This is a blog, but it's on a site intended for serious political discussion. |
Actually, it's just a blog. How serious you take it is up to you. Anyone who gets too serious about debating on a blog needs to step away from it for a bit.
I've read the article, and the context supports vincible's points more than yours. |
Did you read all the articles that I highlighted? Should I have pulled info and sighted each one. Trust me, I am not the only one that has this opinion. I also have kept it in mind when I saw a local refinery close in 1998 and read an article in a local paper written about how it will effect jobs, local economy, and how it was only one of many that would close withing the next 15 years. That was a long term prediction. A prediction that is showing through in the current gas prices in California.
One of the other articles that I quoted:
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/03/07/65666.php
'“The third quarter is going to be wild,” Kloza said. “The problem with gas isn’t a problem with crude. It’s a problem of domestic refining capability.”
Oil companies cut back refineries in the late 1990s and have enjoyed higher profits and little state or federal oversight, said Charles Langley of the Utility Consumers Action Network in San Diego. The situation is similar to the electricity shortage that hit the West in 2001, when a generator went out of service for maintenance and prices soared.'
If you don't see my point of view, that is fine. But, it's going to bite us all in the butt. People want to think that it is as easy as a crude oil issue, but it's not. We are in spiral of gas cost. The EPA has higher standard on gas cleanliness, emission standards, and refinery pollution. The gas is less efficient, the engines are less efficient, and the refineries won't spend the money to update, and the standards make it almost impossible to build new ones. If you can't see how that effects us all (and the economy) then I am wasting my breath.