WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure. The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.
The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto. The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.
They are going to have to find some kind of alternative and faster then they anticipated. Just think when -if- 'hopefully not' gas hits $5.00,$6.00,$7.00 a gallon. Citizens are going to start riots! If they do not devise a plan we are going to be in trouble.
This is a post in a similar thread on another forum that I copied and pasted:
WARNING: RANT AHEAD!
Suffice it to say, this has made me hate Bush. After all the time I spent supporting him, he is a worthless president in every way. In no way is he a conservative, and he doesn't give a damn about anyone anymore. The Economic Stimulus was bare bones for us, yet he sends millions to Burma and China, weakening the fragile dollar even more. I don't care if this sounds insensitive, but (Language!) BURMA AND CHINA!
The cost of oil is rising due to: Increased consumption in India and China, more demand = higher cost.
The dollar SUCKS, so investors raise the price of oil to keep up with the dollar going down.
The government could give a (Language!), mainly because Bush is with the oil companies. If Iraq was really about oil, why aren't we getting any?
The dumbass hippie enviornmentalists won't allow drilling in Alaska or Brazil, which would drive gas prices down considerably, and reduce our need for foreign oil.
For now, the government is filling up the oil reserves instead of opening them up.
Oil Companies are giving EVERY excuse to raise prices. Such as, "Many refineries are down", or "The pipeline is in bad shape". WELL USE YOUR TREMENDOUS PROFITS AND FIX THEM ALREADY!!!!
Government regulations on refineries. Another reason to hate hippies and big government.
Do I need to go into how ALL oil companies continue to report record profits!? The sad thing is no candidate, with the possible exception of McCain, even cares. This is just going to get worse. Gas could be $10 a gallon in the next five years according to the most pessimistic views.
But in the end, the most important reason gas is expensive can be found in the mirror. YOU keep filling up your tank. YOU use your car to go to places YOU can walk. YOU take vacations. YOU drive faster than 60 on the highway, when many cars are most fuel efficient.
So until the American public learns how to ride a bike for things close to them, and only use their car for WORK (if they live far from their work), the grocery store (WHERE THE OIL PRICES HAVE ALSO RAISED THE COST OF FOOD), and limit their "driving around", gas will go up.
Just my belief, I think since Bush was in the oil business long ago, the oil people voted him in and he is paying these oil giants back by making them super rich, come on a reporter asked him "They're predicting $4 gas this summer", and what does Bush say "Wow that's news to me". Give me a break, and if i am not wrong when he asked the saudis to increase production they said they already meet demand. So what is Bush doing with the oil he is buying. Is he putting is the reserve or did he stop buying from foriegn counties and only using oil from Texas making it why there is a shortage. Oh yeah crude oil hit $132 a barrell. How high can it go? $300 a barrell? It seems like no one is Wahington gives a damn about middle class people just look at what the airport is doing now charging $15 to check one bag now.
Coasterboy the thing you have to realize is. We're still getting the oil. He's just making bank on it, along with his father and all his little friends too. You just never see that oil or that money. The oil hasn't stopped coming, theres no more, no less than before. Only thing thats changing is the amount of money being made.
Other thing is, you can't just tell people to not drive. They can cut down, they can actually go 55 on the highway, but it's not going to happen. It's just something that we have to deal with, and until everyone does something about it, nothing will be done.
I don't think a lot of us realize how much oil we as a nation daily.
Rough estimate of the world's oil usage per day is 75 million barrels. The US uses 25% of all the world's oil, but only holds 3% of remaining reserves in its boarders. Do we actually have the right to sue a band of countries about what they do with their oil? We can't really decide what their nations antitrust laws are.
Pretty soon we will hit peak oil (if we havn't already) and then supply can only drop while demand stays the same or increases. Currently the combination of a weak dollar and heightened demand due to summer driving while supply stays constant has made the price of gas soar.
I just don't think people realize that it isn't necessarily the big oil companies fault, they may be part of the problem but its not like they are trying to screw the world of its money.
Just thank god we don't live in Europe.
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
Yeah, Why would I want to live In Europe. All I would get is High Dollar Value, 100 theme parks within a 2 Hour Drive, Be able to go to America on a Dime, And be thin.
How about this, For every tree removed, 4 new trees will be planted. The Environmentalists will be happy, Poor People will be happy, Dick Cheney would get a Heart Attack, and I will be Happy
I was watching a world news show the other day and they were going over gas prices elsewhere in the world
Prices converted to USD
parts of the UK $9.85/ gallon (so us Americans can shutup about having to pay $4.00 plus per gallon) in Saudi Arabia .45/gallon (thats just insanely cheap)
so think about digging up the oil in the Dakotas and Alaska we could have 45 cent/gallon gas too!!
bigb7965 wrote:I was watching a world news show the other day and they were going over gas prices elsewhere in the world
Prices converted to USD
parts of the UK $9.85/ gallon (so us Americans can shutup about having to pay $4.00 plus per gallon) in Saudi Arabia .45/gallon (thats just insanely cheap)
so think about digging up the oil in the Dakotas and Alaska we could have 45 cent/gallon gas too!!
No we couldn't. And if we could, we might be able to sustain that price for about 3 days.
And the reason why gas is so expensive in the UK is because of the insane gas tax in that country, but at the same time most of Europe drives compact cars that get great gas mileage, I'd be nice if we started to do that too.
What sucks is that pretty soon we are going to have to decide between lower oil prices and the environment. We could start refining Oil Shale in the rockies, where we have enough oil for like the next 200 years, but that is TERRIBLE for the environment. We could go into ANWR and drill up their oil, but again we lose a wildlife refuge for a relatively small amount of oil compared to other world oil fields.
I think pretty soon the electric car might start taking over, we've got a ton of coal and I could see Nuclear power making a comeback as well which I think would be great.
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
LIttle known fact is theres places in Canada that have as much oil as Canada does. No one mentions it though because it's not just normal drilling and refining the oil. It's mixed in with sand, and while that may keep the prices a little higher having to get that out, it would still be a lot cheaper than what we have now.
Citizens are going to start riots! If they do not devise a plan we are going to be in trouble.
