North Star Writers Group

Another summer driving season is upon us, and as reliably as the sun rises in the east the Democrats are screaming about those evil oil companies and the high gas prices from which they're unfairly profiting. Now that they are in the majority in Congress, they'll probably even stage a bunch of orchestrated hearings just so they can demogogue some oil executives in front of TV cameras and grandstand for all they're worth.

The truth of the matter is that high gasoline prices are caused entirely by liberal policies enacted by liberal politicians. And the lies and hypocrisy spewing forth from these politicians' mouths is enough to make one lose one's lunch. Some simple reasoning explodes the Democrats' phony accusations for the complete hypocritical fraud they are.

The supply of crude oil is artificially short, because liberals have blocked all proposals to expand drilling at the behest of their radical environmental supporters. From Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast, there are enough known reserves to not only stabilize prices but to make the U.S. much less solicitous of the Middle East. But liberals refuse to let anybody obtain this resource – which makes it not a resource at all. And then they have the gall to complain about energy independence, when they are the ones directly responsible for our dependence!

No new oil refineries have been built in the U.S. since the late 1970s. Not one! Why? Because liberals and their tree-hugging supporters have enacted so many restrictions and regulations that it's essentially impossible. And to the small extent it can still be done, it costs so much that it's not worth the investment: $3-$4 billion and as many as 800 different permits! (Not to mention having to invest some $20 billion over a decade to reduce sulfur content, per government mandate.) As such, we operate around 92 percent to 95 percent of refinery capacity on a regular basis. Which means that when even one facility goes offline, be it due to a Hurricane Katrina or to comply with yet more red tape or because a decades-old refinery tends to have mechanical problems more often, the supply line is crippled. And prices have to go up to dampen demand in order to compensate.

Moreover, liberals at the state level have passed their own stupid regulations, which require that nearly 40 different boutique fuel blends be produced. Thus, refineries are tailored to produce these specific blends, and that costs more. It also leaves no flexibility in the system as refineries are not interchangeable. Even if one has a surplus, it cannot make up for a supply deficit in another region because it's the wrong blend. So, as was the case with Katrina, it sits there doing nothing while a totally government-created shortage and price spike rages on elsewhere.

And beyond that, the annual spring hike is entirely due to regulations mandating different winter and summer blends of those 40 boutique blends. Since refineries have to be taken offline in the spring to change over their machinery to produce the summer blend (and to do maintenance on aging facilities at the same time), the supply line gets crimped and prices again must rise. If the oil companies had either more refineries or could be more interchangeable with the ones they have, this wouldn't happen. But liberals have created an utterly rigid system that cannot adapt to the circumstances and is getting older and harder to maintain with each passing year. And all for environmental regulations that have no negligible affect other than emptying your wallet.

Finally, there is the matter of taxes. Government takes in more per gallon in taxes than the oil company does in net profit. Between the federal gas tax, the state gas tax and the 30 percent corporate income tax, government sucks up your money like a vacuum cleaner on overdrive. Yet the politicians not only won't cut gas taxes in response to "unfair prices," many badly want to raise them! (And then not even spend the money on roads.) And states like Minnesota and Wisconsin have regulations that prohibit gas station owners from both raising and lowering gas prices more than a few cents per gallon! It takes a hell of a nerve to scream about the high price of something you tax to death and for which you prevent anyone from charging less.

I could go on and on, but I entrust that this much of an economics lesson is more than enough. The screwed up oil industry I just described is entirely a creation of bad government policies written by hypocrite politicians. More than that, given that the result is dependence on a hostile region for oil, and a no-room-left-for-error refining infrastructure, it is a national security threat. And if the specter of a nuclear Iran threatening the Persian Gulf and the experience of Katrina were not enough to wake them up, then these lying politicians are the biggest threat of all.

There is only one reason that we are not truly energy independent, employing all of our available resources in a responsible way – economically, environmentally and security-wise. That is because corrupt politicians won't allow it. And given the fraud and duplicity they've been willing, if not eager, to perpetrate in the course of their galling dereliction of duty, it frightens me to think of what else they may be capable of doing. It ought to frighten us all.

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