold at self-serve pumps, according to the Lundberg Survey.

Lundberg found the national average price per gallon of self-serve regular gasoline was $1.72, a 6.9-cent increase since Feb. 13.

San Diego drivers paid the most, with a gallon of self-serve regular costing them an average $2.19. In Los Angeles, a gallon averaged $2.15 cents.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/29/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm?cnn=yes

[pinto]

1. I paid $2.09 on Friday, $2.25 today in CA. n/t

[Zhade]

17. WOW. A $.14 jump in two days! Ouch.

NT!

[RoadRunner]

2. "new environmental regulations"? WTF?

What "new environmental regulations" could they possible be talking about? This doesn't make sense. It sounds like we're being held hostage so we'll let oil companies pollute more.

[hang a left]

4. OMG I just foiled on Swastikanegger

saving the day in California.

"California experienced the biggest rise, with a 28-cent increase in the price paid by Los Angeles drivers for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline sold at self-serve pumps, according to the Lundberg Survey."

[Zinfandel]

6. Bullshit...a way to blame the environmentalist they hate so

passionately and appease their insatiable corporate greed at the same time...fucking republican pigs!

[KeepItReal]

14. The only factor is OPEC cutting production to raise prices

...but the "Liberal Media" would never include that little point in the story, right?

[mindem]

3. I can remember when Coleman was always bringing up gas prices.

We had just lost Paul Wellstone in the accident and Mondale stepped up to the plate. One of Colemans big arguments for not voting for Mondale was the fact that gas prices went up during the Carter presidency. Of course now that the idiot prince is running the show gas prices are no problem. How did Minnesota get stuck with someone like Coleman - we sure don't deserve it. <rant over>

[Zorro]

5. My take on this

Exxon and the rest of the oil companies are doing their best to maximize their profits now before the election. They know there's a good chance the chimp is going down in November, and he's not going to lift a finger to do something about the rise in prices.

[tinrobot]

10. But it just makes things worse

I think the counter-argument to that is that if the oil companies keep prices low, then Bush* has a better chance in fall.

Maybe they're extracting profits now and will let prices go down towards the end of the summer so it won't be a front-burner issue.

[gulliver]

7. But why can't they just open up the spigot?

Bush said he was going to get OPEC to "open up the spigot?" I distinctly remember him saying that. He was so clear-spoken about it, so refreshingly straightforward and direct, such an everyman.

When Bush says something, he means it. You can bet he's got the A-rabs on the phone right now talking spigot-opening.

[UpInArms]

9. do you mean these quotes

http://www.grandoldpetroleum.com/openspigots.html

A History of Candidate Bush Calling on OPEC to Raise Production

March 20, 2000: Bush Said President Clinton Should "Jawbone Opec" To "Open Your Spigots." "In January 2000, with oil prices at nearly $28 a barrel, Bush called on President Clinton to 'jawbone OPEC' to get prices to retreat. 'What I think the president ought to do,' he said while campaigning in New Hampshire where heating oil prices were soaring, 'is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say, 'We expect you to open your spigots,'" according to the Associated Press.

June 21, 2000: Bush Said OPEC Can Be Blamed As The "Main Reason" For Gas Prices. Bush said the "main reason" for high gas prices was OPEC withholding production and he "would hope the administration could convince our friends at OPEC to open up the spigots."

June 16, 2000: Bush Suggested We Work With OPEC To Ensure Low Gas Prices. "We should I think the -- we need to be working with our friends in OPEC to make sure that the price of crude oil, which doesn't rise to continue to force the price of gasoline up, particularly as the summer season comes -- is upon us."

June 27, 2000: Bush Said He Would Work With "Friends In OPEC" To Help With Gas Prices, Use "Capital," To "Open The Spigot." When asked for a concrete example of a solution to high gas prices, Bush said, "I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

the following is my personal favorite:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h070700_1.shtml

For example, on June 27, Governor Bush made a speech in Michigan about rising gas prices. Seelye started out fairly straight:

SEELYE (6/28) (paragraph 1): Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

In paragraph two, Seelye quoted:

SEELYE (2): "I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush...told reporters here today. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

As we've seen in the past few days, the third paragraph is sometimes the key. At undisciplined papers like the Times or (less so) the Post, it's often the point where the impatient scribe begins to show off her analytical brilliance (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/6/00). Stolberg used her paragraph 3 to tell us what Gore's friends had been doing. In her paragraph 3, Connolly constructed a bizarre list of words Gore had used in his "rhetoric." What did Seelye do this day? Cynicism flew out the window, dear friends. She began improving on what Bush had said:

SEELYE (3): Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil- producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.

With "reporters" like this, who needs speech-writers? Seelye, tired of waiting for Bush to make points, went ahead and just made them herself! Nothing Seelye ever quoted showed that Bush had intended to advance these points; but her third paragraph became a vehicle for pumping up what the hopeful had said. And the very next day, reporting from Cleveland, the helpful ex-harridan was at it again:

SEELYE (6/29) (11): Mr. Gore, who has received less than $100,000 in contributions from oil and gas interests, has been casting Mr. Bush as the darling of big oil and more likely to look out for his friends in the industry than for the average consumer. So it was with some zeal that Mr. Bush and his aides seized on the chance to portray the vice president as the one giving the industry a break.

(12) And Mr. Bush went farther. He suggested that the oddity of the vice president's call for tax breaks for the oil industry...was emblematic of a candidate who would, in the parlance of the Bush campaign, "say anything to get elected."

Bush hadn't said that Gore would "say anything to get elected." So Seelye, employing the word "suggested," went ahead and typed the sound-bite in for him.

[pinniped]

8. $2.39 regular in San Mateo, Calfornia...

the highest I've seen for regular self-serve so far.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. One small problem

(This is the "gloom-and-doom" side of the coin. There's the hopeful side, too, but I'll save that for later.)

Gas price increases are inevitable.

In the short term, the oil companies will do what they can to extract as much money from the consumers as possible. But averaging the prices over time, and comparing them to oil production, a very frightening process is emerging: we have hit the oil peak, and are now on the downslope of production.

The Saudis' oil production, even at 100%, is still down from levels in the late 1990s. They don't want to open the spigots too far, because they will put themselves out of the game that much earlier. Once Saudi oil's prices rise above market rates, they're finished, and the House of Saud packs up, moves to Europe, and leaves the broken husk of Arabia to the militants.

We (the world) have had, collectively, thirty years to prepare for this scenario. It's just about on top of us now, and our world has been taken over by oilmen who are intent on selling us a mess of pottage in exchange for our birthright terrestrial crude oil.

There's plenty we can do to reduce our dependancy on oil-based energy. But we won't do it.

• Going to an all-telecommuter white-collar job market would save a lot of gas, but it means that the managerial class would lose its sense of power.

• Manufacturing ultralight fiberglass-and-aluminum automobiles would save a lot, but such cars are not "sexy" enough for the buying public.

• Commercial aviation using modern dirigibles would save a huge amount of energy over jet aircraft, but it's a whole industry that would have to be built from the ground up, AND it's not "fast enough" for the Wheeling-and-Dealing Class.

• Mass transit would be a good idea, but all the tax incentives go to auto manufacturers and oil companies.

• High-efficiency appliances, lighting, climate control, manufacturing processes and electricity generation are all well-known technologies, but business is too averse to risk to even look into it.

• Community co-generation of energy has been studied, and found to be efficient, economic, and creates jobs. But it's bad for the oil business.

I'm certain that most of the people reading this (all five of you!) could add many more. But the big reason seems to be this one:

• An economy in a death-spiral allows the powerful to exercize their powers without the restraints of civil rights or the ideals of liberty and justice. Just the 9-11 disaster alone encouraged Team Bush to all but eliminate the Constitution; a jump in the price of crude from $35/bbl (now) to $150/bbl (or more) would lead to unimaginable consequences.

If you removed all the governmental price supports from the oil industry, the price of a gallon of gasoline would be upwards of $7 per gallon before taxes. I fully expect gasoline to approach $3 this summer, but not a hell of a lot more. An election is on, and the Commander-in-Thief needs his buddies to keep prices low so's he can win. But next winter? Well, let's think about springtime.

--bkl
"Peak Oil" was so 2002!

[Zhade]

18. Everyone, read this post. Many excellent points within.

NT!

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Thanks!

I only wish I was wrong, and things could go their merry way forever.

--bkl
"In your guts, you know I'm nuts."

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[UpInArms]

13. price per barrel

CLJ4 Light Sweet Crude Oil Apr (NYMEX) 36.16 +0.56

[osaMABUSh]

15. Is it just me or is there not much 'press' on gas prices?

Last time gas hit $1.65 around here (Pittsburgh) it seemed to be a big deal and get quite a lot of press. Also, there were ramifications that high prices could hurt the economy. Now it seems like - oh well.

[Zhade]

16. Cost me $27 to fill up in Santa Monica, CA - up $2 total from last week.

Peak Oil's gonna be so much fun...

[JCMach1]

20. Do a correlation chart for Bush approval ratings and gas prices

I think you will find something interesting.