The cause of high diesel prices

Truckers in this area are protesting the high price of diesel which, I suppose, you can't blame them. However, their protest comes a little late.

The cause of the sky high prices is very simple. There is a shortage of refineries for refining diesel. The demand for diesel is exceeding supply the supply of diesen.

Why is there a shortage of refineries?

The cause can be traced back to 1965. The Democratically controlled congress passed a bill and sent it to President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, for his signature. This bill is the root cause of the diesel refining shortages. It is also the cause of refining of all petroleum products. The bill contained provisions so strict for the construction of new refineries, not a single new refinery has been constructed since then. The same bill included restrictions on the construction of nuclear electrical generating plants, also so rigid and strict, not a single new nuclear plant has been constructed since that date.

The lack of new nuclear plants is very significant. Our country's demand for electricity has continued to grow very rapidly singe 1965 and that demand had to be met by the construction of oil and coal fired plants. The demand for oil for this purpose has been very significant, even from the coal fired plants. It takes a tremendous amount of oil products, diesel mainly, to mine and transport this coal to the coal fired plants. This particular use of oil, again mainly diesel, is another important reason for the shortage and resulting high price of diesel fuel.

In 1995 the Republican controlled congress passed a broad based energy bill, backed by many of the Democrats in congress. This bill was very wide ranging and would have loosened up the restrictions and regulations enough to allow the construction of both refineries and nuclear plants.
President William Clinton, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. There were not enough Democrats siding with the Republicans to over ride the vote. No additional attempt was made to enact a new energy bill until 2001. Early that winter the new president, George W. Bush, sent a new broad based energy proposal to congress. It covered every part and phase of energy used in this country. It was first introduced in the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Republicans. The bill sailed through all the committees and was backed by most of the Democrats on those committed. It then sailed through the house floor with overwhelming support, again including most of the Democrats. The bill was then forwarded to the Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle. His role should have been to forward the bill to the appropriate Senate committees for their consideration. He did NOT do that!. Instead, he stuck it in his desk drawer and that is where it sat until the end of that congressional term.

In January, 2002, President Bush again sent basically the same energy proposal to Congress. What happened to his proposal was an almost exact duplicate of what had happened the year before. When the bill, again receiving overwhelming approval by the House, arrived on Senator Tom Daschle's desk, he did the same thing he had done the previous year.
2003 and 2004 were repeats of the 2001 and 2002 energy bills with the same results.

One man, the senator from South Dakota, was able to prevent any remedies to our energy shortages. Some people applaud his actions. I think they border on treason. Had he forwarded the bill on to the various committees in the Senate in 2001, there is little doubt it would have sailed through the Senate as it had in the south. Seven years have passed since then. Most of the provisions in that bill could have been carried out by now. A great many new refiners and nuclear plants could have been completed or well on the way to completion by now. Large areas of new oil fields on federal lands could be pumping oil by now. The federal government owns about 43 per cent of the land in this country. There is no reason what so every why it should not be used for the good of the people of this country. One provision of the bills passed by the House all four of those years called for exploration of oil on a game refuge in northern Alaska. This land was made into a game reserve by Bill Clinton, the preceding president. Much talk by opponents of this provision maintain it is a pristine landscape and should be kept that way. Most of these oppontents have never seen the land. It has been described by others as some of the most ugly land in our country.
Another argument used was that it would destroy the caribou herds. The same arguments was used to oppose the Alaska pipeline which has been in operation for many years. Alaskan game biologists state the size of the affected caribou herds has doubled since the construction of the pipeline.

Another argument against the exploration for oil in this particular area claim a massive amount of oil rigs would totally despoil the entire area. These people have totally lost touch with what has been happening in the oil fields over the year. Drilling rigs are set up on a small area consisting fo a few acres. From that one small spot, the drillers are able to drill down and then out in all directions, with dozens of wells going out at far as 20,000 feet in every direction. These small drill areas would be seven to eight miles apart, one small area of a few acres every 7 or 8 miles, hardly the despoiling described by oppontents.

Had that bill been allowed by Tom Daschle to be signed into law by President Bush, it is doubtful we would have any oil shortage by now. Enough years have passed, oil from that field could be flowing to the States by now, and refined by many brand new oil refineries.

In 2005 the Republican party took control of both houses of Congress. The good people of South Dakota had the good sense to give Tom Daschle the boot. President Bush again sent a broad based energy proposal to congress. By this time there was much opposition built up among the Democrats, the only way enough of them would agree to back the rest of the proposal was if the provision for opening up oil exploration on that Alaska game reserve was removed from the proposal. With great reluctance the Republican leader ship agreed and the provision was removed. The rest of the proposal then sailed through both houses and was signed into law in the summer of 2005. Since it will take many years for most of the provisions to have much affect, it will be some time before we see many results from that bill.

So!!! if you feel like throwing some blame around for our country's diesel fuel shortage as well as the sky rocketing prices of oil and gasoline, I trust I have been successful in directing your ire in the right direction.

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