We have got to address the public view that additional off-shore drilling will be beneficial

How many hundreds of thousands of acres do the US oil companies own in drilling rights that they are not using? Yet the majority of US citizens believe that we should give more drilling rights to the oil companies and this will somehow help us at the pump.

This is where we should be educating and hitting back.


I liked MoveOn's latest ad, but it accomplished little. An ad that informs on the issue of off-shore drilling would do so much more to push people to see through the same old crap that the republicans are selling like crack.

...but they do understand the :wtf: facts. "What? They could already be drilling but they're not?"

No, they do not understand facts, only media sponsored propaganda. In otherwords, they are useless but dangerously armed with a very important vote that can make the difference in this election. That is what is so frustrating....and that is why Obama has taken the stance that he has in terms of compromise. These people will not have heard any of our folks that make sense on offshore drilling, because it would not have been televised.

I also believe that we need a 527 to do an ad that gets basic, easy to digest info to potential voters that big-oil is yanking our chains again--via McCain and the republican guard.

We need a reeducation camp for these cretins *Sigh*.

Hope Obama sets some of those up and running when he becomes President.

But I don't understand where the "re-education camp" comment came from. :shrug:

due to media propaganda.

Re-education camp (using as a simple kid to make a point) in order for rank and file voters to start to understand the real facts to issues....because thus far, they really have a hard time understand a whole lot of things.

so yes, we are in agreement.

It's not their fault that the only sides to an issue like this are "drilling oil fucks up the environment" or "we need to drill oil to make money." That's really how they see the issue. There's no "hey we can drill for oil cleanly," compromise. And there's certainly little information about the oil companies and how they don't *want* to build new oil refineries while the environmentalists don't want to build them either! It's so amusing how we shoot ourselves in the foot while at the same time saying gun safety is paramount!

...to get control of ALL potential oil rights and thus have full monopoly control of supplies and prices.

It is time for the U.S. to nationalize oil companies.

Only three big oil companies are trying to extract it while the rest of them *sit on land leases doing absolutely no R&D whatsoever!*

It's insane!

...they'll sublease at huge profits. The leases ought to have a time limit, i.e. use within two years or forfeit rights

The oil companies can afford (lord knows) to keep the leases perpetually while sitting on them doing nothing. But in situ oil shale extraction is a relatively proven technology, it just needs a bit more R&D. But Exxon to my knowledge has done absolutely no research in this area. It's mostly small time venture capitalists who really don't have the R&D money to make it happen on a larger scale.

Shell is the only one that put serious money into it but they pulled back on the project for obvious reasons. $20 barrel oil is pretty dang bad for their profitablity.

US Oil Companies are exporting 1.6 million barrels of refined petroleum products a day. If the oil companies cared about the American consumer they would pump that supply into the US market and stop exports immediately.

Reuters
ANALYSIS-US oil firms seek drilling access, but exports soar
07.03.08, 2:40 PM ET

United States - By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON3 (Reuters) - While the U.S. oil industry want access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

There's more...
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:WHNlqI7tfTQJ:www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/07/03/2008-07-03T184028Z_01_N02435397_RTRIDST_0_USA-OIL-EXPORTS-ANALYSIS.html+us+oil+exports&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

This is what I'm saying. The basic facts, if distributed to the public, would take away this off-shore drilling issue from the republicans and reveal them to be the shills for the oil companies that they are.

It would take one ad by a 527 to get this stuff out there.

of acres? If there is, is it profitable to drill there? Just to say they have drilling rights doesn't answer that question. You could have drilling rights for the entire state of Ohio and not get a significant supply of oil from it, we have hundreds of oil wells in Ohio but most only produce 30 or so barrels a month at best.

The reality is that the voters who are saying "drill now!" are not sophisticated and are being lead around by their noses. We sometimes don't do as well as we could by sticking sticking to the facts (in this case it appears as though the facts are with us...again) when the repubs are throwing everything out there, regardless of how devoid of truth it is, and they win with it. We should counter with a basic truth, one that will cause people to doubt the republicans.

If Chevron or Shell drill.. the oil BELONGS TO THEM...NOT US We'd have to line up behind the Chinese and the Russians and everybody else to buy it from them...

That's what the low info voters need to understand. Just because oil comes out of the ground in America...doesn't mean it belongs to Americans! Unless of course they want nationalized oil...but, god forbid we have something so "socialist"! The oil belongs to whatever oil company sucks it out of the ground.

There's a reason the government doesn't just "hand them" the property, the property is leased and any oil drilling is heavily taxed (compared to owning the land outright anyway). So while it's true that the oil they get is theirs, all of the profit is not.

owned land? Is there anything stopping them from drilling on any private land if they get the rights from the land owner? When they drill on Federally owned land do we the taxpayers receive a royalty on the oil or do they just pay a flat fee for the rights? What percentage of land in this country does the government (state and Federal) own?