The bogus argument in favor of off shore drilling exposed on C-Span this morning

It was so plain and simple. Susan Swain, this morning's moderator on Washington Journal, pointed out an article this morning that disclosed that there are no off shore drilling rigs available anywhere in the world. Every single one of them is already leased. Let me say that again, not one of all those in existence is available for use, and every single one of them has been accounted for. I did not catch the source but I'm sure someone else saw it and will chime in.

In the light of that single fact all arguments about our immediate need to drill off shore fall by the wayside. If you don't have any drilling rigs it really doesn't matter if you allow drilling off shore or not. By the way, drilling rigs are much like aircraft carriers in terms of how long it takes to design, build, and test one.

I got the impression it was quoting from industry insiders.
And still, even after she read that, there was no shortage of idiots wanting to drill and blaming liberals.
Stupidity: a renewable resource.

Thanks to gasperc, here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/business/19drillship.html?hp

"Mr. Bush called on Congress Wednesday to end a longstanding federal ban on offshore drilling and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, arguing that the steps were needed to lower gasoline prices and bolster national security. But even as oil trades at more than $135 a barrel — up from $68 a year ago — the world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.

Demand is so high that shipbuilders, the biggest of whom are in Asia, have raised prices since last year by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars.

“The crunch on rigs is everywhere,” said Alberto Guimaraes, a senior executive at Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that has discovered some of the most promising offshore oil but has been unable to get at it. "

we are and have been played


and premium gas at the discount station the other day was. $4.49.9


a month or so ago I told you all about gas at the discount station going to $4.00 and that the mainland would get there soon. so, beware it soon will be $4.50 everywhere.


the price of gas will never go down again, only up.

But the traitorous America-hating Democrats won't let us.

What the hell?

The point being that the devaluation of the dollar (due to the fact that our main export is dollars that we print out of thing air) has been the most significant driver of the price we're paying at the pumps. Interesting stuff...

15 miles north in Chula Vista it was 4.50

Yeah...there's no pump and dump price speculating going on in the U.S. though. :eyes: