The Obama Oil Embargo: But Only USA Cap and Trade

So about that Obama lies yesterday in his energy speech. Yes lies. Yes his so called energy plan.

Do you know there are now 14 Obama green energy companies that have filed for bankruptcy, or already bankrupt?

Non-stop to get energy prices up to the range in Europe … But you knew that, just ask him. Ever wonder why the Bakken formation is going gangbusters in North Dakota? It’s all private land, no Obama approval needed.

Cap and trade was denied by Congress, but hey it’s Obama he don’t need no f**kn Congress approval. But the USA gets Obama cap and trade via regulations and other Presidential crap. I think it time, Obama went back to Kenya. Or Indonesia, wherever they eat dogs.

Update: Free Republic transcribed this video:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

From canceling oil leases in his second week in office to denying the XL Pipeline this year President Obama and his administration have offered up a non-stop assault on affordable energy.  Now that high gasoline prices have come home to roost, the president is flailing around for an energy policy.

Successes the media won’t show you: Tax dollars blowing in the wind.

His recent attempts at energy policy include:

• Nobody can do anything about high gasoline prices.
• Maybe I should release crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
• There is a lot of drilling that I haven’t been able to stop.  Don’t I get credit for that?(Think Bakken)

The latest attempt is to blame everything on evil speculators.  And why not? Previous pollingshows that 80 percent of Americans believe petroleum price spikes are caused by speculation, which means no more than 20 percent believe it is caused by the fundamentals of supply and demand.

There are several flaws in “the speculators did it” theory.

The first is why do they only do it occasionally?  That is, why don’t speculators want to make unconscionable profits all the time?

Second, why do the index funds and all the other bad guys only speculate in oil?  Really odd question, don’t you think? Where are the profiteering speculators in natural gas, whose current price is about half of what it averaged over the last decade? Or coal, it stores far easier that oil, doesn’t it?

Third, there are sophisticated traders on both sides of the petroleum markets.  For every speculator who makes money on a trade, somebody else will lose money.  Blaming speculators on continued price increases requires an endless string of chumps to take the other side of the speculators’ deals.  If anybody should be the chumps, it should be the newbies from the insurance industry and hedge funds, but they are at the top of the most-wanted list.

Finally, for speculation to drive up prices, the speculators must either cause oil production to slow down (which they haven’t) or to pull oil off the market.  If the flow of petroleum and its products remains unchanged, the price at the pump will not change.  If petroleum is pulled off the market, which can happen even though there are limits to what can be stored, it will eventually come back on the market.  And the question becomes, “When the oil comes back on the market, is the price higher or lower than when it was pulled off the market?”  The price will only be higher if the amount supplied at that time is lower or the demand is higher.  In either of those cases, speculators have helped moderate price fluctuations and will be rewarded with profits.  If the price is lower, then the speculators did a bad thing and will be punished by losing money.

The real problem is that combating high gasoline prices requires a greater supply, and this administration’s policies have pushed the other way.  It seems the administration does not really want lower gasoline prices.  Steven Chu, Obama’s non-car-owning Secretary of Energy, famously said we need to get our gasoline prices up to the $8-$10/gallon level they are in Europe.

So here we go again, the lies flowing like water. The ignorant people, you going to buy it again?