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aceventura3 · 07-16-2008, 09:51 AM

DC,

Excuse me, but I can't just let this go given your last post.

I read and understood the context of your quote. Are you suggesting that being characterized as a "uber" anything is not being characterized as extreme or an extremist? I know people can reasonably disagree on issues, but to me this is pretty clear.

{added}

Speaking of extremists...

As compared to Bush's press conference yesterday.

Quote:

Q: Gas prices are now approaching $5 a gallon in some parts of the country. Offshore oil exploration is obviously a long-term approach. What is the short-term advice for Americans? What can you do now to help them?

Bush: First of all, there is a psychology in the oil market that basically says supplies are going to stay stagnant while demand rises. And that's reflected somewhat in the price of crude oil. The amount of a gasoline price at the pump is reflected in the price of crude oil. And therefore, it seems like it makes sense to me to say to the world that we're going to use new technologies to explore for oil and gas in the United States — offshore oil, ANWR, oil shale projects — to help change the psychology, to send a clear message that the supplies of oil will increase.

Secondly, obviously good conservation measures matter. I've been reading a lot about how the automobile companies are beginning to adjust. Consumers are beginning to say, "Wait a minute, I don't want a gas guzzler anymore. I want a smaller car." So the two need to go hand in hand.

There is no immediate fix. This took us a while to get in this problem; there is no short-term solution. I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand, but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say "low gas." It took us a while to get here, and we need to have a good strategy to get out of it.

Q: But you do have the Strategic Oil Petroleum Reserve. What about opening that?

Bush: The Strategic Oil Petroleum Reserve is for emergencies. But that doesn't address the fundamental issue. And we need to address the fundamental issue, which I, frankly, have been talking about since I first became president, which is a combination of using technology to have alternative sources of energy, but at the same time finding oil and gas here at home. And now is the time to get it done.

I heard somebody say, "Well, it's going to take seven years." Well, if we'd have done it seven years ago we'd be having a different conversation today. I'm not suggesting it would have completely changed the dynamics in the world, but we certainly would have been using more of our own oil and sending less money overseas.

Q: Following up on the question about oil, in the past, when oil prices have gone up a lot, they've wound up going down a lot afterward. But I wonder if you're able to say that oil prices in the future are going to come down a lot.

Bush: I can't predict. Look, my attitude is that unless there is a focused effort in the short term to bring more supplies to market, there's going to be a lot of upward pressure on price. We got 85 million barrels a day of demand and 86 million barrels of production. And it's just too narrow a spread, it seems to me.

Now, I'm encouraged by the Caspian Basin exploration. I'm encouraged that the Saudis are reinvesting a lot into their older fields. And remember, some of these oil fields get on the decline rate, which requires a lot of investment to keep their production up to previous levels. So one thing we look at is how much money is being reinvested in some of those fields. I'm encouraged by that.

I am discouraged by the fact that some nations subsidize the purchases of product, like gasoline, which means that demand may not be causing the market to adjust as rapidly as we'd like. I was heartened by the fact that the Chinese the other day announced that they're going to start reducing some of their subsidies, which all of a sudden you may have some demand-driven changes in the overall balance.

But if we conserve and find more energy, we will have done our part to address the global market right now. And the other thing is that this is just a transition period. All of us want to get away from reliance upon hydrocarbons, but it's not going to happen overnight. One of these days people are going to be using battery technologies in their cars. You've heard me say this a lot. I'm confident it's going to happen. And the throw-away line, of course, is that your car won't have to look like a golf cart.

But the question then becomes, where are we going to get electricity? And that's why I'm a big believer in nuclear power, to be able to make us less dependent on oil and better stewards of the environment. But there is a transition period during the hydrocarbon era, and it hasn't ended yet, as our people now know. Gasoline prices are high.

Again, I don't want to be an "I told you so," but if you go back and look at the strategy we put out early on in this administration, we understood what was coming. We knew the markets were going to be tight. And therefore, we called for additional exploration at home, plus what has been happening, which is an acceleration of new technologies — including ethanol technologies — to get us less dependent on crude oil from overseas.

Let's see here, Steven Lee. Steven Lee.

And so I think the thing we need to do now is for us to analyze whether or not we can have some more bilateral sanctions on regime leaders. After all, these sanctions were not against the Zimbabwe people; these were against the people that—in the Mugabe regime that made the decisions it made. We got the Treasury Department and State Department—are now working on a potential—potential U.S. action.

Q: Understanding what you say about energy supplies being tight and the debate over energy, which has gone on for years and will continue long through the campaign and into the next administration, one thing nobody debates is that if Americans use less energy the current supply/demand equation would improve. Why have you not sort of called on Americans to drive less and to turn down the thermostat?

Bush: They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. It's interesting (that) the price of gasoline has... caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars. They want to conserve. The consumer is plenty bright. The marketplace works.

Secondly, we have worked with Congress to change CAFE standards, and had a mandatory alternative fuel requirement.

So no question about what you just said is right. One way to correct the imbalance is to save, to conserve. And as you notice my statement yesterday, I talked about good conservation. And people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less; they can balance their own checkbooks.

Q: But you don't see the value of your calling for a campaign ...

Bush: I think people ought to conserve and be wise about how they use gasoline and energy. Absolutely. And there's some easy steps people can take. You know, if they're not in their home, they don't keep their air-conditioning running. There's a lot of things people can do.

But my point to you is that it's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate to consumers how they live their lives. The American people are plenty capable and plenty smart people, and they'll make adjustments to their own pocketbooks. That's why I was so much in favor of letting them keep more of their own money. It's a philosophical difference: Should the government spend their money, or should they spend their own money? And I've got faith in the American people.

And as much as I regret that the gasoline prices are high — and they are — I also understand that people are going to make adjustments to meet their own needs. And I suspect you'll see, in the whole, Americans using less gasoline. I bet that's going to happen.

In the meantime, technologies will be coming on the market that will enable them to drive and save money, compared to the automobiles they're using before. And as you notice, the automobile industry is beginning to adjust here at home as consumer demand changes. And the great thing about our system, it is the consumer that drives our system;

Q: You never mention oil companies. Are you confident that American oil producers are tapping all of the sources they have out there, including offshore?

Bush: Do I think they're investing capital to find more reserves with the price at $140 a barrel? Absolutely. Take an offshore exploration company. First of all, it costs a lot of money to buy the lease, so they tie up capital. Secondly, it takes a lot of money to do the geophysics, to determine what the structure may or may not look like. That ties up capital. Then they put the rig out there. Now, first of all, in a federal offshore lease, if you're not exploring within a set period of time, you lose your bonus; you lose the amount of money that you paid to get the lease in the first place.

And once you explore, your first exploratory, if you happen to find oil or gas, you'll find yourself in a position where a lot of capital is tied up. And it becomes in your interest, your economic interest, to continue to explore so as to reduce the capital costs of the project on a per-barrel basis. And so I think they're exploring. And hopefully a lot of people continue to explore so that the supply of oil worldwide increases relative to demand.

Now, people say, what about the speculators? I think you can't help but notice there is some volatility in price in the marketplace, which obviously there are some people buying and selling on a daily basis. On the other hand, the fundamentals are what's really driving the long-term price of oil, and that is demand for oil has increased and supply has not kept up with it. And so part of our strategy in our country has got to be to say, okay, here are some suspected reserves and that we ought to go after them in an environmentally friendly way.

A buddy of mine said, well, what about the reefs? So I'm concerned about the reefs. I'm a fisherman, I like to fish. Reefs are important for fisheries. But the technology is such that you can protect the reefs. You don't have to drill on top of a reef. You can drill away from a reef and then have a horizontal hole to help you explore a reservoir.

It's like in Alaska. If you ever go out to West Texas, you'll see there's like a rig every 20 acres, depending upon the formation. In Alaska you can have one pad with a lot of horizontal drilling, which enables you to exploit the resources in a way that doesn't damage the environment. These are new technologies that have come to be, and yet we've got an old energy policy that hasn't recognized how the industry has changed. And now is the time to get people to recognize how the industry has changed.

The other thing is that we haven't built a new refinery in the United States since the early '70s. It makes no sense. And yet you try to get one permitted, it is unbelievably difficult to do. People aren't willing to risk capital if they're deeply concerned about how their capital is going to be tied up in lawsuits or regulations. And we import a lot of gasoline, refined product from overseas.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/e...01003789555596