The production of crude oil in the US has skyrocketed in the last four years. We are drilling and pumping more oil than ever before. We pump so much oil out of the ground, mostly due to the new fraking practices, that we have a huge glut of crude oil in this country. We are the #3 largest oil producing nation in the world.
Since it is illegal to export crude oil from the US the oil companies are getting it to the West, East, and Gulf Coast refineries as fast as they can to be refined. It is not illegal to export refined oil products like gas,diesel, and jet fuel. The USA's #1 export right now is refined oil products.
We don't need to "drill baby drill", The low refinery capacity hoax, big oil has been foisting on us, as an excuse to raise gas prices in the past is a bald faced lie. The XL pipeline that Republicans and bought off oil state Democrats want to ram through will be a huge gift to big oil. It will cure the current shale oil bottleneck that is causing oil to pile up in the Midwest were it is refined and sold on the US market. Once that bottleneck is eliminated and the oil gets to the Gulf Coast refineries, big oil will refine the American and Canadian oil for export as fast as they can and sell it on the world market. Yep, with the XL pipeline, big oil will be able to create artificial shortages of refined fuels in this country by shipping the refined products out of the country. Now, put on your microeconomics thinking caps and tell me what affects that will have on fuel prices in the US. Remember "supply and demand".
There is a solution that the Republicans would like for you to believe is already in place. If we outlawed the export of refined products as well as crude oil which already is illegal to export, this country would go back to the good old days of gas wars, like we had in the sixties that drove gas prices down as low as eleven cents a gallon. Well, maybe not that drastic, but under a buck a gallon is not a stretch.
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