Two related Article from IBDEDITORIALS.
see:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com

One gives some clarifications on “windfall profits” of oil companies while the other pointing to the Democrats halting the Free Trade Treaty Colombia that focuses on Colombia’s Oil and Gas development.

Article 1:

Energy Myths
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 03, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Oil: With the long July Fourth weekend, you might get a chance to see your senator or representative. If so, you should be ready to dispel a few myths politicians now have about drilling for more oil.

This is especially true of Democrats. Many in Congress seem either disconnected from reality or intentionally disingenuous about our energy crunch. They have well-honed negative responses to common-sense ideas about solving our energy crisis, particularly drilling for more oil.

These responses are based on a number of widely held myths. Sadly, they’ve become the backbone of the Democrats’ energy policy. They include:

• “We can’t drill our way out of our energy crisis.”

Actually, we can. As we’ve noted before, conservative estimates put the total amount of recoverable oil in conventional deposits at about 39 billion barrels. Offshore, we have another 89 billion barrels or so. In ANWR, 10 billion barrels.

In oil shale deposits, we have more than 1 trillion barrels of oil. In perspective, that’s about four times the total reserves of Saudi Arabia. And if estimates of shale reserves as high as 2 trillion barrels prove true, we’ll have about a 300-year supply of oil just from shale. This compares with current estimated total U.S. oil reserves of about 21 billion barrels.

ANWR alone is expected to yield 1 million barrels of oil a day. Now make the highly conservative assumption that we’re able to get a like amount of oil from the other sources — for a total increase of 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil a day.

That’s an enormous rise in oil output. Today, we produce just under 8 million barrels of oil a day from domestic sources. So we could, in effect, boost our energy output 50%, and thus our energy independence, by bringing an additional 4 million barrels of oil to thirsty world markets each and every day.

By the way, those calculations don’t include the trillions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas found in the same locations, which, along with nuclear power, could be used to fire our power plants.

By 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we will need at least 30% more energy to fuel our economy. Nearly 85% of that increase will come from oil and gas, even with expected gains for alternative energy. Can’t drill our way out? In fact, it’s the only way out of our energy crisis.

• “Oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of oil leases and refuse to drill.”

This is yet another slander of “Big Oil” by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — one that has become a major talking point for Democrats in Congress. It’s completely dishonest.

Oil companies have spent billions of dollars for those leases. Drilling has increased by more than 66% since 2000. They are searching for oil even as you read this. Some parts of those 68 million acres will have oil, some won’t. But at $145 a barrel, you can bet oil companies have plenty of incentive to find it.

That said, 68 million acres is in fact a minuscule amount. Some 94% of federal lands — 658 million acres — remains off-limits to exploration. Another 97% — or 1.7 billion acres — of federal offshore properties likewise remains off-limits. These lands contain tens of billions of barrels of recoverable oil. It’s there for the taking, now.

How much energy is there? Federal lands, according to the American Petroleum Institute, hold 651 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to fuel 60 million households for 160 years. They hold at least 116 billion barrels of oil, maybe more. That’s enough to fuel 65 million cars and provide fuel oil for 3.2 million homes for 60 years.

As such, it’s the height of irresponsibility for Congress to leave these lands off the table. It ensures we remain vulnerable to pariah petrostates like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran and others who wish us ill.

• “Even if drilling works, it’ll take a decade or more for the oil to flow.”

This is quite an argument coming from the Democratic Party, which has made keeping oil off the market a linchpin of its energy policy for decades.

If President Clinton hadn’t vetoed the idea of drilling in ANWR back in 1995, we’d have that oil on the market today. Ditto if Congress had approved ANWR drilling in 2002, when President Bush requested it.

Even so, the larger point is false anyway. New oil will be flowing in some cases within three to four years, according to industry estimates. But the impact on prices will be immediate. Why? Because markets would suddenly have to discount future oil prices for the expected gain in oil supply. That would cause oil prices, especially in futures markets, to drop.

By the way, this isn’t just conjecture. President Reagan, within a week of his inaugural in 1981, removed domestic controls on oil. Energy prices began tumbling almost immediately, with oil falling from $34 a barrel in early 1981 to just $11 by 1986.

It worked before, and it’ll work again.

• “Record profits by big oil companies are the reason for soaring prices.”

It’s true that oil company profits have never been higher. But put into perspective, oil company profits are high because the price is high. As a share of revenue, profits aren’t so high.

The average profit, as we’ve noted before, is around 8 to 9 cents to the dollar. That compares with about 7 cents to the dollar for manufacturers and more than 15 cents to the dollar for computer makers.

In short, oil profits aren’t out of whack with the rest of industry.

What doesn’t get said is that while oil companies have profit margins of about 8%, about 12% of the price of a gallon of gas goes to the government in the form of taxes. When indirect taxes are included, the share is even higher.

So who are the real price-gougers?

From 1981 to 2006, the oil industry made $867 billion in profits. Yes, that’s a lot. But over that same time, they paid total taxes of $1.2 trillion, Energy Department data show. And that doesn’t include taxes of $519 billion paid to foreign countries.

Please remember that the next time a politician vows to hit “Big Oil” with a windfall profits tax or some other idea. The tax won’t be paid by the oil company; it will be paid by you, the consumer.

In coming weeks, we’ll try to look at some of the other myths surrounding America’s energy. The problem is, there are so many that dispelling the falsehoods about energy can become a full-time occupation for a newspaper.

In the meantime, let us suggest that if you think more oil will help, you should tell your local members of Congress. They’re easy to find at the government Web site thomas.loc.gov. The only problem is, on this topic, many won’t want to be found.

Article 2:

And How Do We Thank Colombia?
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 03, 2008 4:20 PM PT

War On Terror: A foreign country puts its men on the line to rescue American hostages and pulls off one of the greatest rescues in history. Might a little gratitude from Congress be in order?

Not since the 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe has a rescue of hostages held by terrorists ended so spectacularly. Wednesday’s liberation by the Colombian army of three Northrop contractors and 12 others will go down as one of history’s great strikes against terror.

In the wake of the rescue, Democrats’ caricature of Colombia as a night-haunted right-wing dictatorship, a la 1976 Guatemala, looks increasingly hollow.

The American contractors were taken hostage during a coca-spraying mission in 2003. Their flimsy aircraft went down in the jungle after their engine failed with no backup. One of their colleagues, Thomas Janis, was shot dead by FARC on the spot as he destroyed classified documents, and Luis Cruz, a Colombian on the same mission, was tortured to death.

In his 2005 book “Imperial Grunts,” Robert D. Kaplan writes that the survivors were then lost to the jungle as crucial time was lost in the initial hours of the accident because of Clinton-era restrictions on U.S. engagement.

So Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell spent five years with brutal terrorists tied up in the jungle with little hope. Last week’s rescue ended that nightmare, and today the longest-held American hostages are free.

For the nation identified as our best ally in Latin America, isn’t this proof enough of its friendship? A country that sticks its neck out for U.S. citizens at such grave risk to its own men deserves our thanks.

The best way to express our appreciation would be to correct another U.S. blunder by ending Congress’ shutout of Colombia’s free trade treaty. It was put on hold in April, after a rules change engineered by Reps. Jim McGovern and Louise Slaughter and executed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

On Monday, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, will try to get them to make amends. “Colombia is our strongest ally in the region, and it is critical that we support Plan Colombia and a free-trade agreement with Colombia,” he said.

In the wake of the rescue, Pelosi’s continued refusal to even permit a vote on the pact now stands out as the pinnacle of ingratitude.

Democrats, pandering to Big Labor, have isolated Colombia from all the other Latin American states that have sought and been granted free-trade status. They include such troublesome countries as Nicaragua, headed by a communist regime that has extended asylum to FARC terrorists.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is a known quantity committed to strengthening democratic institutions and bringing peace to cities. He has knocked his country’s infamous murder rate down by 40% and murders against trade unionists by 87%. But none of this seems to cut any ice with Pelosi.

Don’t think this doesn’t hurt Colombia. In a recent interview with IBD, Colombian trade minister Luis Guillermo Plata pointed out that keeping Colombia out of free trade hobbles its competitiveness with its neighbors.

“It’s not only a disadvantage as we compete with free-trade nations like Peru, but also with Chile and Mexico,” Plata said. “These countries compete with Colombia to attract U.S. direct investment. Not having the treaty approved . . . is the equivalent of sanctions. That’s because companies in our countries upgrade factories with investment. They will get it, we won’t.”

Moreover, much of the investment that would come of a treaty would be directed into Colombia’s oil and gas industries, putting more energy on the market. As it is, 56% of the foreign investment without the pact has gone to energy and mining, Plata pointed out.

If Speaker Pelosi can’t see her way to permit a free-trade vote in appreciation of Colombia’s daring rescue of three innocent Americans, what will it take?

Does anyone truly think if this administration had wanted to drill in Alaska, it would not have been done?

I’m not sure the supporters of this President realize what they are saying.  They are essentially saying that this President was aware aware of the absolute, and immediate,  importance of drilling that oil.  Yet when met with opposition, he caved?

I’m thinking his supporters have far less faith in his abilities than I.  I don’t think he caves that easily if it’s something he really wants to do.

This President, who got us into a war, by using untrue (admit it) ‘facts’ about Iraq’s capabilities.  They brilliantly led the people of this country to believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 - without ever saying it.

They whipped up a hatred for Muslims, while defending them at the same time.  They whipped up hatred, yet managed to keep it under control in this country.

It was brilliant they way they did those things.

These same people could not present the truth to the people of this country about our dependence on ME oil and get the drilling started?

Once again, when we let them couch any of our problems in terms of Democrats or Republicans then politicians are assured of being able to do exactly what they want.

They only have to label it one or the other, and we are at each other’s throat throwing blame on one or the other. They then do exactly what they want - sometimes by doing nothing.

We actually allow them to feed us the ridiculous lie that the ‘minority’ is just helpless in the face of those terrible Democrats.

That old lie has been used so many times, by both parties.  I remember Pres. Clinton using it. 

That’s insance. 

As for ethanol, a joke.  If we want to starve in this country, destroy the land by overplanting corn, then that’s the way to go.

When I read ”“"Economic domination by a foreign power? Essential goods made abroad and sold to us for any price the foreign power sets? America’s destiny in the hands of others? ”“”, I thought the writer was talking about Red China.

It seems our government has put us under the domination of more than just ME oil, doesn’t it?

I do hope we wake up soon -

Deborah,

I agree we are doing less than nothing. 

The thing is a good candidate has a miniscule chance of making it to the ballot as things stand.

My idea has always been to simply go to the polls and vote out everyone now in office.  Don’t look at party (we should NEVER look at party), don’t look at anything except is he/she an incumbent?  If so, out they go.

Some have been up there for years, decades, even.  They have had time to get things headed in the right direction - but they haven’t.

Now we will need to do this for a couple - maybe 3 or 4 election cycles.  That will get the attention of the politicians.  We then tell them what needs to be done and if they don’t - out they go.

For goodness sakes, we have to stop pretending there is a difference between the parties.

The ‘conservatives’ talk as if all democrats are wild-eyed lunatics and all democrats talk as if all conservatives are cruel, hardless, rich racists.

Look around -  you work with, you live next door to, you go to church with, you do business with people of the ‘other party’.  They are just people.

We have all been scammed in this country with the idea that we must vote party over conscience, party over common sense, party over the good of our country, and party over the good of our families.

People vote party then spend most of the time making excuses for the wrong things the politicians do - or blame it on the ‘other side’.

You know since we do have this situation that we truly only have 2 choices when we vote - that means any agenda wanting to harm this country need only control two candidates in an election.

Think about it, with the choices limited to two people, who have been selected through manipulation, lies, tons of money (some very questionable) - how can we even assume we actually have a choice? 

We need to make the ‘party’ money, power, media backing, etc., irrelevant.  We need to make the only criteria on which we vote ‘Will he/she do what is best for this nation and its people?’

We need to be willing to throw them out next election if they don’t - regardless of their party, race, sex, religion, color of hair or attractiveness. 

You know both ‘other sides’ can’t be right - but they can both be wrong.

I hope I can post a link - if I’ve transgressed, I’m sorry.

http://www.blowoutcongress.com/