Michael Ramirez for February 17, 2012

Mission accomplished!

The current administration is so hell-bent on saving the world from fossil fuels that they don’t care that the cost of living for Americans will skyrocket. It’s already happening. Wait for gas to go over $5 per gallon at the end of this summer. Obama and his cronies will be cheering while the rest of us won’t be able to purchase groceries.

Hell, BOH can’t even stand up against a few “tree huggers” and pass the Keystone pipeline… Costing thousands of jobs and reducing oil cost and middle east dependency.

When 0bama was senator, and the price of oil was skyrocketing, he demanded investigations . . . . ..The price of gas has doubled since he became president – the toon offers a contributing factor for those increases. Any leftists calling for investigations though?

Since when do presidents set gas prices all by themselves?

I know how. Quit subsidizing Big Oil, and allow the “free” market work it out!

The tree hugger!

Polluting oil pipeline? It has not been built yet and are you saying that the American workforce would build a sub par pipeline that would leak? That’s insulting! If the terrorists are going to attack it we had better tear down all the other pipelines currently in operation. http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/united_states_pipelines.html#map

Upping the gas price is the fastest way to tank the economy. SO glad I don’t commute anymore.

the quickest way for Obama to lower speculator bids on crude oil would be to treat the Keystone XL pipeline the same as the extension of DEfunding Social Security retirement benefits tax “cut”…O should demand congress pass it and promise to SIGN IMMEDIATELY.-OPEC and enemy oil states like Iran and Venezuela have something to do with supply and price rises in crude oil.

When gas went over $3 a gallon, everyone was screaming about the end of the world. Guess what? It’s been between 3 and 4 for years now, and we’re all still alive. Higher gas prices suck, but they don’t take anything more than a couple lattes a week from people. Get over yourselves. Get over dirty oil.

Thousands of U.S. oil leases have drill permits, and aren’t in production. We will soon hear again that Gulf refineries can’t keep up, and prices at the pump will go up. Obama HAS asked for new areas to be opened, after environmental review. Shell (Royal Dutch Shell that is) are going for it in the Arctic. Offshore is up, and profits for oil companies are AGAIN SOARING! Get REAL people!!!

Oh, right, you’ve been watching those Chevron ads, and API’s con games on TV. Sorry, but the deeper they drill, into my wallet, and left buttock, the less I like them. Go away “Petrogirl”, her super suit is made of synthetic fabric, made from that oil, and her “corn fed good looks” are the result of petroleum based pesticides and fertilizers that have poisoned the same Ogalalla aquifer threatened by the Keystone XL pipeline (to actually a minor degree of risk).

Sorry, but after being around the “oil industry” for only half a century, I’m not convinced by the con game they’re running. Including the fact that $4 per gallon gas IS still cheap compared to Europe, Asia, and most of the world, their distribution of hoods and blinders does seem effective on most American; morons.

http://opinion.latimes.com.opinionla/2011/12/republicans-environment.html

ARe Ramirez and the rest of you cons so stupid that you believe that the Secretary of Energy is powerful enough to raise the price of gasoline? LOL!

So, this is a quote from 2008, from before Chu was nominated for the position. At the time, Chu was advocating gradually raising gas taxes over a 15 year period. Since taking the post, he has followed the dictates of the administration. From his confirmation: “The President-elect does not support, and neither do I, raising federal gasoline taxes as an energy policy.”Precisely, how many times has the Obama administration proposed raising gas taxes since inauguration? Zero. The resurrection of this four year old quote is nothing but a partisan talking point.

Dear uberintellectuals: please keep in mind that oil is a physical liquid, that is distilled and otherwise processed to produce products as diverse as kerosine and gasoline to plastics, asphalt and on and on..And yes, American petrol-chemical industry is a major exporter, providing for hundreds of thousands of well paying private economy jobs, which G W Bush didn’t succeed shipping overseas.

Intellect is the enemy of “today’s conservatives”. This was definitely NOT true in the days of Eisenhower. Even “Tricky Dick” was a “tree hugger” when passing NEPA and other environmental legislation to save both the environment, AND THE ECONOMY! Ramirez and his supporters just show here a dangerous lack of intellect, or regard for the facts, truth, or welfare of the nation, or the planet. It ain’t about money, Honey, it’s about posterity, and giving a sh** about what is left for them.

Greed may be a fine steed, but it will trample the rider in an instant when heading for the barn, and “the hay”.

The issue is not ‘too intellectual’ as in too much intellect, but rather the belief in uber, or superior intellectualism..The term is particularly well applicable to those espousing leftist ideals – in the 21st century, or those of man-made co2 causing global climate change..Whereas the egalitarian ideals were novel and intellectually challenging when they were introduced a few centuries ago, one has to over-intellectualize and suspend all logic and dismiss decades of empiric data to espouse the like philosophies today..In other words, we all know that 2+2=4, however, by over-intellectualizing the equation and using high math a mathematician can prove that it it is not.

@petergrt: I think George Orwell put it best:“There are some ideas so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them.”

Your comments show just how little you pay attention. Big Oil exports 117 million gallons of gas, diesel and av/gas a DAY to Europe. Cars more efficient, driving less. Shortage is a myth to increase PROFITS to keep paying those lobbyists

To the ‘toon: I agreed with Mr Chu’s assessment in 1965 when I was driving a car made in the U.S., but totally and falsely defamed, that got over 30 mpg. That was BEFORE I went to Viet Nam to fight for the U.S. “right” to control oil prices, and oil in the South China Sea. While there in ’66-67, the French and American oil companies were drilling. As soon as we “left” it was French OIL company helicopters flying journalists around instead of our Hueys.

“Destroying America from within” btw IS the venue of multi-national corporations given more control over our economy, and civilian as well as military “life”, than our citizens. THAT is the “America” that Ramirez and the other “far righters” are fighting for.

( Revised post made at Ted Rall Op. Ed.)

No, supply and demand dictates that it will not “go back down in due time…” unless there is the R & D put into alternate energy sources that will allow us to get off the oil teat and so reduce demand. In the interim there is (1) the potential of reducing oil consumption by increasing mass transit [(Unfortunately many (IMO-Nearsighted) Republican Governors spurned rail aid for more hwys. & auto’s; for them obviously 1+1 = 3)] or (2) as noted above, raise fuel prices to the level of European fuel prices or (3) we can stop using gas & diesel fueled modes of transportation & go back to the horse and buggy…right.

How is transport of crude by pipeline polluting? Transport of crude by tanker truck is polluting. Or importing by tanker ship is polluting. There are tens of thousands of miles of pipeline in the U.S. now, why would the Keystone be any more subject to terrorist attack?Why would the Keystone be any more subject to spillage? In fact with 21,000 sensors beamed to satellites to detect problems, it would be the safest pipeline on the planet.Why would the U.S. not get a drop of gasoline? From the refineries, the product goes on the market where Americans can bid for supplies like anyone else. Except they would have a transportation advantage.The Keystone will also carry supplies from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana to the refineries.You’re right that if the Americans continue to play politics and engage in phony environmental issues, the Canadians will press ahead with the Northern Gateway pipeline to B.C., taking supplies to Asia. The Americans would then lose access to the second largest petroleum reserve on the planet.You can call me an environmentalist – one of my charities is an environmental group. I’m all in favor of responsible development of resources. But much of the environmental opposition to the Keystone is bogus. Significant funding to environmental and native groups is actually supplied by Big Oil interests in the Middle East, Venezuela, and Nigeria who are using environmental and Native groups to advance their own agenda. Continue to dick around and Americans will be the losers.

There is a bio-fuel crop that can be grown in fallow wheat fields. US Navy Jets have tested it and want it. This would create Energy Independence for the Defense Dept. If the US uses it in new truck engines, the US could stop importing oil from hostile countries.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on most of your points..Your spill map goes back over twenty years of spills. I’m sure there have been spills – most minor and most not causing any damage. There have also been tanker truck spills, collisions, and leakage; and tanker ship spills, Handling energy materials can at times be messy and accidents do occur. That is not a reason for shutting down transportation or usage..The vast majority of existing pipelines are of an older vintage and technology. The Keystone would be state of the arts employing sensors beamed to satellites.. I doubt if length of the pipeline has any relevance to a terrorist. The Keystone would pass through the Mid-West Great Plains region, which is relatively lowly populated. If its population terrorists want, they would attack the eastern pipelines. But, how many terrorist attacks have occurred on U.S. pipelines? It happens in Iraq, I haven’t heard of it ever happening in the U.S..Why would the crude be refined into diesel and exported? For one thing, the U.S. uses considerable diesel, particularly for road transport, farming, and construction. And why wouldn’t the market place determine what is refined?.I have never heard of the “Tar Sands Action” group before. (Whose mandate is to stop Keystone. I was able to resist making a $35 contribution.) But it has all the earmarks of a bogus environmental group heavily financed from competing oil interests in the Middle East, Venezuela, and Nigeria, who fear competition from Canadian Oil Sands getting onto the international market. The first clue is that they call the oil deposit by the derogatory term “tar sands” rather than the proper “oil sands”. Tides could also be involved, a highly financed American group who contribute to stopping Oil sands development. .But their contention that importing supplies of oil into the U.S. would actually raise the price of gasoline to U.S. consumers must be the first time in the history of conventional economics that increasing the supply also increases the price. Or that accessing diminishing world oil supplies from a near-by source from a friendly stable country is actually a bad thing. What, you’d rather buy from Chavez or Ahmadinejad?.If this group wants to reduce pollution, why not go after U.S. electrical generation, half of which is produced by burning coal, and which contributes about 70 times more pollution to the environment that does oil sands development?

You seem to be comparing apples and egg plants. What is the point of comparing the environmental impact of pipelines to power plants? They are two different things, requiring different standards of measurement and comparison..If you’re trying to make a case for not using carbon sources of energy, it’s a losing argument. Eventually it will have to happen, and of course there should now be sufficient R & D on alternate technologies. However, for now there are far too many advantages to using present carbon based technologies – energy intensity, portability, storage, transport infrastructure in place, and the internal combustion technology in place.

In our lifetime we’ll have no problem getting by in a carbon based society. A few will do extra-ordinary things to avoid using bad oil and will try to impose their values on others. These people deserve our praise. When I go Gypsy in the U.S. summertime I do it in my Gypsy Van (motor home). You may not approve of my carbon footprint. So if I’m on the road and I run across this tormented soul whose coal-burning wagon has discharged, being a compassionate person, I will stop and ask how’re you doing and if you’d like a bottled water and a quick charge on my generator.

Three and one.