America Asked to Conserve
Finally hearing on the news that Americans are being asked to conserve gas, both by government (Bush’s speech to DOE recently) and oil industry like Exxon. Reason given that shortage is imminent due to 100% of Gulf oil supply still down and many refineries are off-line.
Gas prices were already going up before the hurricane damage, because demand was exceeding US refinery capacity. Maybe this will prompt government to cut red tape on enabling more refineries to be built.
However, I heard an oil analyst state that Americans are already showing signs of conserving gas after Katrina price hike. They project that gas prices above $3.50 will motivate many Americans to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles.
So maybe gas prices will cross over the magic dividing line that will encourage a majority to conserve gas prior to refineries being fixed, and that would certainly be a good thing.
Hopefully they will build any new refineries out of harms way, inland from the Gulf, where location next to national oil reserves might be smart choice with the existing transfer infrastructure in place. Not saying our tax dollars should finance it, but the idea of locating refineries on closed DoD sites would be a good idea since most of these sites will cost millions for environmental clean-up anyway.
Only way I would want tax money spent on helping build the refineries is to avoid major US recession, which long-term gas shortage will sure to act as a catalyst to hurt economy. Giving away abandoned government land seems a better choice than to throw millions of dollars at this high profit industry; money the US doesn't have as it is with the billions going to hurricane relief and billions in debt from Iraq war.
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