BCT Editorial – 5/20/08

This page was last updated on May 23, 2008.

Over a barrel; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 20, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “Saudi Arabia’s indifference to the impact of high oil prices on the U.S. sends a message.”

I was embarrassed that President Bush had the chutzpah to ask the Saudis to increase their crude production to help us out. After all, though not because of his own policies, Mr. Bush is president of a country with policies in place that discourage domestic exploration and production.

The editorial says, “Why should the Saudis grant the president’s request? They and other oil-producing nations have the United States over a barrel because of our failure to adopt an energy policy that would have reduced our nation’s dependence on imported oil.” My answer to the question is, why should Saudi Arabia jack up production when U.S. policy opposes increasing its own domestic production? In other words, if we’re not willing to help ourselves, why should anyone help us?

The editorial says, “The United States does need to step up domestic production.” This is obviously true, but the Times has flip-flopped on this position at least once. Though “Hooked” made this same statement just about a year ago, at least five previous editorials (“Drop in the bucket,” “Oil wrong,” “Dead end,” “Tapped out #1,” and “Tapped out #2”) lobbied against domestic exploration for and production of oil and natural gas supply.

5/23/08 update : William Horter (May 21, 2008 5:52 AM) made the following comment on the Times website. “I remember back in 2006, shortly before the election, gas prices magically started to drop! Matter of fact, I wrote a letter to the Times about it. These oil guys can minipulate [sic] prices any time they want, and they have a million ‘reasons’ why the price either went up or down. Read the stories about John D Rockefeller, he was their teacher! ‘Aramco’, the Saudi oil company, last I heard, was 49% owned by the American oil companies. Take the money, keep a low profile, and let the Saudis take the blame!”

I submitted the following comment. “Mr. Horter’s recollection is a bit out of date. Aramco – now called Saudi Aramco – has been 100% owned by Saudi Arabia since 1980. Regarding the observation that gasoline prices dropped a bit during late summer/early fall of 2006, check the EIA data and you’ll find that was also the case in 2001, 2003, and 2005. Prices were just about flat before the 2002 election and edged up a bit shortly before the 2004 election.” With no explanation, the Times chose not to post my comment. I submitted the comment twice (once on 5/21 and once about 24 hours later on 5/22) just to make sure there wasn’t “pilot error” on my part or some technical glitch with the first submission.

Contrary to the implication of his comment, the primary topic of the 2006 letter to which Mr. Horter referred was not the gas price reduction. It was primarily about Iraq. Mr. Horter mentioned gasoline prices only in the final paragraph of his eight-paragraph letter.