Are Oil Companies Keeping Prices Low At the Pump to Save Bush's Backside?

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Are Oil Companies Keeping Prices Low At the Pump to Save Bush's Backside?

Kyle Murphy

Remember years past, each and every time there was a spike in the price of a barrel of crude oil, maybe a spike of .50-$1. Literally the next day prices at the pump would jump a few cents. I can remember local papers complaining that it should take weeks for those barrel prices to effect consumers. Oil companies are far too powerful to feel any pressure from the NYT or the Washington Post, so they always got away with it. This time is different, something has changed dramatically. Something so obvious that we all missed it.

Full Op-Ed:

http://www.opednews.com/murphy_081904_oil_prices.htm

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Why I Publish This Blog:

"One thing that many people do not realize is that states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,
and Michigan are sitting on a gold mine of wind energy potential. Or, more properly, next to the mine.
The Great Lakes are probably the area in the USA with the third largest inland wind energy potential.
Think of just the nickname for Chicago. "The Windy City". Milwaukee is even windier, I can tell you.
Why? Because they sit on the edge of a great flat area where there is both a land-water temperature
differential, and a large flat expanse of water that is comparably shallow.
Oilrigs certainly operate in deeper waters. And you won't have to construct transmission lines all the
way from the plains of Montana to put it to use.

The Great Lakes area has an opportunity to get the jump on wind energy's future, if that fact is
recognized and exploited. Wind energy means jobs for construction and maintenance workers, thousands
of them. Wind energy means leasing rights and extra money for family farmers struggling to make it on
agriculture alone. In most cases farmers can grow crops right up to the base of a windmill. The land
footprint has a small impact on total farm acreage. Wind energy also means freedom from fluctuating
fuel prices. Wind is free. The cost of a barrel of polluting oil can be raised or lowered drastically
based on fears or political whims. The potential gains are enormous. We've all seen the flow of good
manufacturing jobs out of the area. Well, they can't tell the wind to blow in another country so it's
more "convenient" or cheaper to produce. The wind is perfectly happy to whip up opportunities for us
right around here. Most of all, because we here in the Great Lakes region have the potential to have
a huge positive impact on U.S. energy industry emissions' contribution to global warming."